THE UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM IN SPANISH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA

The Spanish program is one of the largest undergraduate programs in MLCS, second only to French. During 2007-08, enrollments reached their second-highest peak in 5 years (1290 students; in 2005-06, a total of 1314 students were registered in the program). Our curriculum is varied, offering courses in language, linguistics, literature, and culture. We teach the majority of courses in the target language, but also provide some courses in English, especially the Latin American Studies courses. These latter courses draw students from across campus, from faculties ranging from Science to Business and from various disciplines within these faculties. We attract about 80 majors in any 4-year period in the Spanish and Latin American Studies area. The Certificate in Translation Studies in Spanish is also very popular.

The Spanish Area participates in a variety of programs within the Faculty of Arts and also provides the content for programs outside the Faculty. In Arts, these programs include: the Honors program in Romance Languages (which can include a principal subject in Spanish); the Honors program in Spanish and Latin American Studies; the Combined Honors program in Spanish and another discipline; the major in Latin American Studies; the Combined Language Major in French and Spanish or in Italian and Spanish; the minor in Latin American Studies; the minor in Spanish; and the MLCS Certificate in Translation Studies in Spanish. Outside the Faculty, Spanish provides courses for students in three main areas: the Language Other than English (LOE) requirement, the Major and Minor in Elementary Education and Secondary Education, and the content courses for the Faculty of Business for a Major in European Studies and a Major in Latin American Studies.

Spanish at the University of Alberta consists of three programs: the language program, the Spanish literature and culture program, and the Latin American Studies program, each of which has its own development. Spanish began at the University of Alberta in 1929 as a partial language program; temporary members of the Department of Modern Languages taught Introductory Spanish, which emphasized commercial Spanish and was open only to Commerce students, but not to Arts and Science students. Later a second-year Spanish course, focusing on commercial Spanish idioms and Hispanic-American culture, was offered, and eventually an advanced, third-year course was also made available.

Until the 1990s, Spanish language courses were uncoordinated and taught by instructors who did not receive formal teaching training. With the hiring of language specialists, a major change occurred: the entire language program is now run professionally by these specialists, who train and evaluate all language instructors and select the texts and pedagogical methodologies. As a result of this change, the quality of the language program has increased significantly.

Since the mid-1990s, the main focus of the Hispanic literature and culture program has been Latin American literature and culture, with a few courses on Spanish Peninsular civilization and culture included. The focus on language, various aspects of culture, and the study of cultural difference provided by the different Spanish programs meet MLCS’s mission goals, which in turn match the University of Alberta’s, as articulated in the President’s Dare To Discover document.

Our undergraduate program strives to achieve two main goals:

1) To ensure that our students achieve the highest possible standard of language proficiency at all levels (comprehension, oral and written production). A few years ago, in order to achieve the best possible results, our applied linguists, in consultation with other Spanish faculty, revamped the approach to the beginners’ language courses. As a result, we are witnessing an improved level of proficiency in our higher-level content courses.

2) To ensure that our undergraduate students are well qualified for admission into the strongest graduate programs in Hispanic Literature, Latin American Studies, and Applied Linguistics. Our course offerings and program requirements have been designed to meet this goal. The program periodically revises its curriculum, eliminating some courses and introducing others to match the research interests of new faculty.

Our program also seeks to provide expanded opportunities for students to gain international experience through study-abroad programs. This goal has now been successfully addressed. An important development has been the introduction of a semester study-abroad program in Granada, Spain. It offers advanced language students (third- or fourth-year) the opportunity of obtaining pre-advanced credit at the University of Granada’s prestigious Centro de Lenguas Modernas, whose highly qualified instructors are all selected from that University’s most illustrious faculty. In addition, there are already two established beginners’ language programs in Mexico run by the U of A's Study Abroad Office: one is a summer program in Guadalajara at the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, and the other, a semester-long program in Puebla, at the Universidad de las Américas. Many students from the university at large already take part in these programs, with significant benefit to the improvement of their language skills and exposure to Latin American culture.

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