Language and Culture Program
Language and Culture Learning for a Borderless Future
With people, information, and capital crossing borders more freely than ever, the ability to engage in different cultures, to connect knowledge across different societies, and to understand and form connections with a variety of people globally has never been more important.
Our Language and Culture Program, with its dynamic coursework and co-curricular activities develop both linguistic proficiency and cultural flexibility, providing students with the skills needed to meet the demands of a rapidly changing global workforce.
In alignment with Soka University’s mission, to foster the development of linguistic proficiency and cultural awareness necessary for well-educated global citizens, our program plays a vital role in Soka University’s undergraduate curriculum to prepare students for their immersive, semester-long study abroad that solidifies language skills and deepens intercultural awareness necessary to become well-educated global citizens.
Program Structure
All undergraduates must complete at least four language courses, ensuring sustained and intensive engagement with their chosen target language and culture.
Our program offers a wide range of courses: foundational language instruction, which focuses on everyday communication use through practical vocabulary, interactive grammar, and hands-on activities; beginner courses which strengthen linguistic competency through cultural content, and advanced courses which explore topics such as global issues, visual arts, creative writing, history, literature, and media studies in the target language.
With small class sizes and dedicated faculty, we emphasize personalized learning, active participation, and individualized support.
The Language and Culture Program collaborates closely with the Study Abroad and International Internships Office to prepare students for their required semester-long study abroad that takes place in their junior year.
Upper-division courses are available for students with sufficient background in the target language and those returning from Study Abroad.
Explore Our Offerings
The Study Abroad Experience
The rigorous requirement for language study and the integrated study abroad experience are essential to SUA’s mission of global learning—cultivating the ability to make and understand connections across the world’s diverse communities. The four languages offered—French, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese—are among the most widely spoken worldwide, and when combined with English, give SUA students access to much of the world’s population. But learning a foreign language is also a journey inward: as Montaigne once wrote, exposure to other cultures allows us to judge our own more wisely. At SUA, we work to ensure that language learning and study abroad deepen not only intercultural understanding but also students’ reflections on their own cultural values, forming a foundation for global citizenship. Learn more about study abroad by visiting their webpage.
“Mixing with people is wonderfully appropriate. So are visits to foreign lands [to learn] of the humors of those peoples and of their manners, and [to knock] off our corners by rubbing our brains against other people’s.”
Montaigne, “On educating children” (I, 26)
Academic Success & Career
Graduates apply their linguistic and cultural expertise to pursue careers in a range of fields, including international relations, education, business, law, and healthcare, service industry, language services, or to work abroad. Take courses at Soka that count toward or prepare you to earn master’s degrees at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
SUA has partnered with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey to provide Soka students with the opportunity to gain accelerated entry admission to its master’s degree program and scholarships. This significant alliance will benefit undergraduates interested in pursuing an advanced degree in international relations. The institute offers master’s degrees in International Policy and Development, MPA in Social Change, Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies, International Education Management, International Environmental Policy, International Trade Translation, Interpretation Translation and Localization Management, TESOL and Teaching Foreign Language.
The Middlebury Institute offers regular Webinars such as Career-Boosting Tips for Language Students in the Age of AI or Diplomatic Interpretation, a high-stakes profession where accurately conveying proposals, demands, negotiations, and rhetoric requires not just linguistic prowess, but a strong grasp of political and cultural nuances. Join Spanish and French interpretation alumni for their invaluable advice in this demanding industry.
Examples of the careers The Middlebury Institute students pursue:
Language and Culture Faculty
The Language and Culture Program faculty come from a variety of academic backgrounds, including anthropology, film studies, linguistics, and literature. Though they may approach the subject and courses differently, the goals of our faculty is to build intercultural communicative competence through a variety of pedagogical methods.
Program Director
Language and Culture News
Support Services
To enhance language acquisition, our Language and Culture Program offers:
Tutoring
Mandatory for students in introductory-level language courses and provided by multilingual Soka student employees to encourage casual conversation in target languages as well as to provide grammatical support.
Language Testing
At Soka, we administer language tests for first-year students to determine appropriate course placement and, for all students, to assess language proficiency before and after their study abroad experience.