Are you getting ready to study abroad, or have you just returned? To feed your nostalgia or your anticipation, tune into satellite programming from Japan, France, China, or Spain, or catch EuroNews in your residence hall lounge. Note  . . .the res hall lounges! These channels are available in lounges and classrooms only: 84-94.  For a complete listing of the channel offerings and the daily schedule, go to www.zap2it.com.

When you're out on campus, the Language Resource Center in Meier Hall or the Study Lounge in room 144 is a good place for viewing, according to Carol Goss, the Center director. In addition to international publications on hand, Meier 144 has a subscription to an 18-channel Chinese language package. "The Chinese graduate students frequently drop in to watch the programming during the day, as do students of other languages," Goss notes. Kade-Dusenberg house is a good place to watch German programming—you may find Isa Hernandez Janicsek, the German RA, already tuned in.

According to IT's Mike Schwinn, contracts related to the foreign language channels limit their use to lounge locations in the res halls. He provides more help with accessing the channels: If the up/down selector does not allow access to the higher numbers, enter the number itself. Though Schwinn has visited all the lounges to resolve the access issue, he suggests going to the menu settings on the TV to do a channel search. Notify the Help Desk if your lounge TV can not access these channels after this adjustment.

The international language channels are popular for class instruction. French classes have played along with recorded game shows in Randa Duvick's classes. She says, "I also recorded the newscasts from several French-speaking countries. We used them as comprehension exercises, as cultural information (labor relations in Switzerland, for instance), and as ways of seeing how current events are viewed from a different point of view." Even cooking shows are useful as they reveal purchasing practices different from ours. TV5 Monde has been a requirement in Goss' French classes as well. Rachael Parroquin finds the Spanish language programming useful  for cultural/listening homework in her "Spanish for Service Professionals" course. 

Faculty can find details about the international channels on the Language Resource Center website. Faculty can link to an on-line form for placing a recording request should they need a program for use in a specific class.