Language Exams for College credit

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Delta, Feb 6, 2011.

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  1. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    Looking for organizations that offer language challenge exams for college credits.

    In addition, can a national of a foreign country that resides and attends school in the US and speaks English fluently receive credit for their native language or a language that is similar? For example, a Danish born person desires to challenge Danish, Norwegian and Swedish?
     
  2. mcjon77

    mcjon77 Member

    What school are you considering applying these credits to? There are multiple types of exams that are eligible for college credit. The trick is finding out which exams the school you are interested in will take.
    CLEP offers exams in French, Spanish, and German
    The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, through their commercial subsidiary Language Testing International, offers oral proficiency interviews in just about every language you can imagine. These tests are approved for credit by ACE. See here: ACTFL Article.

    I know that both Brigham Young University and New York University offer exams for a variety of different languages that count for credit with some schools.

    Usually, but not always, yes. I can think of two exceptions. One was a situation where the student spoke a language that was not taught, and could not be tested for, at the university she attended. The second was with my friend at Stanford. On your application you list all languages you spoke at home/are fluent in. For graduation you are required to take a different language. My friend is Mexican American, so she was not allowed to use Spanish to fulfill her language requirement, but Portuguese was fine.
     
  3. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    I think that there are GRE language subject tests that might be translated into college credits.
     
  4. Delta

    Delta Active Member


    Excelsior College or Thomas Edison State College.
     
  5. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    Interesting! I never thought of a GRE Language exam.
     
  6. mcjon77

    mcjon77 Member

    I know that Excelsior takes the NYU foreign language exams, and am almost certain they take the ACTFL exams, if you have the exam results placed on ACE transcripts. What language(s) do you want to test out of?
     
  7. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    Ohio State University has dozens of foreign language exams.

    Courses A-L
     
  8. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    Danish. If there is an exam that offers upper level credit, even better! Perhaps Swedish, Norwegian and German as well. May be able to earn some lower level credit in these languages with some luck?
     
  9. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    "The FLPE is administered to matriculated students enrolled in New York University's Graduate School of Arts and Science."
     
  10. ChiSquare

    ChiSquare New Member

    No, that is the wrong exam. There is proficiency exam for credit in 50 languages administered by NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies:
    Proficiency Testing - Foreign Languages | New York University - SCPS
     
  11. Delta

    Delta Active Member

  12. ChiSquare

    ChiSquare New Member

    It is interesting that there is only one forbidden combination of languages for earning the credit: Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian.
    Other pairs of exams in similar languages for credit are OK: Russian/Ukrainian, Hindi/Urdu, Indonesian/Malay, Danish/Norwegian etc.

    So any native speaker of these languages can take two exams and earn up to 32 credits.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 6, 2011
  13. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    I'm not familiar with the other language combinations, but I know from live experience that these two are the same thing. If there's any difference at all, it is much like the difference between American and Canadian English.
     
  14. ChiSquare

    ChiSquare New Member

    Hindi and Urdu are similar but use different script for writing, Devanagari or Persian-Arabic script.
     
  15. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    Another option is to obtain credit via portfolio - in this case you could document how or why you learned the langauge, what you use it for, and include writings (translate some extracts from very new publications such as newspaper artcles) and submit a CD of you having a conversation or talking.
     
  16. diplox

    diplox New Member

    Yeh you're right, my fiancée is Malaysian, and she told me they're almost identical except for a few words meaning a different thing, and also that each language has some difference in imported vocabulary due to who ruled over them. So Malay has English words in it because of British Colonialism, and Indonesian has Dutch words for the same reason.
     
  17. ChiSquare

    ChiSquare New Member

    I don't know if this is possible for all languages. For example, are there any portfolio evaluators for Danish, Bulgarian or Afrikaans in particular school?
     
  18. diplox

    diplox New Member

    True, it's probably only possible for the more common languages like French and Spanish, and then the school probably will just direct you to take a CLEP.
     
  19. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    I agree a portfolio is not worth doing for languages such as French, Spanish, or German since there are existing CLEP exams. But for more unusual languages my approach would be locate at least one course in that language from a USA RA college or university and use that as a departure point for a portfolio.

    For example here is a Columbia site
    Faculty of Arts and Sciences - Constituents
    Just looking I see courses in elementary Yidish, Sanskrit, Tamil, Wolof, and many more.

    You would need to document your knowledge of that language by people unrelated to you and preferably in a responsible position such as a diplomat, professor, and the like.

    Other documentation you might use includes passport, family tree, travel records (including any videos showing you using your language skills).

    Obtaining academic credit via portfolio, especially for languages, is not easy but if you don't try you wont earn credit.

    If portfolio credit was more economical I'm sure you would see a lot more dicussion of it (although many schools accept it - just google "academic portfolio credit").
     
  20. Delta

    Delta Active Member

    It looks like the Brigham Young University FLATS test is the way to go! It even has a selection to send the transcript to Excelsior College.

    Thanks for all the tips!

    http://flats.byu.edu/langlist.php?x=2
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 7, 2011

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