CourseShare: Expand Your Language-Learning Options

Reasons for choosing a particular language to study vary. Maybe it’s the pull to keep a language alive, maybe it’s feeling closer to family. 

Individual universities struggle to keep pace with the ever-evolving interest in language study. But through the collaboration of the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) program known as CourseShare, students at participating institutions have access to learning a wide range of Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs).

Here’s a look at the inner workings of CourseShare and how students can approach this diverse language study resource at the University of Minnesota (UMN) — even if the materials come from an entirely different university.

The program & its purpose

The BTAA defines a Less Commonly Taught Language (LCTL) as any language besides English, Chinese, French, German, and Spanish. LCTLs are the languages of focus in CourseShare.

When a student is interested in learning a language that their institution doesn’t offer, it can feel as though the language isn’t valid. UMN’s alliance with other Big Ten schools, however, offers language learning beyond one institution and prioritizes students’ evolving interests.

What specific courses are offered depends on student requests and language availability. If a student is interested in a language that’s not currently scheduled for enrollment, they can request that it be offered, along with specific levels.

If CourseShare can receive it, they will include it — even for a single request.

When enrolling for a course from a different Big Ten university, the resources and materials are offered by the outside institution through remote or hybrid modalities. However, UMN students will still get UMN grades and credit. Each course will list its specific details and requirements.

This approach allows for the flexibility of learning from home but requires patience and adaptability to be successful.

Before you enroll

CourseShare is only available to enrolled, degree-seeking students at BTAA institutions.

UMN students will register for a scheduled CourseShare language just like they would any other course under the LANG designator in Schedule Builder. It is recommended that students register as early as possible, as other universities generally follow different academic schedules.

And don’t think CourseShare has forgotten CLA’s second language requirement. Students can fulfill this requirement by passing one of the program’s fourth-semester language courses (Intermediate II) with a C- or better, or a pass/fail system’s satisfactory S.

But keep an eye on those credits — CLA requires the fourth-semester course to be worth at least four credits. Some universities offer intermediate-level courses for three credits; these alone will not satisfy the second-language requirement. Check out alternative options on the UMN student CourseShare FAQ page, and further discuss with the Language Center.

Determining where to start in a sequence varies with experience. True beginners of a language are recommended to start with the Beginning I courses, and other learners should seek placement assistance.

The Language Center ([email protected]) invites your CourseShare and language-learning questions; guidance for non-beginners and learners jumping into a sequence is offered.

CourseShare student perspectives

Each pathway to learning another language will look a little different. For CLA freshman Anastasia Zakula, studying Serbian, her family’s first language, has had a meaningful, close-to-home impact:

“Now I can understand a lot more about the way my family expresses themselves in their native tongue, which makes me feel much closer to them,” she says. “I feel more in touch with my culture and who I am as a person.”

Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian are mutually intelligible languages and are generally taught together at American universities.

CourseShare also offers language-learning resources for postgraduates. Sam Clarke is a graduate student in linguistics who studies Basque, a language isolate spoken in the Western Pyrenees, which straddles the border between France and Spain. “The efforts to keep Basque alive are what made me want to learn the language,” he shares.

Clarke’s research focuses on syntax and other elements of Basque; his approach gradually shifts as he recognizes the intricate ways in which language and identity are intertwined.

“It's one thing to describe the grammar of a language in more objective terms and another thing completely to actually be able to speak the language,” he says.

This story was written by Deborah Sventek, an undergraduate student in CLA.