Maria Reading was a young child when she moved with her family from Mexico to Southern California. Spanish was her first language. But as she and her nine siblings began school, their world became immersed in English. While working with students many years later, Reading realized she still wanted to fulfill a lifelong dream to earn a college degree and reclaim her native language.
Learn a new language and enhance your global awareness and intercultural skills by taking online language courses from Oregon State University – and set yourself up for career advancement.
Oregon State University’s online learners do what many say can’t be done: form genuine connections in the digital classroom. Ecampus alumni from the Class of 2018 shared how their interactions with peers and instructors went far beyond the computer screen, providing the opportunity to polish their communication skills and collaborate with others in their fields.
Accepting comfort was not enough of a challenge for Gustavo Ramos Nuñez, whose decision to enroll in the Spanish bachelor’s degree program online through Oregon State Ecampus arose from honoring his Peruvian roots and a desire for self-improvement.
Teaching immediately-applicable skills and guiding students on their multilingual journeys? Now you’re speaking Raven Chakerian’s language. Raven is an online instructor of Spanish and Italian at Oregon State University who realized her passion for languages and communication early on. Even outside of her formal education in Spanish, she pursued language learning through travel, community development, and social interactions. When she joined Oregon State Ecampus five years ago, teaching online was like learning a new language – conquering its challenges and new possibilities, she’s working toward fluency.
Oregon State is the best university in the nation when it comes to delivering a high-quality liberal arts education online, according to a new ranking released last month. Oregon State’s College of Liberal Arts offers 11 bachelor’s degrees and two master’s programs online through OSU Ecampus, the university’s distance education division.
“My personal experience as an immigrant in this country highlighted the importance the Spanish language plays in my cultural identity. I wanted to share the joy of being bilingual or multilingual with my new community in the United States,” says Ecampus Spanish Senior Instructor Loren Chavarría-Bechtel.
The proposal came to Susana Rivera-Mills’ desk at Oregon State University, and her alarm bells started blaring. Foreign language courses taught online? What a misguided concept, she thought. With nearly two decades of firsthand experience, she knew that in-person interaction is a great way for students to learn a new language. But is it the only way? Rivera-Mills had to find the answer through extensive research. The results, she says now, were beyond belief.
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