survey of suny foreign language...

Survey of SUNY Foreign Language Departments*

May 2012

* Report based on the 65 respondents as of May 21, 2012

23 SUNY Campuses responded, 65 Foreign Language Educational Programs represented University at Albany

Alfred State College

Binghamton University

SUNY College at Brockport

University at Buffalo

Clinton Community College

SUNY Cobleskill

SUNY Cortland

Empire State College

Erie CC

FIT

SUNY Fredonia

Fulton-Montgomery CC

Genesee CC

SUNY College at Geneseo

Jamestown CC

Mohawk Valley CC

Monroe Community College

Morrisville State College

SUNY Oswego

Rockland CC

Schenectady County CC

Stony Brook University

Campus Language Program Reported

University at Albany Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian

Alfred State College Spanish

Binghamton University Italian, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Latin, Greek

SUNY College at Brockport Spanish, French

University at Buffalo Spanish

Clinton Community College N/A: Humanities Department

SUNY Cobleskill Spanish

SUNY Cortland American Sign Language, Italian, French, German, Chinese, English as a Second Language, Arabic

Empire State College Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese

FIT Italian

Q2. Foreign language programs reported

Campus Language Program Reported/ Notes

SUNY Fredonia Spanish, French

Fulton-Montgomery CC N/A

SUNY College at Geneseo French, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic

Jamestown CC Spanish

Mohawk Valley CC Spanish

Monroe Community College American Sign Language, Hebrew, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, German, French, Chinese, Arabic

Morrisville State College Spanish

SUNY Oswego German

Rockland CC Russian

Stony Brook University French, Russian, German, Italian

Q2.Foreign language programs reported cont’d

Q3. Academic programs offered by the department in this language

29%

68%

35%

90%

45%

Master's Language Major Adolescence education major

Minor Other

Percentage of 31 respondents

Other category includes: 3+2 program (BA and Master’s); Study Abroad; Double major;

Russian track through individualized Major Program, service course, GE, MAT; Ph.D.;

Beginning and intermediate language sequence; 100- and 200- level to meet GEN ED

Q4. Who teaches the beginner-level foreign language courses?

58%

28% 22%

77%

10% 5%


Other: Fulbright Teaching Assistant; Adjunct on one-semester contracts; part-time & tenured

Q5. Who teaches the intermediate level foreign language courses?

61%

31% 23%

62%

5% 5%


Other: Fulbright Teaching Assistant; Adjunct on one-semester contracts ; Emeritus faculty

Q6. Who teaches the advanced level foreign language courses?

93%

34% 27%

39%

2% 7%


Other: Occasionally an adjunct on one-semester contracts ; Emeritus faculty; rare 1 year appointee

Q8. What courses in this language program typically have the highest enrollments?

Courses with highest enrollments are at the introductory or elementary levels

Q10. Are there critical moments of attrition in the delivery of this language program’s curriculum?

Where? Why?

12%

29%

49%

29%

8% 2%


Q10. Are there critical moments of attrition in the delivery of this

language program’s curriculum? Where? Why? Campus/ Language Program Comments

SUNY Fredonia/ Spanish Difficulty of courses

SUNY Fredonia/French Course availability, lack of variety of courses, course difficulty

SUNY Geneseo/Italian Students in International Relations major pursue this course. Upper level classes (for questions #11 and #12) are offered as DIRECTED STUDY courses

SUNY Geneseo/Latin Students pursuing pre-med and pre-law degrees pursue this course and higher-numbered courses. Upper level courses (300-level) are offered on a DIRECTED STUDY BASIS (see questions #11 and #12).

SUNY Geneseo/Japanese Student majoring in International Relations or Asian Studies pursue this course.



SUNY Geneseo/Chinese Students in International Relations and Asian Studies programs continue on to semester 4.

SUNY Geneseo/Arabic Semester 3: Given the level of difficulty of the Arabic language, students drop or withdraw from the course. Semester 4: Students pursuing an International Relations major, which requires proficiency equivalent to 4 semesters of a FL, are the principal cohort taking this course.

Binghamton U/ German End of language requirement; loss of motivation; change of teacher; change of methods; requirements from other majors kick in

Binghamton U/ Latin Retention is always an issue with languages. In Latin, however, we have been having excellent enrollments and very good retention. That can be attributed to the energetic and focused instruction by our Latin instructors.



