The University was founded under Thomas Jefferson’s educational ideals, including his conviction that language study is an indispensable part of education. Today, however, the University’s approach to language learning — particularly through its diagnostic exam — risks reducing that ideal to a mere formality.
The World Language Requirement is a part of students’ general education requirements in the College of Arts and Sciences and affiliated schools. To fulfill the requirement, students’ language proficiency must be at least equivalent to the 2020 level, which is satisfied by four semesters of language courses, a sufficient score on a nationally recognized exam, such as a 4 or 5 on an AP test, or a sufficient score on the University’s own online diagnostic test — the Placement and Credit Exam.
It seems that there is some diversity in how language departments handle their diagnostic testing. Sanskrit, Urdu, and Polish, among others, require that students contact the department to request the opportunity to take a diagnostic. In another deviation, the East Asian Languages, Literature & Cultures department offers the Chinese, Japanese and Korean diagnostics online and also requires a 10-minute oral interview. However, the exclusively online PLACE diagnostic is used for the four most commonly taught languages in American K-12 education — Spanish, French, German and Latin — and it is this fully online exam that requires adjustment…