Increased Enrollments article

[irina.dolgova at YALE.EDU]

Dear Michael,

Here is something I came across dealing with similar issues. It's a public
website running by Michigan State University. Among other valuable things,
there is a crash course for new language instructors on this site. Don't be
discouraged if you don't find the specific language of instructions 
because the
crash course is in English. You'll also find excellent materials for Russian.

http://clear.msu.edu

Good luck with everything, Irina.

> 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/
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 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/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------