ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the literature on foreign language education and discuss the Virginia Governor’s Foreign Language Academies through their history, identification process, curriculum and instruction models, assessments, and the data showing their long-term impact, both statistical and anecdotal. It deals with suggestions as to how to set up similar programs in schools, either on a short-term or year-round model. Second-language learning for the gifted has only recently been formally addressed as a positive intervention for talented students, but there are many reasons to promote second-language education for the population. Many students receive more direct grammar instruction in the foreign language than they do in their English classes, where the emphasis in recent years has been placed on vocabulary study and overall comprehension, rather than syntax and structure. Interviews with directors of the language academies and the state language sponsors suggest that the academies provide additional benefits to students beyond what they may realize at the time.
