Progressive Learning Environment
The department recognizes that in addition to exposure to various classroom learning situations and scenarios, learners need a variety of learning situations including opportunities to use the target language with native speakers in the target culture to progress their learning. Students are diverse learners and bring with them a variety of experiences with regard to second language acquisition and instructors make every effort to meet their students' needs. The department has been on the forefront of teaching with new technologies in progressive environments for quite some time and continues to research what makes language learning most effective for their students.
The Department is also working in close cooperation with the Max Kade Foundation to support a variety of undergraduate activities, especially the summer study-abroad program in Berlin, providing scholarship funds for students who otherwise could not afford the costs of the summer program. Another project funded in the past has been the Hamburg research program, sending a small number of students to Germany in order to conduct on-site research. We strongly encourage all of our students, majors or non-majors, to take advantage of these opportunities to complement their course work at Northwestern.