Policies Governing the Foreign Language Requirement

Students who believe that they have a documented disability that precludes learning a foreign language should contact the Student Disabilities Services Office (SDS). A member of their professional staff will explain the assessment procedure, which requires up-to-date neuropsychological testing.

If a student’s disability is verified by SDS, the student should meet with Dr. Niel McDowell in the College Office to confirm approval of the substitution and to select appropriate substitute courses. The number of courses each student will require will depend upon the number of foreign language classes he or she has completed before applying for the substitution. A full substitution will require four substitute courses. Substitution courses are selected as follows: the student must choose one geographical area in the world where English is not the primary language and take at least one course in cinema or literature in translation from that country or region. The remaining courses will focus on the culture or literature of that same geographical area. If the student has not taken any foreign language courses at Penn, she or he must also take one class in linguistics or anthropology of language. All classes for the language substitution must be approved in advance by Dr. McDowell.

Courses used as part of the Language Requirement substitution may not also be used to fulfill any major requirement, nor to fulfill any part of the Sector Requirement.

• In most cases, the Foreign Language Requirement is fulfilled by completing the fourth-semester course in the language sequence or by demonstrating equivalent competency through language placement.
• With the exception of the Foreign Language Requirement, none of these requirements may be satisfied with advanced placement credit (including A-Levels, I.B., and other similar credit based on external examination). In addition, credit awarded by departmental exam can also not be used to fulfill any Foundational Approach.
• The same course cannot be used to satisfy more than one Foundational Approach. However, courses taken to satisfy Foundational Approaches may also be used to satisfy the Sector and/or Major Requirement.
• Non-College courses approved for the Foundational Approaches are counted as College courses in calculating total credits needed for graduation.
• Courses taken to satisfy these requirements must be taken for a letter grade, not pass/fail.
• Each of the requirements that make up the Foundational Approaches is satisfied by taking a single course from a list of Requirement Courses, with the exception of the Foreign Language Requirement (which may require anywhere from 0 to 4 c.u. depending on the student's background in the given language).