COLLEGE Language houses allow immersion, facilitate fluency

The popularity of housing that fosters foreign languages continues to grow.
CINCINNATI (AP) -- Greetings of "hola" and "bonjour" fill Valentine House as residents hurry to classes or amble into the lounge.
Visitors unfamiliar with the Spanish and French words for "hello" or the other foreign phrases that follow just smile blankly until a resident takes pity on them and translates.
"We are allowed to speak English to guests who don't understand, but the rest of the time we are supposed to speak in French or Spanish, and sometimes you forget that not everyone understands," Jeff Dapo, a Spanish major from Columbus, explains with a grin. "With students at different levels and two languages in the same house, sometimes we even have trouble understanding each other. We've been doing a lot of gesturing."
Dapo is one of 22 students living at the University of Cincinnati's recently opened language house -- one of the newest examples of language immersion that is growing more popular at colleges and universities around the country.
Educators and students say that increasing globalization of society, with more Internet and television access to news and businesses around the world, has fueled an increased enrollment in foreign language courses. More schools are requiring or recommending immersion as part of a foreign language degree, and language houses and dorms provide an alternative for students who can't afford to study abroad.
National trend
"When we started about five years ago in two separate wings of a dormitory floor, we had to recruit people and couldn't fill the areas," said Catherine Jones, an associate professor of French at the University of Georgia. "This year, we have 18 students in each language and more that we couldn't take because we didn't have the room."
The Thatcher Language House, established 10 years ago in a dormitory at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, started with four languages and has steadily grown to include areas for French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese and German. The house fills all 110 spaces and has 30 to 40 students on waiting lists, said director Therese Pasquale.
Although no organization yet tracks the trend nationally, other schools report similar increases in demand for the immersion experiences.
"I think this trend will continue to grow as people realize that the more opportunities that can be provided to achieve fluency, the easier it will for an increasingly global society to become truly multilingual," said Rosemary G. Feal, executive director of the international Modern Language Association.
Student motivation
Julie Hollyday agrees. She is a journalism major and French minor from Toledo at Valentine House who thinks constant exposure to the French language will help her chances of working in Paris.
"With the Internet, the Iraq war and businesses that operate worldwide, people see that the world is getting smaller in so many ways, and knowledge of other languages becomes more important," she said.
Chemistry major Anthony Bernas, 23, also hopes that becoming fluent in Spanish will give him a competitive edge.
"I managed to get around OK in Mexico when I visited there, but I need to be a lot more comfortable with the language," said Bernas, of West Chester, who plans to join the Peace Corps and get a degree in nursing. "With so many Spanish-speaking immigrants here, Spanish has become a major language in the United States."
The language has become the most popular at schools in recent years and is surpassing French, which most of the older houses focused on.
Typical experiences
Students in Valentine House meet weekly with their respective housemates -- French or Spanish -- to practice conversation and learn about the culture and history of countries where those languages are spoken. Both language groups are planning a dinner at the house that will feature food such as Spanish paella, a rice dish usually mixed with meat or seafood, and French crepes.
A recent viewing of the 1950s French movie "And God Created Woman" on the house's large-screen TV even drew some of the house's Spanish students.
"I understood more of it than I expected," said Dapo, who often strums his Spanish guitar while his roommate adds to the beat with Spanish-style drums in their room, decorated with posters from Costa Rica.
The house's 11 French students live on one floor and the 11 Spanish students on another. Each floor is supervised by a resident assistant -- a native speaker who encourages the students to speak in the required language, answers questions and instructs them in French- and Spanish-speaking countries' history and culture.
Requirements and cost
The UC students are allowed to speak English with guests in the first-floor commons areas but are expected to abide by the no-English rule on the upper floors.
"Of course there are exceptions," Lowanne Jones, head of UC's Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, said, laughing. "They are allowed to yell 'fire' in English."
The students are asked to sign a contract agreeing to speak the language as much as possible. They could be asked to leave if there were frequent complaints that they aren't trying at all, said Desirae Mercer, Valentine House's main resident adviser, who speaks French.
"But since students come here because they want to improve their fluency, I doubt that will be a problem," she said.
Requirements for language houses and dorms are usually similar to those of Valentine House. Residents there are not required to major in French or Spanish but must be taking courses in the languages, have strong grade point averages and go through an interview process.
Cost also varies. Prices of rooms at the UC house are comparable to those of a dorm. The Romance Languages department, which manages Valentine House, has been able to offer students some financial assistance that reduces their rent to about $1,000 less than the average dorm rate annually.
At schools where floors of dorms are set aside for language immersion, students usually pay the normal dorm fees.
Rising demand
Foreign language educators agree that, based on calls they are getting and discussions at conferences and online, the demand for language immersion continues to rise, especially in the last five years.
"We want to set up an association of existing programs where we know exactly what is out there and where schools can easily get information to set up their own houses," Lowanne Jones said. "With all countries becoming more multinational, knowledge of other languages is more essential than ever."