Undergraduate
Portuguese Basic Language Program
The Portuguese Basic Language Program serves the College of Liberal Arts
and Sciences and the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese at
the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Each semester UIUC undergraduate
students take our basic language courses to fulfill the
three- or four-semester foreign language requirement for their general
education. Portuguese has also attracted many students who want to increase
their professional opportunities, and to improve their understanding of
this competitive, globalized world. Students whose Major is Spanish have
increasingly chosen Portuguese as their Minor, as they have become more
aware of the many advantages of mastering this language that is so important
for Latin American and International Studies. Moreover, a solid knowledge
of Portuguese has become necessary for many professionals because of the
growing Portuguese, Brazilian, and Cape-Verdean communities in US regions
such as New England, California, Florida, and Georgia, where it is used
daily in hospitals, schools, government agencies, banks, and the like.
The Portuguese basic language sequence consists of eight courses. All of them are designed to develop students' skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking, and to foster an appreciation of the rich culture of the Portuguese-speaking world. Our program follows a communicative, task-based approach, where students actively engage in activities that foster the exchange of real world information. Students of Portuguese at UIUC also acquire a solid grammatical foundation. Our instructors are either native or near-native speakers of Portuguese, and they have been constantly praised for their creativity, dedication, and enthusiasm in their classes. Students also take courses on Brazilian and Portuguese literatures, and on Brazilian cinema and culture, in general.