Language school seeks uniformity

The University of Cincinnati's language instructors have come together under a single organizational umbrella, creating a new school known as "The School of World Languages and Cultures."

The organizational change occurred so language instructors and faculty would have a systematic means of communicating with each other, according to Lowanne Jones, director and department head of Romance Languages.

Standardization problems that occurred regarding the way classes were named are now simplified and have been made more uniform in the One Stop class offerings to help advisors and students navigate the process of choosing the right classes.

The faculty also is working on ways of improving the education and expanding the breadth of classes offered to students.

"We are working on curricular development both at the undergraduate and graduate levels," Jones said. "At the undergraduate level we are working on a film studies certificate, at the graduate level we are working on some team-taught theory courses that remove that burden of individual departments and makes it a joint effort."

According to Jennifer Kelly-Thierman, director of the Language Resource Center, Karen Gould, the former dean of McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, started the project.

"She was very interested in promoting synergy between departments," Kelly-Thierman said.

The departments that came together under this organizational initiative are the Department of Romance Languages, the Department of German Studies, the Department of Judaic Studies and the New Center for Area Studies and Programs. These departments now have a much easier time preparing students for their coursework because of the changes that have occurred in the restructuring, Jones said.

According to Kelley-Thierman, the goal of this is to make it easier for students to learn and professors to teach.

Under the new department, faculty can reach out to local high school teachers involved in language education and make them aware of resources available at UC.

Advanced language students in local high schools also have been given an opportunity to study languages in their senior year at UC.

"Basically, they have created a super unit out of four smaller units," Jones said.

"The four smaller units are intact, they are still independent departments but this lets us find common interests, common teaching issues [and] it has allowed us to do tremendous standardizing," Jones said.

This is to help faculty achieve better results as a group and allows for a smoother evolution involving the teaching of language as a living thing. Professors have to remain knowledgeable of changes in the languages and of ways of teaching their classes, Jones said.

Of all the languages students can enroll in, the only noticeable difference is that students can now find classes based upon skill level.

For example, Accelerated Elementary German has become Basic German, Elementary French has become Basic French and Elementary Chinese has become Basic Chinese.

Most students won't even notice, Jones said.

The main reason students will not notice this change is because nothing has changed in the classroom. The teachers who have taught before are going to continue, and no new faculty have been hired. The only visible change is in the Class Offering Guide.