Department of Foreign Language

Department of Foreign Language

Spring, 2008: Bethel College Mexican Film Festival and Seminar in Cine

The seminar will be a survey of Mexican film from the early 20th Century to the present. The films are in Spanish with English subtitles and class sessions will be conducted in English. The course will be a glimpse into Mexican culture through 14 classic and contemporary films and we will emphasize themes like war and the Mexican revolution, faith and Catholicism, gender roles, poverty and corruption. Four of the films for the course will be screened for the entire campus and the rest of the community as a part of the first ever Bethel College Mexican Film Festival.

Register for it for Spring, Wednesday nights from 6 to 8:50 PM.

Spanish is America’s Second Language

The demographic shift in the American population from monolingual to bilingual has been dramatic and it will continue in this way for generations to come.  The fact that the fastest growing minority in the United States are Spanish-speaking individuals seems to indicate that Spanish will become the second language of the United States and this is why so many students want to learn that language and also why so many middle and high schools who are looking for people qualified to teach it. 

Spanish at Bethel College

In our Spanish program, the lower level classes are designed to achieve proficiency in speaking and writing and the upper level courses emphasize reading, research, and critical thinking.  Also, the new Spanish for Textual Proficiency course will foster a smooth transition from the proficiency-oriented introductory courses to the content-dense upper level ones by featuring readings from popular magazines, comic books, TV shows, movies and anything else in Spanish that you will encounter in cultures that speak the language.

Bethel College’s mission statement indicates that the college endeavors to build students who are prepared to provide leadership in the church and in the world.  Equipping students to teach Spanish (or any discipline, for that matter) would certainly fit the bill.  However, instructing students in the use of Spanish and in the culture and literature of Spanish-speaking nations will make them particularly well-suited to provide leadership in the future of this region and country given demographic patterns of immigration from South of the Border.