Hola, bonjour and nín hǎo to the foreign language department as they head into the fall 2015 school year with big changes in mind.
“Effective fall 2015, our department’s new name will be the Department of World Languages and Cultures,” Leslie Sconduto, foreign languages department chair, said.
In addition to the new name, Sconduto said the department will undergo construction to change the language laboratory into a world language resource center.
“The Provost [David Glassman] has given us some funds to get us started,” Sconduto said. “We’re very excited about this, as the WLRC will provide a meeting area for our minors and majors, as well as a space for collaborative learning, seminars, drop-in tutoring and informal study.”
With the addition of a new lab comes the expansion of the foreign language program as a whole, specifically focused on Mandarin Chinese course offerings.
Last semester, Bradley offered Mandarin 201, but due to low student interest, the 202 level was removed from the spring 2015 semester.
After hearing complaints from students, the administration is working to remedy the problem.
“First of all, [the course] instead of [it] being five credits with five contact hours a week, we are going to reduce it to four credits with three contact hours a week,” Sconduto said. “One hour credit [will be] given for lab assignments, and this is in keeping with what we do with other foreign languages.”
According to Sconduto, it was too hard for students to take a five-credit course because that meant surpassing Bradley’s 16-credit hour maximum. Sconduto said the change should help accommodate the students’ financial needs.
The department will also offer Mandarin 101 every fall instead of every other, followed by 102 offered every spring.
“This will give students the opportunity to jump into the sequence every year instead of having to wait a full year,” Sconduto said.
With that said, there is currently no Chinese placement test for incoming students with past experience.
“Incoming students will have to be evaluated by Professor Xiaotian Chen,” Sconduto said.
Besides Mandarin Chinese, Sconduto said Bradley hopes to once again offer an Arabic program.
“We did have to abandon our Arabic program because we only had one student sign up for Arabic 101 this fall semester,” Sconduto said.
According to Sconduto, the major obstacle to overcome is Bradley’s budget cuts and student enrollment.
“Because of what Bradley pays the adjuncts, it’s very difficult to find people who are able to teach a language and are willing to work for that low salary,” she said.
Although the department is looking to make big changes in its course offerings, Sconduto said it might take some time before new languages are added. However, the department will offer three semester sequences of Mandarin Chinese this coming fall.
“It all depends on student enrollment,” Sconduto said. “If we don’t see the interest from the students, then it would be hard to justify expand the program.”
