Office: Maryland Hall, Room 454
Telephone: 410‑617‑2780
Website: www.loyola.edu/academics/modern-languages

Chair: Yu Zhang Stearns, Associate Professor
Associate Chair: Yolopattli Hernández-Torres, Associate Professor

Professors: Ursula E. Beitter (emerita); Diane Chaffee-Sorace (emerita); André P. Colombat; Ramón E. Espejo-Saavedra; Margarita Jácome; Leslie Zarker Morgan (emerita); Thomas Ward (emeritus)
Associate Professors: Randall P. Donaldson (emeritus); Ana Gómez-Pérez; Margaret Austin Haggstrom (emerita); Yolopattli Hernández-Torres; Heidi Shaker; Yu Zhang Stearns; Andrea S. Thomas; Jinghua Wangling
Teaching Professors: Robin Bauer-Taylor; Alyssa Falcone; Cynthia Fraga-Cañadas; Douglas Glynn; Inas Hassan; Emily Iekel; Jennifer Holt; Paul H. Oorts; Giuliana Risso-Robberto; Catherine Savell; Sarah Tyler; Sarah Vitale

Faculty in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures teach courses in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Ancient Greek and Latin are taught in the Department of Classics.

Learning Aims

The department's learning aims are based on the World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages. The World-Readiness Standards include the goal areas of Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities (the five Cs) created by the National Standards Collaborative Board. These goal areas, which were developed to reflect the wide variety of purposes for and uses in modern languages, are interconnected in many respects; however, for purposes of clarity, the department interprets these standards below from the perspective of Loyola's undergraduate educational aims.

Communication: Courses are conducted in the target language. Students engage in conversations as well as discuss content. Students learn to listen, speak, and produce written work on a variety of topics and readings in the language studied.

Cultures: Culture is a spectrum of textual production and discursive practices. It includes nonliterary contexts such as political, social, and cultural institutions. One of the most important ways students learn about culture, however, is through the study of texts: literature, film, and other cultural documents. Students become sensitized to cross-cultural differences.

Connections: Students acquire the ability to make connections between their use of the modern language they are studying and the implications that this knowledge has in relation to other disciplines. This includes linguistic intricacies and the cultural practices associated with the modern language studied, as well as an understanding of its role in faith and social justice issues, with a global perspective to connect intellectually to the sociohistorical context of the countries in which the language or languages they study are spoken and to analyze multiple perspectives in a meaningful way. They use these perspectives to recognize distinctive viewpoints that are only available through the study of modern languages and cultures.

Comparisons: Through second language acquisition, students gain a broader linguistic perspective. They develop a more profound understanding of the nature of language through actively identifying and seeking comparisons of the language studied and its variants and their own native language. They gain the ability to analyze and appreciate not only the contributions and practices of their own culture, but also that of other societies and populations, and to compare and contrast aspects of various cultural manifestations, institutions, and ideals.

Communities: Because languages are living manifestations of the human experience, students use these languages beyond the school setting, participating in community service in language-specific populations. They also travel to and study in countries where the language they have learned is spoken and live with families in those countries. They begin with university- and department-sponsored events, such as lectures, films, excursions, and other community-building events. Students show evidence of becoming lifelong learners by pursuing and promoting an appreciation of the language and cultures they have studied, acting as ambassadors of intercultural awareness and appreciation to their campus and to the greater community, recognizing the dynamic interdependence between self and others through their study of transglobal realities.

Core Language Requirement

All Loyola students are required to fulfill the core language requirement, either in a modern or a classical language. An exception to the core language requirement applies to native speakers and heritage speakers of a language not taught at Loyola who can prove fluency. Native speakers are students who completed their elementary or high school education abroad in a language other than English. Placement is at the 300-level for native speakers who want to continue taking courses in their native language. Heritage speakers of a language not taught at Loyola are evaluated on a case-to-case basis by the Associate Chair in Modern Languages and Literatures. 

Placement Tests in Modern Languages

The Department of Modern Languages and Literatures does not allow "self-placement," and students must take their language core course at the level into which they place. Placement tests are available online in Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Students who place higher than the 104 level on Loyola's world language placement exam may be exempt from the world language core requirement, pending confirmation from the department after a proctored, on-site placement exam. Those students will need to complete one additional free elective in lieu of the world language core. No credit is awarded through these tests. The department encourages entering students to consider taking the advanced placement exam, if available, because a high score on that exam offers the possibility of both advanced placement and credit (see department website or Academic Advising and Support Center website). Please note that these guidelines pertain exclusively to initial placement into language courses. Students considering a major or Minor in Chinese (minor only), French, Spanish, or Comparative Cultures and Literary Studies (CCLS) should read further for the courses required for a specific major or minor.

