Thread: Spanish popular in all parts of U.S.

http://www2.sbsun.com/news/ci_2987012

Spanish popular in all parts of U.S.

Jacob Ogles, Staff Writer
San Bernardino County Sun

More than half of all students who take a foreign language in college take Spanish. Not just in California. Not just in Florida. Not just in New York.
Since the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect in 1994, college enrollment in Spanish classes has climbed steadily as fluency in the language becomes a more valued skill. Professionals have returned to take classes they skipped when they earned their degrees, and young students are deciding more often than not that Spanish is the best choice for fulfilling foreign-language requirements.

According to the Association of Departments of Foreign Language, Spanish language students started outnumbering all other foreign-language students combined some time in the mid-1990s. And although other languages have seen fluctuations in popularity, the ascent of Spanish has been continuous.

"Years ago, other languages were more popular. German and French were big, and all of the classical languages,' said Douglas Duno, a professor of Spanish at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga. "But from what I see now, Spanish is the big thing everywhere.'

Duno was hired at Chaffey in 2000 as the only Spanish instructor on the campus. He is now one of five. The dominance of the language is amplified further in border regions such as Southern California. Spanish classes make up at least three quarters of all foreign language sections offered at schools in the region. At Crafton Hills College in Yucaipa, it is the only spoken foreign language still taught.

The phenomenon is not limited to states with a Mexican border.

A 2004 study published by the Association of Departments of Foreign Language shows interest in Spanish spread equitably in terms of population across all regions of the country.

The University of Illinois encourages students to study abroad to meet a foreign-language requirement because it doesn't have the capacity to meet demand.

Colorado State University enrolls students in Spanish classes on a first-come, first-serve basis.

"Students are lining up at the door to get in,' said Pattie Cowell, interim chairman of Colorado State's foreign languages and literature department. "More students take Spanish than any other language, and the second language (French) isn't even close.'

Of the 506 students pursuing foreign-language minors at the university, 417 are specializing in Spanish, Cowell said.

"We have people who want to travel and people who want to teach. And we have people who expect to be working for nonprofit areas and expect to deal with heavy Spanish-speaking populations.'

In North Carolina the state with the second-fastest-growing Latino population in the country, according to the Pew Hispanic Center students who want to take Spanish but are not required to take it are being turned away from the classes.

"It has put an enormous stress on the department,' said Erika Lindemann, interim romance languages department chairwoman at the University of North Carolina. "It has been difficult in terms of finding faculty and in finding classroom space.'

The school in Chapel Hill has seen the number of Spanish majors approximately double in less than five years. Participation rates show that in fall 2000, the university had 188 students majoring in Spanish and 100 seeking a minor. For spring 2005, the department reported 374 majors and 289 minors.

But the greatest stress still comes from students who just want to meet their foreign-language requirement to graduate, Lindemann said. Students who have already met that requirement through another foreign language, and who are not majoring or minoring in Spanish, are not admitted anymore.

Although interest in Spanish culture has increased, the majority of students are looking for basic speaking skills. This means lower-level classes are in greatest demand.

Far fewer advanced sections of Spanish are offered at colleges. At San Bernardino Valley College, for example, there are 11 conversational Spanish courses offered but a planned College Spanish IV class was not even offered.

This means that although colleges need faculty, they end up unable to offer many professorships. Duno said he has a number of friends who earned doctorates alongside him at UC Riverside who cannot find full-time jobs at colleges or universities. Spanish is a field where faculty is stretched to the limits but where there is little interest in hiring overqualified instructors.

"It isn't administration; they have been very supportive,' Duno said. "In an ideal world, we would hire as many professors as we wanted or needed.'

The budget constraints have forced departments to rely more on lower-paid and part-time faculty.

Colleges and universities have hired less-trained instructors to take on the beginning courses. Adjunct professors and graduate students are used in greater numbers in Spanish classes than in most other disciplines. Databases of tutors exist online for many universities. But this has also created problems.

Lindemann said the University of North Carolina has hired a handful of full-time lecturers for Spanish who enjoy staff benefits but are not recognized as professors. Cowell said Colorado State instead relies upon adjunct professors who work for hire and handle just a few classes.

"Foreign language is the most affected department on campus in terms of hiring adjunct faculty, and Spanish is the biggest demand,' she said.

In an article published by the Association of Departments of Foreign Language, Hispanist Daniel Eisenberg said part-time Spanish instructors are often paid $3,500 less per course than French or German professors, although Spanish classes usually have more students.

"The Spanish teachers understandably want whoever is in charge to do something about this unfair situation, yet one can do little, at least in the short term,' Eisenberg wrote.

Yeah it's so popular that everyone I talk to resents the fact that (much like the invasion itself) it's being forced down their throats.