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About Us

The Stanford Language Center oversees all language instruction at Stanford. The center's charge is to guarantee that Stanford language programs are of the highest quality; to develop and administer achievement and proficiency tests needed to implement the language requirement; to provide technical assistance and support to the graduate students, academic staff, and faculty who deliver Stanford's language instruction; and to take leadership in research and development efforts in language learning. The Language Center is a unit within the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages.

The Language Requirement

All Stanford undergraduate students are required to complete one year of college-level study or the equivalent in a foreign language. There is more than one way to meet this requirement. Read more about how to satisfy this requirement by clicking on Language Requirement here.

Students who have fulfilled the language requirement with official test scores or transfer credit and wish to pursue further study in the language must take the placement test to determine the most appropriate course for them.

Beyond the Language Requirement

Language acquisition courses at Stanford University are offered through the Stanford Language Center, while majors and minors in languages and literatures, including upper-division courses, are housed in the various departments of the Division of Literatures, Cultures and Languages (DLCL) and the department of East Asian Languages and Cultures (EALC). The Language Center offers more than 40 languages every year through the advanced level and has committed itself to imparting to students a level of language proficiency that enhances their academic programs and enables them to live, work, study, and research in another region of the world.

For all languages at Stanford, proficiency objectives in each of the skill areas have been established for one year of study. For the English-cognate languages (such as French, German, and Spanish), listening, speaking, reading, and writing objectives are set at the intermediate-mid level of the ACTFL-FSI scale [American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages-Foreign Service Institute]. In the non-cognate languages, the levels are set at novice high on the ACTFL-FSI scale. Students in each language program are assessed annually. Their performance data indicates that they do indeed meet these objectives after one year (30 weeks) of language instruction. Thus, the Stanford language programs meet a high national standard. In addition to these fundamental standards that all programs meet, individual programs may meet additional objectives that are particularly important or specially reflective of their program traditions and student interests.

Undergraduate Programs

There are a variety of opportunities to major or minor in foreign languages, literatures, and cultures at Stanford. Administration of such majors and minors is handled by the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages (DLCL), which combines five departments: Comparative Literature, French & Italian, German Studies, Iberian and Latin American Cultures, and Slavic Languages and Literatures and by the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures (EALC) for students who wish to engage with the cultures of China, Japan, Korea, and the greater East Asia region.

Graduate Programs

Graduate students from all departments and schools are welcome to enroll in language courses at Stanford. Information about available courses can be found in the "Programs" and "Languages" pages within this website. General and schedule information can be found in the Stanford Bulletin, Explore Courses, under School of Humanities and Sciences.

The Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages (DLCL) and Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures (EALC) offer several Ph.D. and M.A. programs, as well as co-terminal M.A.s for Stanford undergraduates and Ph.D. minors.

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Language Center
450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 30
Mail Code: 2015
Stanford, CA 94305

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