New Courses for Spring 2023

The Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures (DLLC) is pleased to expand our course offerings in ASL by bringing you the second course in the 100-level introductory sequence for the first time this Spring. Continue your ASL with LLCU106: American Sign Language 2​! 

LLCU105: ASL 1 is also being offered this spring for those who want to begin le​arning American Sign Language.​

American Sign Language (ASL) is the third most commonly used language in North America, after English and Spanish and has a syntax and grammar all its own. ASL grammar and syntax is actually considered more similar to Japanese than to English!

In the introductory course, you'll learn the basic skills of American Sign language (ASL) including: productive signing and comprehensive signing, the manual alphabet, basic grammar, and numbers. You'll attain basic conversational ability so that you can start communicating right away. LLCU106:​​ American Sign Language 2 builds on these communicative skills and takes you further as you move from a beginner to an elementary/intermediate level!

As you improve your communicative skills, you'll also continue to deepen your understanding of culturally appropriate behaviors and explore the rich and dynamic world of Deaf culture, community and history.

Continuing with ASL will help you:

• Connect and communicate meaningfully with Deaf people (customers, students, family members and more).
• Communicate with hearing babies or toddlers before they can speak. This is a significant asset in the field of Early Childhood Education-- many Pre-K educational programs incorporate signing into their curriculum.
• Stand out in the job market! An ASL background is a significant advantage in fields like education (at all levels), business, healthcare, speech language pathology, psychology and social work.
• Reap the cognitive benefits of language-learning. Learning a new language is more than just memorizing one-to-one English translations, it's learning a different way of thinking which helps you become a more flexible and more creative problem-solver.

Please note that ASL does not currently fulfill the language requirement. Language requirement information can be found on the UD Course Catalog.

​Did you know that in addition to our language courses in 12 diff​​erent modern languages (14 counting Ancient Greek and Latin!), the DLLC also offers courses focused on different cultures, regions and topics that are taught entirely in English? If you love studying different cultures but don't speak all the languages and still have remaining college breadth requirements to meet, consider course titles beginning with LLCU. These classes no pre-requisites and typically fulfill college breadths! You can find the complete list of LLCU courses available this Spring and here's one of this semester's LLCU course highlights:​

LLCU 335 Tales of Love and Darkness: Israel in Jewish and Arab-Israeli Fiction (3 credits)

Cross listed with JWST 335
Professor: Dr. Eynat Gutman​

While a version of this course has been offered before, this semester's class has a brand-new title and focus! Instead of reading Israeli literature from a historical perspective like in previous semesters, the emphasis is now on literary and thematic analysis, a more natural fit for the course considering the critically acclaimed authors studied. Discover the works of prolific writers such as the world-renowned Amos Oz in all their artistic and aesthetic value, learn about the intriguing case of Arab citizens of a Jewish state writing about identity, and how they see themselves compared to their Jewish counterparts.

Through analysis of leading literary works from Israel like those listed below, this course will explore the experience of the Israeli Kibbutz (communal living) during its initial decades when fervent ideals clashed with reality (Between Friends); Arab-Israeli citizens' perspectives on citizenship in a Jewish state (Second Person Singular); and inter-generational conflicts stemming from divergent religious beliefs and the trauma of the Holocaust (Stories from Apples from the Desert).

The course is discussion-intensive— be ready to share your insights and questions! ​​

If you're looking for advanced-level language courses, the DLLC offers:

• Introductory courses in Korean and ASL
• Upper-level courses in Portuguese, Hebrew, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Latin and Ancient Greek 
• Our most extensive language course offerings are in Spanish (view all our Spring Spanish courses) and we're excited to expand our upper level Spanish courses to include a new service learning option:

SPAN318: Spanish Service Learning: El bilingüismo en los EE.UU. (3 credits)

Professor: Dr. Meghan Dabkowski

Looking for opportunities to use your Spanish outside of the UD classroom and ways to engage in ongoing service partnerships with the Hispanic community?

Gain hands-on practical experience in a local Spanish immersion language program as you consider larger questions like the place of the Spanish language in the U.S. social sphere, the role language plays in Latinx identity in the United States and challenges in maintaining Spanish/English bilingualism! Although the course has a language focus, students will also be introduced to skills and issues relevant to their particular service assignment. If you're interested in using Spanish in education, psychology, social work, counseling or sociology, this course is for you! In Professor Dabkowski's own words:

¿Cómo son los programas educativos de inmersión en DE y en los EE UU, particularmente los del español? ¿Cuáles son sus beneficios y sus críticas? ¿Qué posición tiene el español en el ámbito social estadounidense? ¿Cuál es la relación entre la lengua y la identidad para lxs Latinxs de los EE.UU.? ¿Qué retos enfrentan los hispanohablantes a la hora de mantener el bilingüismo? This course will discuss the questions listed above as well as prepare you to apply what we learn in a field placement in a K-5 Spanish immersion classroom at Marbrook Elementary School in Wilmington. The course will be primarily taught in Spanish, with occasional texts and videos in English and meets the Discovery Learning requirement.