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Responding to the Challenge of Survival: Multidisciplinary Language Courses
Author(s) -
Champagne Roland A.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
foreign language annals
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.258
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1944-9720
pISSN - 0015-718X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1944-9720.1978.tb00015.x
Subject(s) - multidisciplinary approach , syllabus , fluency , curriculum , flexibility (engineering) , medical education , pedagogy , psychology , mathematics education , sociology , medicine , management , social science , economics
Multidisciplinary language courses offer hope for integrating language courses into a university undergraduate curriculum. Such courses use a target language, French in this example, to explore problems in another discipline. A survey of student interests and needs isolates research areas for the employment of language skills. Combining the resources of the university library and of one's colleagues in the appropriate fields, one can then propose syllabi to prospective students and organize the readings and projects to meet the needs, interests, and language fluency of the individual student. Group meetings of the students, individual encounters with the course director, and papers written in the target language provide the students with opportunities to practice various language skills while pursuing their interests in other disciplines. The director's flexibility and resourcefulness are keys to opening such courses into multidisciplinary language programs in university communities.