More than 1,600 high school students attended the 33rd Annual Foreign Language and International Studies Day at the University last Friday for an event aimed to present different foreign languages and cultures to encourage further immersion in international education.@@http://babel.uoregon.edu/YLC/flis/@@
From its roughly 110 sessions and 20 presentations that act as an introduction to foreign countries, the day represents the University’s commitment to bringing expertise in language, culture, area studies and the arts to students. Foreign language programs at the University have continued to expand through popular demand for new offerings.
The Yamada Language Center currently provides two programs, the World Languages Academy and the Self-Study Language Program. Both programs focus on bringing in languages not often taught. Ranging from Modern Hebrew and Norwegian to Swahili and Portuguese, the variety fits any interest of a student seeking academic learning in a foreign language.
“Right now in both of those, Portuguese is the most popular language,” Yamada Language Center Director Jeff Magoto said. “There’s a huge amount of interest in Brazil right now among UO students (for academic reasons in language, arts, cultural studies, business and the sports environment — the upcoming Olympics and World Cup).”@@http://jcomm.uoregon.edu/~russial/cyberj/prism/cc/abraham/yamada.html@@
The World Languages Academy was established in 2006 to increase the amount of Bachelors of Arts-satisfying language programs provided on campus. Magoto said the popularity of the initial three chosen languages — Arabic, Korean and Portuguese — has been favorable in the self-study program, which translated into efforts of adding more regularly taught languages.
“(It is) mostly to complement (students’) studies/programs in international studies, linguistics and political science,” Magoto said. “Since then, we’ve tried to add at least a language per year to the WLA.”
Though Magoto didn’t have data on the exact number of students enrolled in popular language classes, he said there is a connection between the number of instructors and graduate teaching fellows. However, depending on the department, specific languages that have an accompanied graduation program in language and literature changes the number. Magoto uses Spanish and Arabic as an example: Spanish, under romance languages, accounts for 60 percent of all language studies at the University, and while Arabic has a smaller percentage, it is also now a part of the newly founded religious studies department. The language has been available on campus for five years, and despite its change to a new department, the faculty has increased every year to keep up with enrollment.@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=staff&d=person&b=name&s=Mohamed+Jemmali@@
“(Students’) reasons are a huge variety,” said University instructor Mohamed Jemmali, who teaches Arabic classes at the University. “Only half of our students are taking it to fulfill a language requirement; the other half are taking it because they’re interested.”
University senior Joyce Kinyange, a student from Moshi, Tanzania, in the International Cultural Service Program, said the Yamada Language Center continues to show support for African studies. Since the introduction of Swahili, the language has grown to the third most popular for students on campus, behind Arabic. She said the self-study program offers Wolof from Senegal and has also added Twi from Ghana.@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Joyce+Kinyange@@
“Students want to learn Swahili because of family, studying abroad, world issues and the international political climate,” Kinyange said.
The University is committed to endorsing a diverse selection of languages. Magoto said next year the World Languages Academy will begin offering Persian/Farsi, third-year Portuguese and Swahili, and courses in colloquial and contemporary Arabic.
“The good news at the UO is that the College of Arts and Sciences is trying to be very supportive of student demands for both more language offerings and deeper learning in existing programs,” Magoto said.