Cornell, Columbia and Yale universities have joined forces to increase access to less-commonly taught languages through videoconferencing and other distance learning technology. A pilot project has attracted a two-year, $1.2 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop an expanded framework for teaching important yet marginalized languages.

The funding will allow the three universities to build on an existing partnership that has presented classes in Romanian, elementary Dutch and elementary Nahuatl, the Aztec language. The courses rely on live, two-way videoconferencing, during which, for example, students at two of the schools might participate remotely in a class at the third university. Enrollment is limited to no more than 12 students in each class.

"We are trying to recreate as closely as possible a face-to-face experience for the student through synchronous meetings with classes," said Stéphane Charitos, director of Columbia's Language Resource Center and an organizer of the project. "None of the material is recorded or canned. We want this to be an interactive experience in which the students are active participants in the language learning process. To accomplish this, we are exploring how technology can enhance the teaching and learning paradigm for language study by becoming a bridge that allows us to overcome physical distances."

The three universities are home to a wealth of language expertise, tradition and breadth, with annual course offerings in more than 100 languages. Videoconferencing and other new technologies will allow for the conservation of resources among the language departments while simulating the experience of in-person classroom teaching for students.

This fall, the schools added courses in Bengali, Indonesian, modern Greek, Tamil, Yoruba and Zulu using the shared course format. In fall 2013, they plan to add courses in Khmer, Sinhala, Polish and Vietnamese. The selection of languages is based on student demand and on the relative strengths of the participating language departments.

"This grant and related collaboration give substance and structure to the idea of sharing that we had been working on together for a while," says Richard Feldman, director of Cornell's Language Resource Center. "Videoconferencing preserves what is best in the live, teacher-led language class, while allowing students access to languages that they would not otherwise have. The preparatory and collaborative work by these excellent teachers strengthens their programs and thus the college as a whole. The Mellon funding provides the facilities and organizational energy to make this complex process work."

In recent years, all three universities have embraced the pedagogical advantages of global outlook and engagement. The course offerings contribute to an expanding curriculum with a global perspective that addresses a broad range of language and cultures.