Professors push for language study abroad

While MSU students may gain international awareness by studying abroad, efforts could be made for students to become more proficient in foreign languages, professors said.

Last May, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, declared 2008 the international year of languages.

MSU ranked second behind New York University in sending 2,558 students abroad in 2007, according to the Institute of International Education’s Report.

It is crucial that American students start learning a foreign language at the undergraduate level, said Manuel Chávez, the associate director of the MSU Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

“Globalization, international markets and the relocation of jobs all over the world make it imperative that students have a language proficiency to the level of actual functioning,” Chávez said.

Mitchell Brown, a finance junior who studied in China last semester, said studying abroad is the best opportunity a student has to learn a language.

“Learning a language where it is spoken daily is the only real way to learn,” Brown said.

However, becoming fluent in a foreign language seemingly isn’t a priority for applicants of MSU’s 200 programs in 60 countries.

About 30 percent of those who studied abroad last year went to English-speaking countries, and about 51 percent went to Europe, where numerous programs are available in English.

Cristina Schmitt, a professor of linguistics at MSU, said she understands students need to be exposed to a foreign culture.

“They should have a sense of how the language works. They need to go with the recipe of the cake (the language), as opposed to bits of that language,” Schmitt said.

For students who study in countries where they can learn another language, another issue is the length of the study abroad experience, Schmitt said.

In 2006-07 almost 70 percent of undergraduates studied abroad during the summer, many in programs that lasted less than 10 weeks.

“I think that those four-week programs are very tiny,” Schmitt said. “The students have one week to figure out where they are, and then they have three weeks left.”

Studying abroad for one semester may help students to make progress in understanding and speaking a language, but it can be very expensive for a student, Schmitt said.

No matter how long students study abroad, Ch�vez suggests that they immerse themselves in the culture.

Published on Tuesday, March 11, 2008