Summer language courses immerse students in culture By Cece Wildeman The Rocky Mountain Collegian

 

 

Students will be able to gain a new cultural experience this summer with language immersion courses as a part of the 2008 summer session. The immersion courses were offered for the first time last summer with classes in Arabic, Chinese and Spanish. This summer, American Sign Language will be offered as well.

The classes, offered between June 16 and July 3, will immerse students in foreign culture while requiring them to only use the target language, said Mary Vogl, director of the language and culture center. Valentino Vasquez, a deaf CSU professor, will be teaching the ASL course. He said, speaking through an interpreter, that one advantage of taking an immersion course at a college level is that it is taught using real world language in a social context.  “I’ve seen participation in real world language, how we tend to socialize in our community,” he said.

He said he wants his students to understand the language visually, which sometimes causes confusion in the early stages of the class, since people are used to learning a language by hearing it. Vasquez will teach his course by using ASL as well as teaching his students about deaf culture, which includes theater and using the language in the community, he said. “This is important because there are cultural differences that someone may not think of,” he said.

Vasquez has been teaching ASL for two and a half years and said he enjoys bringing a new culture to people and watching them learn a new language. “When someone starts learning a second language, they gain a respect for anyone who speaks a different language,” he said. There are 18 spots in each language immersion course and currently seven students have signed up for the ASL course.

Vogl said 2007 student evaluations showed that students were extremely satisfied with the courses.“Student response to the course was overwhelmingly positive,” she said.  Although the class was a success, Vogl said there will be a few changes made for the 2008 session, the first of which was an increased enrollment cap from 12 to 18. She also said the course organizers will work to be more conservative with their money, because they overspent their budget last year, as well as increase the amount of advertising for the class. As far as class content changes, she said it is just about refining the details because the class was such a success last year.

Senior Reporter Cece Wildeman can be reached at news@collegian.com.

(Reprinted by permission of the Rocky Mountain Collegian, copyrighted 2008; not to be sold, resold or used for profit)