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NEW WILLIAM PATERSON UNIVERSITY PROGRAM IS DESIGNED TO MEET SHORTAGE OF CHINESE LANGUAGE TEACHERS IN NEW JERSEY
--Students earn bachelor’s degree and qualify for certification
To meet the growing demand in New Jersey school districts for certified teachers of Chinese, William Paterson University in Wayne has launched an accelerated Chinese language teacher preparation program.
Eighteen students are currently enrolled in the program, which began in summer 2008 and is designed for students who have already earned a bachelor’s degree and are fluent in Mandarin and English. Students who successfully complete the program will be qualified for a New Jersey Certificate of Eligibility for Chinese and will earn a second bachelor’s degree in Asian studies—Chinese language track. The program is only the third in New Jersey to train license eligible teachers in Chinese.
William Paterson has been a leader among New Jersey state colleges and universities in enhancing its language offerings, and is the only one to offer instruction in 17 languages, including eight critical need languages (world languages for which there is a high societal demand and insufficient linguistic expertise in the U.S.): Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Russian, and Turkish. The program is taught through the University’s Center for the Study of Critical Languages, which was established with a $200,436 grant from the federal government and a Title VI grant for $180,000.
The 30-credit curriculum provides state-approved courses in Chinese language, pedagogy, methodology, and literature, offered in evening, weekend, and on-line formats, convenient for the working professional. The degree can be earned in one calendar year.
“More than 30 school districts in New Jersey have added Chinese to their world language programs and other districts are planning to follow suit,” says Isabel Tirado, dean of the University’s College of the Humanities and Social Sciences. In the future, Tirado hopes to offer similar programs in Japanese, Hindi, and Arabic. “The importance of these ‘less commonly taught languages’ in our increasingly global economy and society demands that higher education address the need for training professionals in a wide variety of fields who will have linguistic proficiency in these languages.”
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March 25 , 2009
www.wpunj.edu
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