School has a global campus

Program: Howard Community College's partnership with a Mexican university links language, real content for students.

Hannah Myers learned Spanish very quickly last semester as a Howard Community College student.

When you are living in the home of a family in Cuernavaca, Mexico, as part of a semester-long exchange program, she said, "You don't have another option."

This is the second year for HCC's exchange program, and participants are enthusiastic. Few community colleges offer opportunities to live and study language intensively in other countries.

Myers, 19, and Bryan Steel, 22, recently returned to HCC after three months at the Universidad Internacional in Mexico.

Meanwhile, a Mexican student, Arturo Kadhier Garcia, 22, of Cuernavaca, is at HCC working on his degree in business administration, improving his English and tutoring students.

By having people live in Mexico as full-time students, taking language classes and studying other topics (such as English, art or business), the college hopes to mesh language study with real content, said Cheryl Berman, HCC's director of foreign languages.

"You have made learning [the language] real and really important," Berman said.

A full-semester exchange, like the one at HCC, "is not generally a standard feature" of two-year schools, said Rosemary G. Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association. Study-abroad options are much more common at four-year schools.

"The earlier a student can spend a significant amount of time abroad, the quicker he or she will gain competence," she said.

And, she added, the students will have more time to build on what they learned.

"You are just so much further ahead of the curve once you've had that study-abroad experience," she said.

Myers took Spanish in high school and at HCC, but she was not fluent. "I honestly went down there with a basic knowledge of Spanish and learned very, very quickly," she said.

She got a lot of practice when she went to a rural village in Mexico to meet the family of her boyfriend. She saw people engaging in traditional agriculture and cooking and was quizzed on her Spanish by the children of the family.

"It was one of the best experiences," she said.

Community colleges face challenges in developing foreign study programs. Many community college students are working adults who would find it difficult to fit time abroad into their program, said Mary Hilton, administrator of the Maryland International Education Association.

Financial resources also might be a concern. Plus, she said, exchange programs take time and effort to develop and usually require a full-time staff member to be successful.

Berman is aware of these issues. She helps each student arrange a course of study that will allow them to obtain credits toward graduation.

Tuition and room and board are covered for exchange students traveling to Mexico and for students coming to HCC. Participants pay for airfare and incidental expenses.

"You really have to be flexible, willing to roll up your sleeves and really dive in," Berman said. "You have to remember the students have something unbelievably positive to gain from this."

Opportunities for international study are growing at community colleges, Hilton said, in part because they educate significant numbers of international students.

Short trips

Many colleges offer short trips during school breaks and often focus on learning about another culture or studying a particular professional area rather than learning the language.

Community College of Baltimore County offers a number of short trips: Students can learn about nursing programs at the school's sister college in the Netherlands, look at law-enforcement techniques in England and teach in Belize, for example.

Montgomery College also offers numerous trips - up to two weeks - to locations all over the world. Through a consortium of colleges and universities, students also can study abroad for a semester or a year at a college center in one of 27 countries. The participants are full-time students; most of their classes are taught in English.

HCC offers short programs in France, Italy and Russia.

In partnership with the Mexican university, the college is approaching its fifth year offering a three-week language and culture study trip for students and community members.

The trip costs $1,950 and participants spend six hours each weekday in Spanish classes, with the rest of the time for trips and events.

"It really is going to school," said Alice P. Clark, a Howard County District Court judge who went on the trip. During the experience, she and Elizabeth Osterman, a Howard County public defender, were able to spend some of their time learning Spanish specifically for court situations.

`Close to fluent'

"I must say it was certainly worthwhile," Clark said. For the students who studied language in Mexico, four months seemed like hardly enough.

"With six more months, I'd be pretty close to fluent," Steel said.