Because of a number of factors, including budget issues and the need to make curriculum more relevant to 21^st century students, a growing number of college and universities are re-thinking how foreign languages are taught.

“The traditional study of language and literature really wasn’t addressing the current generation,” says the head of the foreign language program at an Ohio university. “So how could we begin to reach out and find ways for students to understand the importance of language and culture study and to see language not necessarily as an end unto itself but as a tool of discovery, a way of encountering the world and the disciplines?”

In order to address this conundrum some colleges are adapting the CLAC program – Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum.  The program is usually offered to students have taken a basic course in a foreign language.  Then, as part of the second year or intermediate language studies, curriculum from another discipline is introduced.  For instance, one German professor worked with a geology student who researched geothermal energy and seismic activity in Germany.

The goal is to take a language class and broaden a student’s experience by introducing another curriculum’s content.

“What we’re trying to do is build as many gateways for students to come in and study language and culture, connect it to as many issues, topics as we can,” says one professor. “One of the points we want to make with students is even if you’re at a beginning/intermediate level, you can begin doing something with a language.”

The Modern Language Association (MLA), the influential professional association for language professionals, has endorsed CLAC-type curriculum.  In a 2007 statement the ALA noted. “…for those students and for others who enjoy literary studies, one path to the major should be through literature. But to attract students from other fields and students with interests beyond literary studies, particularly students returning from a semester or a year abroad, departments should institute courses that address a broad range of curricular needs.”

Ten colleges hand universities have formed the CLAC Consortium:  Baldwin-Wallace and Skidmore Colleges; New York’s Binghamton University, Drake University, Portland (Oregon) State and Wittenberg Universities; and the Universities of Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Richmond University in Virginia.

“It’s not a language acquisition program, it’s a language use program,” a Binghamton professor explains. “We use the language to help students have a more international perspective on the content of a course.”

However, a Minnesota professor cautions that there still is a place for tradition foreign language studies. “If we’re talking about students eventually reaching advanced-level skills, the language piece can’t be left out,” she says.