Intermediate Khmer and Advanced Filipino Language Courses Coming to UCLA This Fall
The Southeast Asian language courses will be teleconferenced to UCLA from U.C. Berkeley as part of a foreign language initiative and distance-learning partnership.

8/12/2009
By Seth Villanueva for the UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies
UCLA International Institute (Los Angeles, California, USA)

SEEKING TO expand UCLA’s diverse language offerings as well as enable current language learners to progress in their proficiency, the Centers for Southeast Asian Studies at UC Berkeley and UCLA have arranged for two Southeast Asian languages, Khmer and Filipino, to be studied at the intermediate and advanced levels, respectively, via simultaneous teleconferencing technology. Both classes will begin on Thursday, September 24, and will run from M-Th at 3-4 pm for Filipino and 4-5:30 pm for Khmer. They will meet on a compressed schedule only when both UCLA and UCB are in session.

Both languages will be taught live at UC Berkeley and teleconferenced to UCLA, thus making new material available. Khmer (the language of Cambodia) has never been taught before at UCLA, and Advanced Filipino, while taught in the past, is not otherwise available as a regular course in 2009-10. This is not the first time that SEA language courses have been successfully teleconferenced between UC campuses. Introductory Filipino language courses have previously been teleconferenced very successfully from UCLA to UC Irvine. In 2009-10, several other languages are also included in the Distance Learning program including several African, Slavic, and Scandinavian languages.