The benefits of knowing a second language are increasing the demand for foreign language courses at NIU.

“There is a great growth in the demand for foreign language,” said Marilyn Skinner, chairwoman of NIU’s foreign languages and literatures department.

“If you have at least two years of a foreign language, you will have survival skills in a foreign country,” Skinner said. “People who study Spanish, in particular, have a marketplace advantage.”

Johanna Van Lente, coordinator of German, Russian, classics and African and South East Asian Languages, said, “I think students at Northern are becoming more sophisticated. It (foreign language) opens up whole new horizons for American students.”

Spanish is the most popular foreign language studied at NIU, Skinner said.

Julie Distenfield, a junior Spanish major with an education emphasis, said she wants to teach Spanish to high school students. “I always wanted to teach and to know a second language to be able to communicate with people who don’t know English,” she said.

The Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures offers programs in 14 languages. The languages are Burmese, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili and Thai.

NIU’s foreign languages and literatures lab in Watson Hall opened in 1964, said Lab Director Rosaura Young. Young estimated between 700 and 800 students visit the lab each week. About 160 students visit the lab on an average day, she said.

Students can listen to audio tapes, watch video tapes and use computer software programs in the lab, she said. The programs give students a variety of speakers from different parts of a country with different accents.

“I think it’s (the lab) the best way for students to hear the languages spoken. It’s very, very helpful,” Young said.

The lab extended its hours this semester to include evening hours which are more convenient for some students, she said.

Sue Doederlein, assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said the foreign language requirement for a bachelor of arts degree is not a departmental requirement, but a university requirement.

Students can meet this requirement in several ways, according the NIU course catalog. One way is by completing four years of a foreign language in high school with no grade lower than a “C.”

A different method is taking a sequence of language classes. A sequence can be four semesters of a three-credit-hour class or two semesters of a five-credit-hour class, Doederlein said. The sequence is determined by the language a student chooses to study.

Doederlein said students who studied a foreign language in high school but do not satisfy the university requirement for a bachelor of arts degree take placement tests during freshman orientation.