NCOLCTL is pleased to announce Dr. Luis Gonçalves as its new President for 2020. Luis served as President-Elect in 2019.
Luis Gonçalves has a Ph.D. in Romance Languages - Portuguese (2009), with a Minor in Communication Studies and certification in Cultural Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, and a Masters in Luso-Brazilian Literature (2000) from the same university. He also holds a B.A. in Communication Sciences (1995) from the University Fernando Pessoa, Portugal. He teaches in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at Princeton University (2010-present) and his research focuses on Lusophone Cultures and Civilizations and their transatlantic dynamics. Other important research interests include Foreign Language Methodology and Second Language Acquisition. In addition to having published articles and edited several books, he has organized panels, roundtables and conferences on the teaching of Portuguese as a Foreign Language and Lusophone Cultures. He has also provided training sessions to teachers of Portuguese as a Foreign Language in the United States, Portugal, Brazil and Canada. He is part of the Editorial Board of the Portuguese Language Journal, the Book Review Editor for Gávea-Brown: A Bilingual Journal of Portuguese-American Letters and Studies, the executive director of the annual event International Conference on the Teaching Portuguese (2012-present) and president of the American Organization of Teachers of Portuguese (2014-present).
Dr Luis writes
When I first started my academic career, my advisor pulled me aside and told me to always remember that my success hinged on three aspects: my excellence in teaching, my research in the field, and my engagement and service to the academic community. I believe that any professional organization whose members are language instructors needs to promote activities that facilitate opportunities for its members to fulfill these three aspects of their activity, which are the bases of the health and strength of less commonly taught language programs and instructor success. As such, first, the NCOLCTL needs to continue to be a source of teacher training and a strong guide for best practices in the less commonly taught languages classroom, including best practices in program and curriculum development, proficiency-based instruction, technology in the classroom, and evaluation and assessment, etc., as these are all fundamental elements of excellence in the teaching of foreign languages and the achievement of higher intercultural competence in communication. Second, the NCOLCTL should continue to act as a discussion forum on best practices research. The annual conference, the publication of the Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages, and the research grants offered by the organization are good examples of the promotion of research in the field that I look forward to continuing to work on. Finally, I am eager to continue the political engagement work that the NCOLCTL has developed with several partners towards the establishment of a national framework for the study of the less commonly taught languages in the United States, articulating and anticipating national demand and supply at different levels of the educational system. I believe this general vision for the NCOLCTL fits well within the mission of the council and I look forward to providing my contribution to the achievement of its goals.”
About NCOLCTL
NCOLCTL’s mission is to increase the number of Americans who choose to learn one or more of the less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) as a means of enhancing cross-cultural communication among citizens of the United States. NCOLCTL’s work focuses on the less commonly taught languages which are becoming increasingly vital to the security, economic, social and political welfare of the United States. NCOLCTL seeks to improve the teaching and learning of these languages and to make them more generally available.
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