Normally, students will complete the core language requirement by the end of the sophomore year at Loyola. Before taking a language course at another institution, students must either take a language course at Loyola or take a proctored on-site placement exam, scheduled in consultation with the Associate Chair of Modern Languages and Literatures. As is the case for all transfer courses, students seeking to fulfill the core language requirement at other accredited institutions must obtain prior permission through the Academic Advising and Support Center. Only courses at accredited institutions will be accepted.

Some upper-division literature, culture, and linguistics courses (those with the ML prefix) are conducted in English and offered to students of all disciplines. In these courses, readings can be done in English or in the target language. Non-majors sufficiently proficient to follow lectures in the language are welcome in all courses. These students may do readings and papers in English.

A certificate of oral proficiency is available to all qualified students through the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). A fee is charged. Language majors interested in a career in business can prepare themselves within the regular Bachelor of Arts program by taking a minor in the Sellinger School of Business and Management. Loyola University Maryland is a testing center for the "Diplôme français professionnel" given by the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry. We offer testing for certificates in both Business and International Relations.

A service-learning experience is available to students enrolled in some courses numbered 104 and above. The experience affords students the opportunity to increase their oral proficiency while assisting members of the Baltimore community.

Programs

• Comparative Culture and Literary Studies (CCLS), BA
• French, BA
• Spanish, BA

• Chinese Minor
• Comparative Culture and Literary Studies (CCLS) Minor
• French Minor
• Spanish Minor

Courses

• ML 402 - CCLS Capstone Research Paper
• ML 405 - Modern Languages and Literatures Internship
• ML 426 - The Teaching of World Languages
• ML 440 - Special Topics in Latin American and Latino Studies

• PO 204 - Portuguese Language and Culture

• SN 101 - Introductory Spanish I
• SN 102 - Introductory Spanish II
• SN 103 - Intermediate Spanish I
• SN 104 - Intermediate Spanish II
• SN 161 - Comprehensive Beginning Spanish
• SN 201 - Spanish Composition and Conversation
• SN 203 - Introduction to Reading Literature
• SN 300 - Spanish for the Professions: Healthcare
• SN 301 - The Culture and Civilization of Spain
• SN 303 - Introduction to Mexican Culture
• SN 304 - Contemporary Central America
• SN 305 - Visual Culture in Colonial Latin America
• SN 306 - Music and Latin American Social Movements
• SN 307 - Contemporary Spanish Civilization and Culture
• SN 308 - Violence and Culture: Columbia in the Twentieth Century
• SN 320 - Introduction to Spanish Linguistics
• SN 321 - Spanish Phonetics and Phonology
• SN 325 - Spanish Applied Linguistics
• SN 327 - History of the Spanish Language
• SN 329 - Spanish in the United States
• SN 335 - Contemporary Spanish Literature: 1975 to the Present
• SN 336 - Rewriting the Self: Women's Literature in Contemporary Spain
• SN 350 - Short Latin American Fiction
• SN 352 - The Golden Age
• SN 354 - Contemporary Latin American Literature
• SN 355 - Spanish Postwar Literature
• SN 358 - A Survey of Spanish Theatre
• SN 360 - Latin American Short Story
• SN 362 - The Origins of Contemporary Spain: 1898-1920
• SN 363 - Contemporary Spanish Literature: The Generations of 1914 and 1927
• SN 364 - Spanish Literature of Exile: 1939-1975
• SN 365 - The Latin American Essay and Early Cultural Studies
• SN 366 - Latin American Testimony
• SN 367 - The Short Story in Spain Since 1936
• SN 368 - Travelers and Migrants in Twentieth-Century Colombian Literature
• SN 369 - From Baroque to Enlightenment: Novo-Hispanic Perspectives
• SN 370 - Nineteenth-Century Latin American Novel
• SN 371 - The Short Story in Spain, 1875-1925
• SN 372 - The Nineteenth-Century Spanish Novel
• SN 373 - Literature and Identity Politics in Peru
• SN 376 - Romanticism in Spain
• SN 377 - Spanish Literature of Fantasy, Mystery, and Terror
• SN 378 - Crime Fiction in Spain
• SN 380 - Modernismo
• SN 381 - Latin American Avant-Garde
• SN 382 - Women Against the Current in Latin America
• SN 388 - Women Take the Floor: Mexican Female Writers
• SN 390 - Chronicles of Conquest, Resistance and Transculturation
• SN 391 - Travel Writings of the New World
• SN 392 - Extirpation of Idolatries