Department/Program __________________________
Course prefix/number/credit hours _______________
Course title __________________________________
Core Course Review: Foreign Language
The Curriculum Committee of the College of Arts and Sciences conducts a periodic review of
courses that are approved for Core credit, to ensure that they continue to meet the standards for
the appropriate Core category. The course listed at the top of the page currently is approved as
satisfying the College of Arts and Sciences Foreign Language requirement. As part of its current
review of foreign language courses, the Curriculum Committee is soliciting information from
you about this course.
Instructions: Please respond to the questions listed below and clearly number which question is
being addressed by your response. Provide as much information as you think the Curriculum
Committee will need to review the course fairly and accurately and attach additional pages and
support documents as appropriate. Keep in mind that the materials will be reviewed by faculty
from a number of different disciplines.
Please return this form signed by the chair, program director, or associate chair along with your
printed responses to the items below, course syllabus and/or topical outline, and any additional
support materials to the Office of Academic and Curricular Affairs, Old Main 2-24, 275 UCB.
The submission deadline for the foreign language core review materials is <blank>.
If you do not want to continue offering this course for Core credit, skip to item 6.
The description of the College’s Foreign Language requirement is:
All students are required to demonstrate, while in high school, third-level proficiency in a
single modern or classical foreign language. Students who have not met this requirement at
the time of matriculation will have a MAPS deficiency. They may make up the deficiency
only by passing an appropriate third-semester college course or by passing a CU-Boulder
approved proficiency examination.
Students who are under the core curriculum, but not subject to MAPS, must complete the
foreign language requirement to meet degree requirements.
Questions about placement should be referred to the appropriate foreign language
department.
The goal of the language requirement is to encourage students to confront the structure,
formal and semantic, of another language, significant and difficult works in that language,
and one or more aspects of the culture lived in that language. This enables students to
understand their own language and culture better, analyze texts more clearly and
effectively, and appreciate more vividly the dangers and limitations of using a translated
document. The language requirement is a general education requirement and so
concentrates on reading. In some languages other abilities may be emphasized as well.
1
Understanding what it means to read a significant text in its original language is essential
for general education according to the standards of this university.
1. What specific capabilities or skills are expected as prerequisites to begin instruction in this
course?
2. What specific capabilities, skills, knowledge, or criteria do you use to define third-level
proficiency in the language taught in this course? Please explain how your course meets the
goal of third-level proficiency.
3. With reference to the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines* or to widely-recognized standards
specific to your target language, which level of proficiency does your course aim to achieve in
the areas of listening, speaking, reading, and writing? (*The guidelines can be found at
http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/LANGUAGELEARNING/OtherResources/ACTFLProficiencyGuidelines/contents.htm )
4. Are there other significant instructional goals for your course that you would like to identify
that are part of how your course fulfills the Arts and Sciences core foreign language
requirement?
5. Please attach a recent, representative syllabus for this course. The syllabus should include a
list of course requirements, text(s) used, and topics covered. If this course is taught in multiple
sections, what mechanisms or documents does the department/program have in place to ensure
consistency across sections for meeting the objectives of the Foreign Language requirement?
6. Circle one: The Department/Program of _____________________ < DOES | DOES NOT >
wish to continue offering this course for core credit meeting the Foreign Language requirement.
Name of person who completed this form……………………………
Signature of Department Chair………………………………………..
Date………………………….
2/06
Directory: x: 2NDF/Robin/Curriculum Committee/C2/Core Course Review/foreign language form.doc
2