Universitywide budget cuts are making it harder for the Department of Linguistics to accommodate growing interest in Chinese - a language that one Ohio University professor says is the most difficult for Americans to learn.
The Chinese branch of the department currently has one full-time, permanent professor, three graduate student teaching assistants and one visiting scholar, said Liang Tao, an OU Chinese professor. Despite swelling class sizes, the department does not plan on hiring any additional faculty because of increasing budget cuts.
University officials have told departments to plan for a 10 percent budget cut, a total of $20 to $25 million universitywide, but OU will not have any official numbers from the state until Gov. John Kasich submits his proposal in mid-March. This year, OU cut $13.75 million from its budget.
It's not that we don't like Chinese or that we don't want to reduce the student-teacher ratio in Chinese classes. It's that OU is asking our departments to cut significant amounts of money from our budgets
which makes it impossible to do the things we would really rather be doing such as growing the Chinese program said Christopher Thompson, chairman of the Department of Linguistics, in an e-mail.
The department is now working to retain the faculty members and programs it currently has, Thompson said.
Recently, a growing economy in China has motivated more OU students to enroll in Chinese language classes, Tao said.
The economy decides on everything. When China becomes more prosperous
it offers more opportunity for business and other exchange
and it becomes more noticeable
she said.
Class sizes for intermediate Chinese have increased noticeably over the past year, but students are not able to benefit from the in-class individual attention they might receive in the beginning and advanced classes, Tao said.
Chinese is one of the hardest languages for American students to learn
she said, adding that in Chinese, unlike English, intonation determines word meaning. ... (In larger classes)
every student would get less personal attention ... and you really have to correct individual pronunciation all the time.
This quarter's 200-level intermediate Chinese class has 25 students, which is the most of any class in the language. In the past, the typical intermediate Chinese class has had about 15 students, Tao said.
Enrollment is not as high for the 300-level advanced Chinese class, and the 100-level elementary classes are split into multiple sections.
Justin Grogan, a junior studying creative writing who is currently taking elementary Chinese, said he prefers smaller class sizes for the language.
It makes discussion and conversation easier
he said. Small classes mean more individualized study
more one-on-one.
@ThePostCampus
