ABSTRACT
The MLA (2007) report called for ML departments in the US to ‘replace the two-tiered language-literature structure with a broader and more coherent curriculum in which language, culture, and literature are taught as a continuous whole’ (p. 4) yet, more than a decade after the report’s publication, the two-tiered structure is still present in many foreign language departments. Following the publication of the MLA report ‘a great diversity of curricular initiatives’ emerged from a common principle: integrating form and content at all levels of the undergraduate program’ (Urlaub, 2014, p. 2). However, as the report did not offer ways to reconfigure the undergraduate curriculum (Pfeiffer, 2008), the recommendations of the MLA report still have not been met nationwide. The British ML curriculum is similarly faced with a separation of language and content that, despite being repeatedly highlighted as problematic for the identity of the discipline (see Worton, 2009), still dominates the configuration of the undergraduate curriculum predominantly in older universities. The chapter reports on the key differences and similarities between the data collected in the British and the American universities. Among other findings, the role of the TL emerged across both American and British universities as a key factor for unifying the curriculum.