SUNY Cortland/ French

Many students take French up through the fourth semester as part of their major program. Most others take through the second semester for and a few majors require only the first semester, which is also the general education language requirement. We maintain a language major with an average of around 10 students in the 3xx courses and around 5-10 in the 4xx courses.

SUNY Cobleskill/ Spanish Most students study for Gen Ed purposes only

Monroe CC/ ASL, Spanish, Italian, German, French,

Many students need only 6 credits to fulfill a language requirement.

Monroe CC/ Japanese, Chinese, Arabic

Many students need only 3 credits to fulfill the Gen. Ed. requirement.



University at Albany/ Chinese, Korean, Japanese

Since SUNY undergraduate degree system requires only the first/one year of foreign language learning (for GEN EDU), only those who decide/intend to minor in the language tend to continue to the second year courses.

Mohawk Valley CC/ Spanish Most programs only require 1 semester of a language so students do not continue once they have achieved their requirement.

Jamestown CC/ Spanish At Community College students are looking for basic requirement that currently does not exist at the SUNY level due to change of GenEd policy

SUNY Oswego/ German The Gen Ed requirement has been satisfied.

Stony Brook/ Russian, German, French, Italian

One-year language requirement



SUNY Cortland/ Chinese After the full three and half months of summer, the previously learned knowledge is easily gone. Also in Central New York area, there are not many opportunities to practice the language due to the small Chinese speaking community.

Schenectady County CC/ All Most students take a language at a community college to complete the one semester requirement for the SUNY General Education. Unless they have a major that requires more foreign language study, they are not interested in continuing to upper levels.

Q11. What is a typical class size for an upper level (300-400) language course offered by your department?

23%

8%

30%

23%

18%

0-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21+


Q12. What is a typical class size for an upper level (300-400) non-language course offered by your department?

17%

3%

22% 19%

39%

0-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21+


Q13. Does your language program offer one or more “blockbuster” courses with high enrollment?

49% No

51% Yes

Q14. Are these “blockbuster” courses lower-level or upper-level?

Lower-level Upper-level

Q15. Are these “blockbuster” courses taught in English?

30% No 70%

Yes

Q16. What is the focus of the “blockbuster” course(s)?

80%

70%

45%

35%

15%

0

Culture and Civilization

Literature

Film

Other

Language for Professions

Translation Courses

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18


Other: Advanced Grammar and Composition; Language; Etymology Course (in the past);

Spanish 101; Italian; Music and Culture; Grammar review at the intermediate high levels

Q17. Are any of the upper level (years 3 and 4) courses that satisfy the requirements of academic programs in this

language taught in English

31%

69%

Yes

No

Q18. What is some of the technology used on a regular basis in your language program?

81% 59%

46% 24%

22% 20%

15% 15%

13% 9% 9%

2%

0 10 20 30 40 50

Course management program Online Textbooks

Discussion Groups Blogs

Dropbox Skype Other

Turnitin Elluminate Live

Podcasts Telecollaborations with other countries

Clickers Percentage of 54 respondents

Other: Internet resources, wiki discussions; web sites designed and maintained by instructors; texts

with online components; Video Relay Service; free messaging system for assignments; Multimedia

Laboratory; textbook ancillary companion website

Q19. Does your language program offer courses that contribute to Gen. Ed. besides language requirement? If

yes, please check all that apply.

94%

48%

45%

33%

24%

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Humanities

Other World Civilization

Western Civilization

Arts

Other Percentage of 33 respondents

Other: Intensive speaking; Courses that meet the Latin American studies; Asian studies and International

Relations elective requirements; Oral Communication; Writing ; Psychology, Education programs;

Composition Oral Communication; Diversity, Contemporary Issues ,Perspective on Women; Foreign

Languages GE

Q20. Does the department have any special programming for first-year students, such as Freshman seminar for

majors?

Comments: Not enough time or staff, but it’s an excellent idea;

Used to have seminars but they were cut several years ago

4%

96% Yes

No

Q21. What kinds of co-curricular programming does the department offer?

75%

67%

67%

47%

31%

27%

24%

14%

8%

Guest-speakers

Clubs

Film series

Honor societies

Plays

Visiting writer/scholar

Themed housing

Other

Lecture Series

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40


Other: Exhibits; Hispanic Heritage Festival; Field trips; Annual colloquium; Poetry

recitation competition; French table; Cross listed courses

Q22. What do students graduating from your department generally expect to do after graduation?

