Spanish: The Foreign National Language

Abstract

An issue that currently dominates discussions in and about foreign language departments in higher education in the United States concerns the explo sive growth of enrollments in Spanish courses, a situation that has become synthesized in a catchy acronym used widely now to encompass the other foreign languages: LOTS (languages other than Spanish). Whether Span ish on your campus is a separate department or ensconced within a larger unit such as Romance languages or modern languages and literatures, its disproportionate size with respect to the other foreign languages is a real ity with which we all have to contend. The urgency surrounding the topic is exacerbated by the larger circumstance of the increasingly tenuous place that foreign languages have come to occupy in the humanities curriculum. According to the latest figures compiled by the MLA, almost fifty four percent of all foreign language enrollments in 2002 were in Spanish (Welles), which means, of course, that there are more students matricu lated in that language than in all the other foreign languages combined. This situation is difficult for all parties involved: on the one hand, Span ish departments or sections feel that they are not being allotted the re sources that should be theirs by dint of their extraordinary size. In fact, most departments of Spanish are attempting to come to terms with their new situation in a number of creative ways: inquiring into what their mis sion is and how they can best accomplish it, finding ways to share their