SJSU Catalog

Foreign Languages Department

Introduction

Do you want to connect with the world through your own line of communication? Learning another language will enable you to understand the complexities of intercultural communication and make you a globally competent professional. To that end, the Department of Foreign Languages offers majors in five of the most useful and widely spoken languages in the world: Chinese and Japanese for a direct connection with Asia, and French, German and Spanish to link up with Europe, Africa and Latin America. In addition to our majors and minors in these languages, the department offers minor programs in Italian and Russian as well as language and culture courses in Portuguese and Hebrew. We connect in time with our classical traditions through our offerings in Greek and Latin.

In association with the international programs of the CSU system, our department offers you the opportunity to study abroad. While there, you will perfect your language skills and deepen your understanding of the people and culture associated with the language you have chosen to study. The department also has the means to help qualified students finance their studies with generous stipends from our Meta Marion Goldsmith Scholarship Fund.

To accommodate the special needs of some of our students, we offer individualized, self-paced courses in several of our programs. To service the needs of high schools and community colleges in our area, we offer subject matter preparation programs for the single subject credential in French, and Spanish as well as Master's of Arts degrees in French and Spanish.

Our faculty is among the most diverse imaginable by virtue of our multicultural origins and backgrounds, multilingual skills and multifaceted training. So too are our students, which makes for an exciting mixture and convergence of talents and interests. The closeness of faculty and students in our department arises from this shared diversity as well as from the continual contact and exchange required by the methodology of foreign language instruction. As a consequence, our academic advisement is highly personalized. Almost without exception, advisees have also been students in one or more of their advisor's classes.

Teaching is generally the career of choice for most of our graduates, but they also follow career paths leading to employment as translators and interpreters; civil servants for local, state and federal agencies; agents for tourism and the leisure service industry; reporters, journalists, broadcasters and publishers for the mass media and communications industry, and myriad other occupations in national and international business and finance.

General Undergraduate Information

Entering a Program

Upon declaring or entering one of our majors, students must meet with an advisor to discuss placement and have the hold on registration lifted in order to enroll in classes.

Placement Examinations

These exams will be given in our media center at the beginning of each semester to students who have studied beyond the second year in high school but have not taken courses at the college level. Those who have will enroll in the course for which they qualify on the basis of college units accumulated.

Limits on Credit

Students whose secondary education was in a language other than English may not receive credit, either by enrollment or examination, for beginning language and conversation courses in that language.

Transfer of Units, Unit Requirements

With departmental approval, students may transfer units earned at community colleges and other universities. Whatever reduction in major and minor requirements is allowed on the basis of previous training, a minimum of 24 units of college work in the language is required for the major and 12 units for the minor. Of these minimums, a student must complete at least 12 units for the major and three units for the minor at SJSU.

Minor Waivers

Economics, journalism and administration of justice majors may satisfy the requirement for a minor by taking 18 units of foreign language.

Requirements for the BA Degree

All majors must complete 120 units for the degree. They are also required to complete a minor within those units. A minor in a second language is recommended, which will simultaneously satisfy the requirement of one year of a second language.

Proficiency Examination

A proficiency examination in the language is required of candidates for a teaching credential and is a prerequisite for enrollment in any graduate course.