Since the Department is officially called the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures the definition of these domains and their relationships define the scope and content of our discipline.
The Department deals with verbal communication, verbal art (literature, cinema and other forms of oral and written texts) and culture. In a world that is increasingly dominated by English, MLC affirms the importance of acquiring competency in another language and culture through the study of its art and literature, which fulfills the College mission.
The acquisition of a foreign language is the discovery of a new world and a new self. The acquisition of a new language has intellectual value in and of itself: the process makes us conscious of what language is and how it works (its structure, function, and arbitrariness, among others.) Learning a new language gives us a distinct point of view from which we can evaluate and understand our own language.
Literature has traditionally been the main material and application for language learning. Indeed, literature is an ideal medium for exploring the possibilities of language. Through the study of literature, speakers and readers new to the language discover narrative structure, character development, and literary forms, conventions and values.
Reading literature requires analyzing the literary text, researching historical information and learning to appreciate works for their formal structures and aesthetic elements. The skills acquired by analyzing and understanding works of literature give students greater sophistication and add to their critical thinking. Indeed, the discipline and work required in learning to understand literary works not only adds to the students' intellectual depth but enriches the students' future life experience as well. While they have traits in common with belle-lettristic texts, other verbal media - and especially cinema - offer their own distinct critical challenges that are useful for our pedagogy. The best literature and cinema have enormous potential for teaching culture: they embody the ideals, interests, great ideas and even fears of a people, while providing a direct link with history and the other arts.
In a world that is increasingly audio-visual it is important not to exclude contemporary means of cultural expression. Thus, the Department makes use of various written and oral texts such as television programs, advertisements, radio programs, and internet sites.
Regarding culture, our goal is twofold. We should present and teach all cultural forms and behaviors-- including body language, sense of time and space, attitudes towards religion and sexuality, artistic and philosophical works, and the rituals of daily life. We also must create in our students the ability to define their own culture. We believe that the exposure to another culture is also a new approach to one's own culture, a questioning of implicit behaviors, values, clichés and beliefs. We believe that learning a new culture makes students more open, tolerant, curious, and diverse.
The Department strongly encourages students to study abroad. We regard this experience as the strongest and most important component of their four-year study at the College. The time abroad is one where students are given the opportunity to experience their learning first-hand with examples based on real life and thus to mature in their understanding of the foreign culture and language.
As a department we do not advocate one single method of language teaching. We use and appreciate a variety of pedagogical models which can vary with the nature of the given language, the teacher's background, preferences, and course material, and which can also change depending on the needs of students. We believe that the ambiguity of the learning process as well as the diversity of our goals (visual in reading, acoustic in listening comprehension, etc.) demand a diversity of approaches.
When students learn a new language they inevitably commit speech errors that are part of the learning process. We try to instill in students the idea that making mistakes is part and parcel of the learning process and that making—and learning from—such errors builds stronger learning behaviors. The second language learner also has to face a discrepancy between his/her cognitive development and his or her ability to use the second language. It is necessary to teach students that the humility gained through this process is useful for all learning experiences—and for other life experiences as well.
