In His Own Language
On October 10, 1975, President Spencer W. Kimball gave his landmark address at BYU titled “The Second Century of Brigham Young University.” In it he laid out his vision for what the university was to become over the next century. One part of that vision was related to language acquisition. He said, “One peak of educational excellence that is highly relevant to the needs of the Church is the realm of language. BYU should become the acknowledged language capital of the world in terms of our academic competency and through the marvelous ‘laboratory’ that sends young men and women forth to service in the mission field. I refer, of course, to the Language Training Mission. There is no reason why this university could not become the place where, perhaps more than anywhere else, the concern for literacy and the teaching of English as a second language is firmly headquartered in terms of unarguable competency as well as deep concern.” The “Language Training Mission” of course became what is n...