As one of our alumni likes to say, “Speaking another language opens doors.” It makes you a more competitive job candidate and dramatically expands your career options from the local to the global. Our mission is to help you achieve your personal and professional goals by giving you access to new linguistic, cultural, and intellectual options.

The Modern Languages Department offers students the global perspective increasingly required for success in today’s world. Our curriculum is designed to build intercultural literacy, critical thinking, social responsibility, and a sense of global citizenship through a combination of language study, critical cultural studies, social and historical contextualization, and linguistic and cultural immersion.

Our faculty have been trained at renowned institutions across the United States and other parts of the world, bringing a wide array of research and teaching interests to the classroom. Their work as scholars and educators has been recognized as keeping abreast with the most cutting-edge approaches in the study of world languages, cultures, and literatures.

Global Literacy

Students who take classes in modern languages, literature and culture have an advantage in the job market. This advantage is global literacy, a skill increasingly in demand by employers. Global literacy includes developing written and oral communication skills in other languages, knowledge and appreciation of various cultures, exposure to new technologies, and building critical thinking, social responsibility, and a sense of global citizenship.

Over 60 Language Courses

Students can take language courses to meet their Language or World Cultures and Global Issues requirements, or as general electives while pursuing their major. You can choose to major in Modern Languages, with specializations in French, Italian or Spanish or take courses in Arabic, American Sign Language (ASL), Portuguese and Chinese. Explore our Study Abroad programs, or complete our Certificate in Spanish Translation.

We offer courses for Heritage/Native Speakers, who learned a language through their families and communities but had no or little formal training. We also offer courses taught in English. These courses focus on film, literature and culture rather than the language itself.

Check the CUNY Global Class Search to see the many courses in French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Chinese and Sign Language we are offering.

We offer face-to-face classes, Zoom classes, hybrid classes, and asynchronous classes. Asynchronous classes have no meetings on campus or online–you work on your own and are required to complete assignments by due dates.

Fill out the language level assessment form so we can help you find the right level of a language course.

Outside the Classroom

Located in the heart of New York City, and with students from around the world, BMCC offers an ideal location to gain a broader perspective of world cultures. Here, you will have opportunities to expand your network by engaging with faculty and other students of different backgrounds through extracurricular activities, student clubs, symposiums, film festivals, literary and cultural events, study abroad, and more. Our world-class faculty members are ready to challenge and support you on your academic journey.

Our goal is for you to have an experience that builds and integrates a meaningful set of learning activities to prepare you for a successful and fulfilling personal, civic, and professional life.

We care deeply about student success, and value learning that extends beyond the classroom.

International Faculty

The Modern Languages Department at BMCC is a dynamic, strongly collegial, and student-supportive environment, constantly renewing itself. Our faculty (thirty full-time professors, five lab technicians, and over fifty part-time instructors) are also active scholars and writers, widely recognized for their publications, including national recognition in the form of awards, prizes, and/or fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the Mellon Foundation, and the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). They have also been visiting scholars at Harvard and at the University of Connecticut. Four of them are currently affiliated faculty members at the Graduate Center.

Our faculty constantly updates its pedagogy, keeping abreast with the latest trends to ensure student success, retention, and graduation. They often participate in seminars and workshops to revisit teaching strategies and philosophies, such as the Universal Design for Learning, DEI-informed and anti-racist pedagogies, Culture of Care, Open Education Resources (OER), Writing-Across-the-Curriculum, and Teaching Spanish for Heritage Speakers.

For more details on our faculty’s scholarly and teaching activity over the past two years, see the June 2020 MLA interview with BMCCs Modern Languages Department Faculty.

CONTACT

Modern Languages Department
199 Chambers Street, Room S-601
New York, NY 10007
lan@bmcc.cuny.edu

Name	Degree	Type	NYSED Code	HEGIS Code	CIP Code
Modern Languages	AA - Associate in Arts	Major	37472 - MLA-AA	5611.00	16.0101
Spanish Translation for the Health, Legal and Business Professions	CERTLT30 - Certificate	Major	40354 - STR-CERT	5611.00	16.0103

Department: World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures