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Arthur Mosher

Professor Emeritus

Emeritus

College of Arts and Sciences: Global Languages and Cultures

Contact

Email: Arthur Mosher
HM

Degrees

  • Ph.D., University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1979
  • M.A., Syracuse University, 1975
  • B.A., Wheaton College, 1971

Profile

Dr. Mosher taught German language and literature, as well as general and Germanic linguistics on the university level back to 1979. He is a past chair of the Department of Global Languages and Cultures, a position he held for 12 years (1994-2006). Prior to that, he directed the Linguistics Program and coordinated the first-year German program at the University of South Carolina. He has published articles on the 14th century German mystic Johannes Tauler, Germanic philology and proficiency approaches to teaching German and other foreign languages. He is a certified Oral Proficiency Tester in German and a recognized trainer in the Oral Proficiency testing procedure as administered by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. During 2000-01, he served as president of the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages, a division of the Modern Language Association. Dr. Mosher regularly teaches German language and linguistics.

He is a graduate of Wheaton College (1971) with majors in philosophy and German; Syracuse University (M.A., 1975) with a concentration in German literature and linguistics; and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (Ph.D., 1979) with a concentration in Germanic philology. He initially learned German during his participation in a year-long American Field Service study program in Switzerland (Zurich). He studied in Freiburg, Germany, during his junior year of college (1969-70) and than also a second year when he gathered data for his dissertation (1977-78). He has lived for shorter periods and conducted research in Donaueschingen, Karlsruhe, Bamberg, and Leipzig, Germany. 

Faculty perspective

"I am continuing to work on a multifaceted project to compare the Council of Europe Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) with the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Oral Proficiency Guidelines and to investigate empirically the equivalences in proficiency ratings under the two frameworks. During summer 2003, I spent three months at the University of Leipzig in Germany where I studied the speaking proficiency of 35 students of German as a foreign language from all over the world. This research was made possible through a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). I am also a member of a team of professors from different American universities, sponsored by the Goethe Institute in New York City,  that is examining the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and its application to American Universities.

I seek to teach German with the goal of providing my students with the most opportunities possible to develop real-world proficiency in the language so that they can use it to accomplish communicative tasks in German-speaking countries. Since I am a non-native speaker of German, I understand what it is like to learn the language, but also know how enriching the experience of being able to communicate in another language is. I encourage my students to seek international experiences, to get to know individuals from other cultures, and to learn to view their own culture from other points of view."

Research interests

  • Proficiency approaches to foreign language education
  • Fourteenth Century German mysticism
  • Germanic philology and dialects