**INFORMATION FOR CURRENT STUDENTS - 2012 CHANGES TO LANGUAGE UNIT OFFERINGS**

Internationalise your professional qualifications and enhance your career prospects

by

Taking an elective, a major or a minor

in

Chinese, Japanese and Spanish

IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGES

The University of Canberra provides students with the opportunity to develop language skills and cultural competence in Chinese, Japanese or Spanish. The Australian government and business community continue to emphasise the crucial importance, in this age of internationalisation of the Australian economy, of language skills and particularly Asian languages. A language can add an international dimension to your degree, enhancing your career prospects and making your professional qualification more flexible and useful. Learning languages opens up new worlds to explore, and can be an important form of personal development.

Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the national language of Mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore, as well as a language widely used amongst Chinese communities elsewhere in Asia, Australasia, America and Europe. The importance of Chinese for Australians has long been emphasised by the Australian Government, making it one of the priority languages.

Japanese is the language of one of Australia’s major trading partners. Knowing Japanese will enhance employment opportunities in the hospitality and tourism industry and in other areas of trade and commerce, as well as in the teaching profession.

Spanish is the official language of 22 countries, spoken by over 400 million people throughout the world. It is becoming the second most widely spoken language in the world. With Spain's and Latin America's growing commercial and trading importance to Australia, there is a corresponding growth in employment for people with Spanish language skills.

 

Major/Minor structure
For each language you may take either an18 credit point major or a minor of 12 credit points. Students wanting to undertake a single unit should check with Language Conveners to ensure that they have appropriate pre-requisite levels.

How to apply
New students can apply directly through Student Administration as soon as they have accepted the offer for the undergraduate degree course they have applied for.

Exchange Programs
The University of Canberra has ties and exchange programs with a variety of academic institutions in countries where the target language is spoken. Whenever possible, students are encouraged to complete in-country study, particularly during the first semester of their third language studies year.

Course Convenor

Felicia Zhang (Chinese)

Dr Yuko Kinoshita (Japanese)

Dr José Antonio González (Spanish)

 

If you have any further enquiries, please don't hesitate to contact us. We are here to help you!