The Future of Education

The traditional foreign language class offers undergraduate students language learning focused on a specific area of interest or study.  This could be literature, linguistic, translation, cultural studies or certificate programs offered in conjunction with a combination of professional disciplines taught in English with specific courses taught in the foreign language. In this paper we propose a new perspective on foreign language teaching and development to address the developing need to amplify the foreign language instruction to include professional careers and disciplines at the core of the students’ program of study.  The University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando is advancing the development of foreign language immersion through the internship process.  In conjunction with the Office of Experiential Learning, UCF students have the opportunity to employ the knowledge gained in their concentration or major area of study and employ that knowledge in professional internships through collaboration with campus-wide faculty, employers and community leaders to experience real-life immersion in the work environment. UCF partners with local, national and international organizations so students can seek experiential learning with a partner and at a location that meets their needs.  We propose to include a two-tiered foreign language immersion experience for students seeking expansion of their language knowledge and proficiency in a profession arena. UCF has 13 colleges offering 210 degrees programs from the humanities to business from education to medicine, and from the sciences to hospitality to mention a few.  The opportunity for development of proficiency in a foreign language within the areas of concentration offered in the 13 colleges is limited to language programs offered though the modern languages department with the option for internships credit in a limited number of concentrations.  We propose to extend the opportunity to develop foreign language competency through the experiential learning experience in both virtual or in-person experiential learning experiences abroad tailored to the major or concentration of the students outside of the majors and minors offered in the modern languages department. We will present the proposed curriculum development project and the structure of the two-tiered experiential learning program we have proposed within our paper.