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I.                    Language

1.  Majors will be able to initiate, sustain, and bring to closure a variety of communicative tasks, such as discussions of fairly complex issues, in their 250, 300, and 400-level courses.  Majors in each course are required to give at least one substantial oral report and do substantial writing in each such course.  They are able to read about a variety of topics and interpret what they read.

2.  Majors also show their linguistic competence off-campus, by their ability to survive-most even thrive-in study abroad programs of at least a summer’s length in a country speaking their language.

 II.                 Literature

All majors in the advanced courses, and especially in the 400 level capstone, must demonstrate that they are familiar with a range of texts in the target language, that they know how to place these texts in a context, and to discuss them using critical concepts in the target language.

 III.               Culture

Students show their capacity to discuss texts and other cultural phenomena and to place them in context, first during their experience abroad.  All courses at Ursinus require some cultural interpretive capacities, as do the certifying exams of the outside agencies mentioned above.  In advanced courses, students read complex articles from the contemporary press.  In addition to the other means of showing their abilities previously mentioned, students whom we certify to teach and who pass the general teacher exams must demonstrate cultural competence