In April, James Madison became the first college to partner with Rosetta Stone, an international company that creates instructional language software, to offer a for-credit course to the general public in which instruction is provided by the company's software.įor $679 and a $20 James Madison application fee – of which the college keeps $380 – anyone who has finished their sophomore year of high school gains access to a 16-week class designed to line up with the regular JMU curriculum. The university’s foreign language department chair is skeptical, arguing the software is best used as extra practice for students and not a course in itself. Of course, the people making these statements aren't Spanish professors – many language professors at the university don't like the idea, but weren't in a position to stop it.

Rosemary Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association and a Spanish professor, calls the idea “scandalous.”ĭavid McAlpine, president of the board of directors for the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), said teaching a Spanish class completely online threatens educational standards and leaves students floundering behind their peers in traditional courses.īut James Madison University officials say the academic demands in an online class they offer through Rosetta Stone are the same ones that students face in their Harrisonburg, Va., lecture halls. Depending on whom you ask, Rosetta Stone is either modernizing higher education or jeopardizing the quality of foreign language instruction by offering classes for transferrable college credit.

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