Loading...

Contact:
Amy Wordelman, Ph.D., Interim Director
Office: 79 South Pleasant Street, Suite 100, Amherst College, Amherst, MA 01002
Phone: (413) 542-5264
Email: fclang@hfa.umass.edu
Websites: www.fivecolleges.edu/fclang
http://langmedia.fivecolleges.edu

The Five College Center for the Study of World Languages coordinates the study of the least commonly taught languages for the Five College consortium (Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst). The Center also develops materials and curricula for language learning with an emphasis on the least commonly studied languages spoken in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe.

Language courses offered by the Center are in Mentored, Independent Plus, or a Supervised Independent format. All courses are officially UMass courses and are registered through the University of Massachusetts Amherst, but sessions meet on all five campuses: University of Massachusetts Amherst and Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges. See the website for location and schedule details for individual language offerings. 

Mentored courses combine independent study with small group conversation sessions and individual tutorials. General information and application forms are available online. Current offerings include Mentored Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Mentored Hindi, Mentored Persian (Iranian Farsi), Mentored Swahili, and Mentored Turkish. 

Independent Plus courses combine independent study with small group conversation sessions and one-on-one peer-tutoring. Independent Plus courses emphasize speaking, listening, and basic literacy in the language; reading and writing practice reinforces developing oral skills. Indonesian and Urdu are currently offered in the Independent Plus format. Application forms and procedures are available online.

The Supervised Independent Language Program offers independent study courses in many less commonly studied languages: Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Bangla/Bengali, Bulgarian, Burmese, Czech, Danish, Dari, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, Georgian, Modern Greek, Haitian Creole, Hungarian, Icelandic, Modern Irish, Khmer, Malay, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Pashto, Romanian, Shona, Sinhala, Thai, Tibetan, Twi, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Wolof, Yoruba, and Zulu. Application forms and procedures are available online. Language availability changes. Check with the Center for current information. 

Supervised Independent courses in Egyptian, Levantine, and Morocan Arabic dialects are also offered for students who already have elementary speaking skills in Modern Standard Arabic. Other Arabic dialects are sometimes available.

Each year, the Center awards a Charles Mark Scholarship to a University of Massachusetts Amherst student who has studied one of these languages through the Center and who will be doing study abroad in the target-language country, and a Charles Mark scholarship to a Five College student who has studied Czech through the Center and who will be studying in the Czech Republic. Application information is available on the Center's website.