EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan State University is participating in a cross-university collaboration that will bring international news closer to home.
MSU has subscribed to SCOLA, a nonprofit educational organization that receives and retransmits native language television programming from around the globe.
A subscription to the program allows schools, cable systems and others to broadcast SCOLA content for current news, language study and cultural enhancement.
“SCOLA offers programming in every one of the over 40 languages that MSU students are learning,” said Dennie Hoopingarner, director of the Language Learning Center at MSU. “For some languages, like Kazakh, there are no textbooks or materials to help students learn the language.”
The collaboration with WKAR-TV, the Virtual University and the Language Learning Center is another of the university’s efforts to promote international engagement.
“Access to foreign language television plays an important role in the cocurricular support for language learning at MSU,” said Karin A. Wurst, dean of the College of Arts and Letters. “Not only does it help instructors stay up-to date themselves as they prepare classes and assignments, it also enlivens the classroom with engaging multimedia content. It’s appropriate that SCOLA is arriving on campus in 2008, which has been named the International Year of Languages by the United Nations.”
Libraries, Computing and Technology will fund the subscription cost to SCOLA for MSU, said David Gift, vice provost for LCT.
“With MSU being a global university and having a global focus, we wanted to provide the best international service possible for individuals on campus,” Gift said. “The program will benefit those native of a foreign country and also for people who are scholars studying foreign languages or cultures while attending MSU.”
WKAR-TV will broadcast SCOLA content on Channel 1 on the campus television network. The channel broadcasts news programming from more than 30 different countries on a rotating basis, 24 hours a day.
In addition to satellite broadcast, digital downloads of SCOLA programming will be available. The
Language Learning Center will stream the programming over the Internet, making the content
available to the university community.
The programs that are streamed will be select programs requested by language instructors and will consist of news programs, talk shows, documentaries and special features. The digital downloads can be viewed on computers, or downloaded to iPods or other devices for mobile access.
“The ability to study a foreign language is enhanced by news or cultural programming like that of which is offered by SCOLA,” Gift said. “You’re seeing how people in a foreign country are interpreting world events. All of those things help convey the culture as well as the language.”
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