Language policy and pedagogy, as its subtitle suggests, is dedicated to A. Ronald
Walton, who died quite young in 1996. Walton had served as the deputy director of the National
Foreign Language Center (NFLC) in Washington, D.C., since its founding in 1986, and the
contributors to this volume all have had direct or indirect connections to the NFLC. Further, the
essays in this volume are all related to issues and areas that were of concern to Walton during the
course of his career. All of that having been said, this work is considerably more than a typical Festschrift; it is in fact a timely and important contribution to the growing literature
dealing with both language policy and planning studies and contemporary issues in U.S. foreign
language education policy and practice.