Starting next semester, Boston University will offer a Portuguese intensive course to students for the first time in years, officials said.
College of Arts and Sciences Romance Studies Department chair James Iffland, along with other faculty, pushed for the reintroduction of the course after a history of up and downs concerning student and university commitment to the program, Iffland said.
Spanish professor Dylon Robbins will head the Portuguese section, but the department is still in the process of hiring a professor to teach the course, LP 123, in the spring of 2010, officials said.
Robbins, who specializes in Brazilian culture and literature, said the course is part of a bigger project to eventually incorporate advanced culture and literature classes of the Portuguese-speaking world.
‘The idea behind the intensive language course is not only to provide a place where students can learn another language, but to have a program that will eventually allow someone to graduate in Brazil studies or Portuguese studies,’ Robbins said.
Iffland said Portuguese was previously taught at BU, but never at an advanced level, making it impossible for students to major or minor in the language.
But this time, Iffland said, there is hope that this will be a final reintroduction of the language program at BU. He said if the course is successful and they are able to add intermediate and advanced courses, they eventually hope to offer a study abroad program in Brazil.
BU has a vast Portuguese-speaking community, including numerous students, faculty and staff from Brazil and Portugal, creating a demand for Portuguese, he said.
‘ ‘We cannot not teach Portuguese,’ Iffland said.
Iffland said he thinks the resurgence in Portuguese interest is primarily due to the growth and influence of Brazil, which is the largest country in South America and has the fifth largest population in the world.
BU Brazilian Association President Luiza Santos said because Brazil is part of the four emerging countries making up the BRIC, which includes Russia, India and China, and also won the 2016 Olympic Games bid in Rio de Janeiro, there has been increased curiosity about the Portuguese language and Brazilian culture.
‘ ‘We have a lot of non-Brazilian members in BUBA who come to us interested in learning Portuguese,’ Santos, a School of Management sophomore, said. ‘But unfortunately we can only teach them so much.’
The course will be standard written Portuguese, even though differences in terms of grammar and pronunciation exist when comparing Portuguese from Portugal to Portuguese in Brazil and other African countries, such as Mozambique and Cape Verde, whose official languages are also Portuguese, Iffland said.
‘We’re essentially talking about the difference of the Spanish spoken in Spain and the Spanish spoken in Latin America, or the English spoken in England and the English spoken in the United States,’ Iffland said.
In the past, Portuguese had been added and removed several times through the 1980s 1990s and start of 2000, Iffland said.
‘The problem was that we never really gained enough momentum,’ he said. ‘Enrollments weren’t very steady and there was not much commitment on the part of the university.’
Santos said she first came to BU thinking she would be able to take Portuguese as one of her classes.
‘I’m so happy that BU is offering Portuguese now,’ she said. ‘I think I will probably take that course.’
Although Santos believes there will be many students interested in taking the LP 123, Iffland said he cannot predict enrollment.
‘I am really keeping my fingers crossed that we have a healthy enrollment,’ he said.
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