The IUP Department of Foreign Languages offers numerous opportunities for students to add language skills to their workplace marketability.
Studying a foreign language is an excellent educational choice in today's global society, whether you choose our nationally recognized program for Spanish teachers, our bachelor's degree in Spanish, the Spanish honors track, a minor (in German, French, or Spanish), one of our five certificates, or classes we offer in many other languages such as Korean, Chinese, and Japanese. Foreign language skills are highly marketable in many fields such as education, nursing, business, criminology, tourism, human services, and politics.
The department is home to the renowned BSEd in Spanish Education K-12 Program, nationally recognized on three consecutive review cycles by its accrediting agencies, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (formerly the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, NCATE) and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Explore the many department-sponsored study abroad options available to you in Spain, France, Germany, and Mexico (Puebla and Cuernavaca).
Review the following page for Placement Testing and Credit Options.
Dawn Smith-Sherwood, Department of Foreign Languages, and co-author Mark Darhower published their research essay “Bridging the Language-Literature Divide via Integrated Performance Assessments in an Introductory Hispanic Literature Course” in the September 2021 issue of Hispania, the official journal of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.
Christina Huhn, Department of Foreign Languages, served as moderator on February 23 for a panel titled “Advocating for Extended Study and WL Teachers in PA: Strengthening the Pipeline,” formed as part of a month-long effort in support of Advocacy Month during February 2021 by the Pennsylvania State Modern Language Association.
Christina Huhn, Department of Foreign Languages, co-authored an article titled “Issues in world language teacher preparation: ACTFL/CAEP standards and oral proficiency.”
Dawn Smith-Sherwood, Department of Foreign Languages (Spanish) recently published A Laboratory of Her Own: Women and Science in Spanish Culture (Vanderbilt University Press 2021) with co-editors Victoria Ketz (LaSalle University, Philadelphia) and Debra Faszer-McMahon (Seton Hill University, Greensburg).
Shijuan Liu presented “An Examination of the History of Using Technology in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign/Second Language (Before the Computer Era)” at the first International Conference on the Developmental History of Chinese as a Second/Foreign Language, organized by the National Tsinghua University, Taiwan, December 18–19, 2020.
