28, no. 3 (Spring 1997): 44-45
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Managing Spanish Enrollments
Mark Riley
LIKE other institutions nationwide, California State University, Sacramento (CSUS), has seen a boom in all levels of Spanish and a steady decline in enrollment in advanced courses and other major classes in French and German. This paper outlines our responses to these developments.
The foreign language offerings at CSUS have always been justified not by academic tradition but by what the community, state, or nation needs. The first foreign languages the institution offered, French, German, and Spanish, were for teacher training: most students of these languages became public school teachers. Our first Asian language was Cantonese, introduced to satisfy the needs of workers who dealt with the local (Cantonese-speaking) Chinese population. Only later was Mandarin introduced, but enrollments in Mandarin now exceed those in Cantonese. We also teach Italian, Japanese, Latin, Russian, Portuguese, and Greek, all to meet real or perceived needs in the community. I share this sketch of our local norms only to point out that I cannot justify the retention of classes or programs with substandard enrollment by exclaiming with indignation, “What kind of university does not teach __________!” (You fill in the blank.) Substandard enrollment indicates lack of demand in the community and hence lack of justification for a class or program's existence.
This situation is both helped and hindered by our language requirement. Each graduate must attain a level of proficiency equivalent to three semesters of college work. This requirement may be met by a passing score on a proficiency test, by four years of study in high school, and by other means, but most students opt for three semesters (or less, depending on preparation) of college work. Not surprisingly, this option ensures that the first three semesters are well attended in all languages, and we attract enough students in, for example, German and Latin to continue teaching those languages at the lower levels—we have four faculty members in German, the most of any campus in the CSU system. But since most students drop language study after three semesters, we have trouble keeping enough advanced classes in most languages to have a viable major. (I realize that this may seem a trivial problem to chairs who are losing languages in toto.) I have no suggestions about improving enrollments in French and German: students who cannot find an open Spanish class do not migrate to another language. Recruiting from high school seems to me to be futile, since languages other than Spanish are vanishing in high schools as well. “Support from other departments” (whatever that means) is useless. Other departments in this university have no interest in whether we teach or don't teach any particular language: international business classes and the like are populated (in this area) by native speakers of other languages.
I can, however, describe what we have done to satisfy the demand in Spanish without assigning the entire department to teach Spanish 1A and thus creating difficulties for the major and for the graduate program. (Our first year is 1A and 1B; second year is 2A and 2B. For most students the language requirement means completing 2A.) The demand is such that I, as chair, had trouble justifying to the dean the retention of an advanced grammar class with fifteen students because a beginning Spanish class at the same hour had thirty students and no assigned instructor. Needless to say, the would-be advanced grammar instructor is now teaching that beginning Spanish class. (I should add that we do have another section of advanced grammar.)
We began by addressing a long-standing annoyance: many students in beginning Spanish had had several years of the language in high school but chose to start over. Some wanted an easy A. Others were unsure of their knowledge and timid in a new environment. I cannot count how many students came to me for advice, telling me that they had taken Spanish 1 and 2 in high school, started over again with Spanish 1 and 2 in the community college (a way station for most of our students), then taken Spanish 1A again at CSUS, only to arrive at the point of graduation without having met the language requirement, boohoo! I tried to be sympathetic, particularly with the timid and unsure. These students filled our Spanish 1A and 1B classes, crowding out those who had not studied Spanish before.
To alleviate this problem, we instituted Spanish 1C, a combination of 1A and 1B. The instructor can assume that the students have had some Spanish before, usually in a high school several years earlier, or have had substantial study of another language such as French. Grammar is reviewed from scratch, and all basic vocabulary is (re)introduced, but at a faster pace than in the 1A class.
Most 1C classes have used a text that can be completed in one semester. With the introduction of this class we also instituted a policy that denies students credit for Spanish 1A if they have had one year of high school Spanish and for Spanish 1B if they have had two years. Through this policy we hope to reserve 1A for true beginners. The results? This semester, six sections of Spanish 1C replaced twelve sections of Spanish 1A and 1B and freed the Spanish faculty members to teach more-advanced classes. We still have three sections of 1A and two of 1B, and we do get complaints—which sometimes go all the way to the president's office—that we are not meeting the needs of the students, not offering enough 1As. Last semester the most vociferous complainer had had two years of Spanish in high school (admittedly some seven or eight years ago), but was worried that his grade average would suffer if he took 1C, the class designed precisely for students like him. He wanted to start from scratch.
Even with this 1C class and with a large number of part-time instructors, we are barely able to meet the demand in Spanish. We feel that summer classes, summer institutes, and overseas programs may help satisfy the need. We have summer classes not only on campus but also abroad. Indeed, most of our graduate students take classes only in the summer, freeing instructors to teach other classes during the academic year. We also feel that students must be encouraged to take four years of a foreign language in high school, if not earlier. If such students continue their language study, they may populate the more advanced classes, which need more enrollment. (I dream a lot.) Measures such as this may reduce the burdens and expenses at the university level.
California State University, Sacramento
Work Cited
Marinelli, Patti J., and Lizette M. Laughlin. Puentes: Spanish for Intensive and High-Beginner Courses. Boston: Heinle, 1994.
© 1997 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 28, no. 3 (Spring 1997): 44-45 |
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