CAC AND FLAC COMPARED

by Michael A. Morris
Department of Political Science
College of Business and Public Affairs
Clemson University

This article was originally published in Communication Across the Curriculum, a publication of Clemson University, and has been re-published here with the permission of the author.

The Communication Across the Curriculum (CAC) approach and the Foreign Language Across the Curriculum (FLAC) approach are two innovative, interdisciplinary teaching methods, which have been the object of growing attention in recent years. Both methods target other disciplines as candidates for the teaching methods largely developed in a single discipline. CAC emphasizes increased training in oral and written communication across multiple disciplines. FLAC involves extending foreign language study to multiple disciplines so that the content would be taught
in whole or part in a foreign language.
I teach in a target discipline (Political Science/International Affairs), where I have tried to combine both interdisciplinary teaching methods. Since 1991, I have taught nearly a dozen courses in international affairs in French and Spanish at Clemson University. Since my Joint Appointment to the Department of Languages last academic year, I have inaugurated an interdisciplinary approach to the teaching of second-year college Spanish (Spanish 201 and 202, Intermediate Spanish). This is
illustrative of the FLAC potential for synergy, since target disciplines can carry FLAC back to the parent discipline for mutual benefit. In recent years, I have also attended about a half dozen CAC seminars, workshops, and working luncheons, and have applied a variety of CAC methods to both my English-language and foreign-language classes. My observations about these two teaching approaches rely as much on personal experience as on the separate CAC and FLAC literatures.

CAC/FLAC Similarities
In spite of the obvious differences between CAC and FLAC, they do share a number of important characteristics. Both CAC and FLAC emphasize interaction between professor and students through a variety of interactive teaching methods. Methods characteristic of CAC include frequent written and oral exercises, small group discussions and reports, and journals. FLAC
methods are less developed but may include dictation quizzes about technical material in a foreign language, frequent written and oral exercises to practice specialized foreign language vocabulary and test understanding, and close textual analysis of discipline-related, foreign language readings by the professor in collaboration with students.
While CAC and FLAC methods are distinct, both are sufficiently flexible to be applied to multiple disciplines. The emphasis of both approaches on multiple teaching methods stressing oral and written communication requires a multifaceted role for the instructor.

CAC/FLAC Differences
Numerous methodological and substantive differences distinguish CAC from FLAC. The methodological differences reflect the contrasting objectives of the two teaching approaches. CAC aspires to improve communication skills and to enhance student learning in multiple disciplines through interactive teaching methods. Because of the CAC emphasis on student participation and involvement, the instructor assume a relatively passive yet encouraging role as a facilitator of fairly
unstructured discussions.
FLAC aspires to carry foreign language learning beyond the confines of the language class into multiple disciplines. A minimum level of foreign language competency or successful completion of a basic two-year cycle of college language courses is required to participate in FLAC classes in
technical disciplines. A number of students generally exceed this minimal language competency level either through having had additional foreign-language classes or a study abroad experience. The bulk of eligible students nonetheless needs considerable oral and written practice in the
foreign language. Heavy reliance is thus placed on FLAC instructors as resource persons and role models for conveying oral and written fluency in the language. In addition to being fluent in the foreign language, FLAC instructors must also be subject matter experts in the particular academic
discipline. Because of the inevitable foreign language and content area gaps between students and the FLAC instructor, the instructor will need to play a more active role in involving students, and materials and exercises will need to be more structured in FLAC than in CAC.
CAC methods help students learn course content by enhancing communication and interaction between professor and student, but they do not typically intrude into that content. FLAC methods, in contrast, extend the scope of course content by relying on previously unexplored foreign-language, discipline-related literature. Exclusive reliance on English-language sources in any discipline threatens to inculcate a parochial perspective. By bringing perspectives from other cultures into
the classroom, FLAC will not only promote global awareness but also add depth to students' understanding of technical material.

Conclusions
Differences between CAC and FLAC involve contrasting perspectives and orientations rather than a clash of interests or approaches. Moreover, the flexibility of both approaches tends to blur their differences. For example, while FLAC generally emphasizes an oral approach, one of the
pioneering FLAC approaches at Earlham College stresses reading skills in a foreign language.[1] While most FLAC approaches require the instructor to have foreign language fluency, the SUNY-Binghamton FLAC approach relies on foreign-language discussion groups appended to mainstream courses and led by international students.[2]
The challenge is to build on common interests and concerns of both teaching methods, in order to increase the impact of each. The CAC-FLAC contrasts made here suggest that implementation of each in isolation from the other loses potential synergies. CAC without FLAC tends to be locked into a single cultural tradition and mind-set. I have shown in an article, "Taking CAC to South
America," that CAC teaching approaches can be applied successfully in different cultural and linguistic contexts[3]. Similar combinations of CAC and FLAC methods within U.S. universities therefore appear feasible.
FLAC would be handicapped in not being able to rely on a variety of proven CAC teaching methods to promote better communication in any language. For example, the FLAC literature acknowledges those promoting a FLAC approach have not focused on pedagogical concerns.[4]
This article identifies different areas of emphasis between CAC and FLAC as a prelude to taking advantage of their underlying complementary features. CAC aspires to promote better communication skills across the curriculum, while FLAC espouses greater cross-disciplinary,
foreign-language learning. Both cases are compelling. Effective communication has become more important for most jobs (CAC), and foreign language competency in both routine and technical matters is mounting in value in an increasingly interdependent world (FLAC).
International trends reinforce the case for wedding CAC and FLAC. The diffusion of power in an increasingly multipolar world has a linguistic dimension. Just as other countries are less willing to submit to the leadership of the United States and to the dominance of English as a lingua franca, so too numerous major languages are becoming more prominent in global commerce and politics.
The global spread of English, while significant, should not be exaggerated. English does not have the largest number of native speakers (Chinese does). The estimated number of English speakers in the world varies widely from a conservative estimate of 900 million speakers (of
which 500 million native and 400 million non-native speakers) up to an optimistic figure of 2 billion.[5] With over 5.5 billion people in the world, native English speakers would therefore be less than 10% of global population.
In a more balanced multipolar, multilingual world, cross-cultural understanding and effective communication are at a premium. Since these two approaches are complementary, both might well be applied to the same discipline. Integrating CAC and FLAC is pedagogically sound as well as
prudent if the United States is to adapt effectively to a multipolar world

References
[1]Richard Jurasek, "Foreign Languages Across the Curriculum: A Case History from Earlham College and a Generic Rationale," in Language and Content: Discipline- and Content-Based Approaches to Language Study, eds. Merle Krueger and Frank Ryan (Lexington, Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company, 1993), 85-102.
[2]H. Stephen Straight, Marilyn Gaddis Rose, and Ellen H. Badger, "International Students as Resource Specialists: Binghamton's Languages Across the Curriculum (LxC) Program," in Languages Across the Curriculum, ed. H. Stephen Straight (Binghamton, New York: State University of New York at Binghamton), 7-34.
[3]Michael A. Morris, "Taking CAC to South America," Communication Across the Curriculum (Spring 1995): 6-8.
[4]Richard Jurasek, "Languages Across the Curriculum Across the Country," in Languages Across the Curriculum, ed. Stephen Straight (Binghamton, New York: State University of New York at Binghamton, 1994), 137.
[5]Braj B. Kachru, "World Englishes and Applied Linguistics," in Second Language Acquisition: Socio-Cultural and Linguistic Aspects of English in India, eds. R.K. Agnihotri and A.L. Khanna (Sage Publications: New Delhi/Thousand Oaks/London, 1994), 14.