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All students in the Department of International Relations are required to demonstrate graduate level reading proficiency in a foreign language prior to completion of the degree program. Graduate level proficiency is the ability accurately to understand newspaper and professional journal articles in the field of foreign relations, using standard reference materials. Exam DetailsThe foreign language exam is for students currently registered in a Master's degree program in the Department of International Relations only. The exam is administered twice each semester as indicated on the Graduate Student calendar. Normally, the exam is offered each year in September, November, February, and March. Students receive notification of the results of their exams by email within one month of the exam date; the exams are not returned to the students. All grades are pass/fail. The exam may be repeated as many times as necessary. All students must pass this exam in order to graduate from the International Relations Department. The results of the exam(s) remain in the department and are only forwarded to the GRS Records Office when the student passes. Skill ExpectationsFor the exam, students are given a text in their target language and are permitted 90 minutes to provide a translation of the text into English. In most cases, the text will be a current newspaper or academic journal article relevant to international affairs. For exams on Western European languages, such as German and French, students are normally provided with about two pages of text and should be able to translate most of the text into English. In the case of languages more distant from English, such as Chinese or Arabic, the length of the exam will be shorter. Students are not expected to be at the level of a professional translator. Rather, they are to translate the text into proper English with only minor errors. A non-native speaker of the language ought to be able to read the translation and understand the original text with no major errors. While students are expected to translate the majority (roughly 75%) of their text into English, it is not necessary to translate the entire document (unless the document is particularly brief, in which case a student should be able to translate the entire text). It is necessary that students' translations demonstrate that they understood well the material they were translating. Students' translated text should make good sense (i.e., students' should not simply transliterate the text word for word into English) and should enable someone who reads the translation to understand well what the foreign language text says. Students are permitted to bring with them to the exam one dictionary, which can either be a monolingual or a foreign language/English language dictionary. No grammar books, verb conjugation guides, special terminology, phrase dictionaries or the like are permitted. Graduate Reading Knowledge ClassesA student may also fulfill the foreign language requirement through successful completion of any of the Graduate Reading Knowledge courses offered by the Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures (MFLL) Department. These are zero credit pass/fail classes open to any student in the Graduate of Arts and Sciences (students in a dual-degree program with the International Relations Department are eligible to take these classes). Currently, MFLL offers the following Graduate Reading Knowledge Classes: GRS LF 621 (French), GRS LG 621 (German), GRS LI 621 (Italian), GRS LP 621 (Portuguese), GRS LR 621 (Russian), and GRS LS 621 (Spanish). The MFLL Department offers these courses as faculty resources permit. Not all courses are offered every year; the Russian course in particular is only offered on an occasional basis. These courses do not add any additional tuition cost. However, a student must be paying some amount of tuition, either for classes or as a continuing student, for the semester in which the reading knowledge class is taken. Thus, Graduate Reading Knowledge classes cannot be taken during a semester in which a student is on a Leave of Absence or is for some other reason is not being assessed tuition. Language Links ProgramThe Educational Resource Center at BU organizes informal language study groups for a variety of languages through its Language Links program. Language Links are open to any BU student. Information on this program can be found here. Non-Native English SpeakersIn the case of non-native English speakers who were required to submit a TOEFL score report as part of their application for admission, knowledge of English fulfills the foreign language requirement. These students are not required to take the departmental foreign language exam. The next language exam will be held on Tuesday, September 2.
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| July 21, 2008 |