Spanish for Specific Purposes: An Integrated Performance Assessment Informed Approach.

Languages for Specific Purposes is a growing field in higher education, particularly, Spanish for health, business, and legal professions. Research on LSP courses has typically focused on course development and implementation, yet research on assessments in these courses is scant. Simultaneously, performance-based assessments, such as the ACTFL-endorsed Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA), have gained popularity in the world language classroom. The current qualitative study presents an approach to implementing a third-semester Spanish for Legal Professions course guided by the IPA framework. An intact class of 15 learners participated in five IPA cycles during the semester, 12 of which provided their perceptions of the IPA-informed approach on an end-of-semester questionnaire. The results show overwhelmingly positive attitudes toward IPAs, specifically on real-life language-use tasks and the connection between assessment and instruction. The discussion includes pedagogical implications for Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) courses and the application of IPAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]