My article in the Winter issue of Notre Dame Magazine is now on the magazine’s site. Click here to read my story on Notre Dame’s new Center for the Study of Languages. Here’s an excerpt:

Lance Askildson grabs a black-and-white photograph from a shelf.

The image of a row of stark, empty carrels filled with little more than the customary headphones serves as a reminder of the isolation and frustration many people still associate with foreign language instruction.

“This is the image people think of when they hear ‘language lab,’” says Askildson, director of Notre Dame’s new Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures. “You would sit there in your carrel and listen and repeat, listen and repeat, right? Well, this is not a language lab.”