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Doctoral Studies in Language

Master's studies in langauge

Graduate Studies in a field other

than foreign language

Secondary teaching

Elementary teaching

Other employment

Very Often

Often

Sometimes

Rarely

Never

Q23. What opportunities are there for students to use target language in a work setting during their degree programs ?

•Conversation Partner Program •Hospital internships •Intern at a local English-Spanish Bilingual School •Internship with area Migrant Center •Internships •Internships abroad •Internships on campus (Teaching Assistant) •Internships with agencies, local schools, organizations, •Internships with faculty mentor •Interpreting •Language club •Language-related outreach in local public schools

•Service learning •Service learning in ESL classrooms •Short-term study abroad (4 weeks) •Student teaching •Teaching internships at both college and school settings •Tech Valley Connect outreach program •Tutoring •Voluntary work with our local refugee aide organization •Volunteer in a hospital •Volunteer in social services •Work in a restaurant

Q24. Does the department offer more than one series of courses (alternative tracks) toward the

major in this language?

53%

38%

25%

16%

13%

3%

No alternative tracks or concentrations in the major

Literature track

Teaching certification track

Other

Linguistics

Translation track

0 5 10 15 20


Other: Area studies; Civilization; East Asian track; Cultural Studies track; Spanish

literature & culture and multicultural/ bilingual track

Q25. Does the language program encourage team-taught interdisciplinary courses across fields?

20% 80%

Yes

No

If Yes, which ones? Civilization courses;

300-level DS Latin literature; Ger 140

Comments:

-This is something we'd very much like to do but have so far found challenging due

mostly to needs and sparse resources of relevant programs/departments;

-We encourage it but find it nearly impossible to accomplish due to needs and sparse

resources of relevant programs/departments.

-University administration will no longer permit team-teaching

-In development

Q26. If you could make one significant change to your department's curricular structure, what would it be? More interdisciplinary courses, more hybrid courses, more in house language pedagogy courses, more courses on Latino studies

More interdisciplinary courses, more hybrid courses, more use of technology in courses, and more variety of courses such as in Francophone literature and culture

Revive Russian major program

Add more sections; add more elementary lang. sections

In regards to the lower-level language program, I would like to begin implementing more online components for homework.

Make it a minimum of 2 semesters as a requirement, also do not allow anyone to be exempt.

Immersion and communicative texts/testing

Offer even more interdisciplinary courses, add team-teaching elements

Develop further opportunities for high-impact learning, in addition to traditional study abroad. One big problem is funding.

Offer literature and culture courses in English translation.

Q26. If you could make one significant change to your department's curricular structure, what would it be?

Cont’d

Increase offerings in ancient Mediterranean (Greek Roman, other) archaeology and art history. To do so would not simply provide crucial curriculum. It would be a huge curricular boost for the College (Harpur) and University (BU) more broadly. Study of the material culture of the ancient Greek, Roman, and Mediterranean worlds puts large numbers of our students in touch with their highly varied ethnic, cultural, and linguistic roots. These kinds of courses are not simply popular (which they are); they are value-added in ways described in the SUNY Strategic Plan. But they also address crucial areas of concern for those seeking a rounded, intellectually rewarding experience in the study of Latin.

Develop a hybrid/distance version of Greek 101/102 sequence to offer across the SUNY system. That would require a huge amount of training and work but would pay off.

Add online courses for students who choose to enroll in the intermediate level and literature courses

We are currently working on strengthening the intermediate high level course offerings and curriculum as well as instituting an exit capstone course or project.

Q27. If you could make one significant change to your department's staffing structure, what would it be?

Reoccurring themes in comments:

Hire more full-time, tenure-track faculty.

Hire a specialist for language pedagogy. That individual could deal with teacher certification and the M.Ed. programs, as well as provide an orientation program and ongoing support to our graduate teaching assistants from abroad.

Hire more people, of course. But many times, this is not the case. It's a case of "We need more people to help out and handle courses, but money is an issue, so deal with what you have." Of course, the few the staff members, the more likely students don't stick around because they cannot get the courses that they need at the time that they need them. It's a Catch-22.

Add another full-time tenure track position so that we could offer more courses for General Education taught in English and increase our recruitment base for French and/or create interesting combinations for mixed language groups.

Have a coordinator for intermediate high levels taught by teaching assistants.

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