Survey of Modern Language Teaching in Catholic Women's Colleges of the Middle West

Abstract

opinion in our Catholic Women's Colleges in the Middle Western area, a questionnaire was sent to the colleges in this region asking them to state the aim desired, the texts used, and the student enrollment in French, German and Spanish-the Modern Languages usually taught. The results secured from the thirty-four colleges which contributed are shown below. Twenty institutions seek to impart a reading and speaking knowledge, while thirteen wish reading ability alone. The methods used in securing these objectives are listed in Table I. The facility with which the language students of these colleges express themselves at the end of the first and second year is shown in Table II. Table III shows the most popular texts in use. Because of their great variety, it is impossible to include in this report more than the three most generally used in each language. The enrollment in the different languages is given in Table IV. It will be noted that the freshman groups are divided because many students beginning a language in college are placed in the elementary group, while others who have completed two years in high school are assigned to the intermediate group. The sophomore group contains those students who began the language in college and those who had it in high school. In this year, most colleges give a Literature course, however, to the latter. From an examination of the tables, it will be readily seen that our Catholic Women's Colleges in this area are rapidly abandoning the old objective of a reading knowledge alone as the ideal.