Today: Oct 07, 2024

Living learning communities good for students

Sofia Rositani Reporter

The new living learning community at Neff Hall is the language speaking hall floor dedicated to those wanting to learn Spanish and be in a Spanish speaking environment. This hall has many different majors, so it is not just those who are majoring in Spanish, or of Spanish descent.

This is a great idea, because it is a way for those who are learning Spanish to immerse themselves into the language and culture.

LLC not only help with learning about cultures and becoming more diverse, but one can also live in certain communities that have their major. Sadly, not every major has a focused living learning community.

Southern should offer this in more languages than just Spanish. There are a range of languages being taught at Southern including, but not limited to, Arabic, Chinese, German and Italian. There should be living learning communities for them too.

Yes, there are options to study abroad, but many are unable to study abroad due to the price, or just fear of going to a different country.

Southern is a diverse university with diverse culture and worldwide students from places such as China, Spain and Italy. If the school decides to create a new LLC on campus, it will be easier for students coming from different countries to acclimate into society and a new country. Not only would they get to continue speaking their native language, but also would be able to learn English faster through immersion.

America is a very unique society because it is not one culture, but many. Multiple cultures also combine on campus, so not only can someone learn about another culture in classes, but can also learn from living in these environments and sharing the culture with another person of that origin.

Spanish has become one of the most spoken languages around the world; more people are learning and speaking Spanish than other languages, so it is no surprise that they decided to create a Spanish living learning community at Southern. However, as a multicultural society, we have become so invested in speaking Spanish, that trying to learn other languages that may also benefit them in the future have been put on the backburner.

Chinese, for example, has many uses and according to Babbel, a language magazine, “Numbers vary widely — Ethnologue puts the number of native speakers at 1.3 billion native speakers, roughly 917 million of whom speak Mandarin — but there is no doubt it is the most spoken language in the world,” with English being the second, Spanish the third, and Arabic fourth. There are more Chinese speakers in the world, so why just a Spanish LLC? Why not make more?

Hopefully Southern will have more language LLCs in the future for those who want to learn world languages.

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