Increased Enrollments article

[Michael Denner]

A few, probably inchoate thoughts on the topics broached earlier. 

First - here at Stetson began teaching Arabic and Chinese three years
ago. At first, I was very worried about the effect on enrollments in
Russian. We use Fulbright instructors since, practically speaking, there
are no available Arabic or Chinese instructors from US institutions...
or at least none that WE could afford. 

Enrollments were strong, initially, with both courses hitting the cap of
15. However, very quickly students realized that Arabic and Chinese are
REALLY hard. (I seem to remember that both require at least twice as
many contact hours to achieve 2 as Russian.) What's more, the quality of
the teaching was very weak -- native speakers make relatively
ineffective elementary-level instructors, and these instructors had
little if any classroom experience. Both the Arabic and Mandarin
instructors are now advised to sit in regularly on my classes for
observation. 

Currently, after two years of problems and dissatisfaction, both Arabic
and Chinese are significantly underenrolled, each with about 3 students
left in the first semester. Since the programs are very inexpensive to
maintain and look great on paper, I believe our administration will
continue to support them. However, they represent no "threat" to my
enrollments. Russian language, if well taught and supported by a strong
program of cultural activities and area-studies courses, can deal with
the competition.

We're at capacity teaching Russian language and area-study courses. My
elementary Russian class closed at 20 this fall (17 continuing on to
spring), and my Russian film class has closed for the fall semester.
Though our upper-level courses are a bit underenrolled (we have a
one-year requirement), we have at any time a dozen or more majors... in
a regional university of 2000 with only one Russian language instructor,
that makes ours a fairly efficient program.

On the wisdom of choosing a language because it's "in demand": I had a
student come into my office a few weeks ago during advising week, and
ask me what language she should study. She said -- everyone says we need
to study Arabic and Chinese. I told her this anecdote: 

When I was a Political Science major in 1992 at Indiana (a top program),
I remember VERY clearly that we were instructed, regularly, that the two
most important languages to study were German and Japanese -- these
would be the key languages to study if we wanted to do important policy
analysis and get jobs in commerce. (Think of the context 15 years ago.)
In retrospect, of course, that sounds ludicrous. I do not remember _a
single time_ being told that Arabic or Chinese would be important... My
point was that prevailing opinion and conventional wisdom is very often
completely wrong. I advised the student instead to study language with a
good teacher, one that piqued her interest. 


~mad
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
   Dr. Michael A. Denner
   Editor, Tolstoy Studies Journal
   Director, University Honors Program

   
   Contact Information:
      Russian Studies Program
      Stetson University
      Campus Box 8361
      DeLand, FL 32720-3756
      386.822.7381 (department)
      386.822.7265 (direct line)
      386.822.7380 (fax)

      www.stetson.edu/~mdenner

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------