Coursework

Course requirements depend on a student’s credentials when admitted. Students entering with a BA must complete 80 credits; students holding an MA degree in an appropriate field (see Admissions section) must complete 40 credits. All credits must be taken graded and at the graduate level (500-600), and a grade point average (GPA) of 3.00 or better must be maintained. Distribution of course requirements for the PhD is as follows:

  1. RL 636 Language teaching methods (4 credits)
  2. RL 620 Graduate Study in RL (4 credits)
  3. RL 623 RL Colloquium (4 credits)
  4. 4 courses in primary area (16 credits)
  5. 3 courses in secondary area (12 credits)
  6. RL 603 Dissertation (12-18 credits)

*Students typically will register for RL 601 or RL 605 during the terms that they are preparing for exams or writing their prospectus.

PhD students who are teaching take SPAN 609 1st year Pedagogy or SPAN 609 2nd year Pedagogy (2 credits), which requires weekly meetings with their teaching supervisor and provides training that prepares them further to teach their classes successfully.

Students entering the SPAN PhD program with a BA will need a total of 20 courses (80 credits) to complete their PhD requirements, and prepare in their primary and secondary fields:

  1. 3 courses (12 credits) of RL required courses (RL 636, 620, 623)
  2. 11 courses (44 credits) in the Romance Languages department. At least 9 courses must have a SPAN prefix; up to two courses may have an RL prefix when the written coursework is completed in Spanish.
  3. 3 courses (12 credits) outside the department in fields related to their research (i.e.: Linguistics, Philosophy, History, English, Anthropology, Ethnic Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Education Studies, Comparative Literature).
  4. 3 courses (12 credits) with the RL prefix (RL, ITAL, PORT or FR), or in other departments if the courses are related to their primary and secondary fields. (One of these courses may also satisfy the second language requirement).

Students entering the SPAN PhD with an MA will complete a total of 10 courses (40 credits), with their Primary and Secondary Field-satisfying courses drawn from any of the categories below:

  1. 3 graduate courses (12 credits) of RL required courses (RL 636, 620, 623)
  2. 4 graduate courses (16 credits) in the Romance Languages Department with SPAN prefix
  3. 3 graduate courses (12 credits) in Romance Languages, SPAN, FR, PORT, ITAL, or outside the department. (One of these courses may also satisfy the second language requirement).

*Students who have taken RL 608, RL 620, and RL 623 in the course of completing an MA in the Romance Languages department at UO will be considered to have met these requirements.

*Spanish 609 (2 credits) is a required course with the Teaching Language Supervisor for those graduate students who are teaching Spanish 101, 102, 103 (1st year) or Spanish 201, 202, 203 (2nd year), but it’s really not a required course to graduate.

Second-language requirement

In addition to Spanish, students must demonstrate proficiency in a second language that is relevant to their research interests and that will allow them to participate in additional academic discourse communities. This may be another Romance language taught in the department (French, Italian, or Portuguese) or another language relevant to their research (Latin, Arabic, or Ladino; Basque, Catalan, or Galician; Nahuatl, Quechua, or Yucatec Maya; Caló or Spanglish, etc.). Students will justify their choice of second language and how they will evidence competency in the annual review at the end of their first year.

Students can fulfill the second-language requirement in several ways, as follows:

  • Completing one graduate course or equivalent (4 graded credits) in a second Romance language: French, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese or RL-prefix course structured around readings in one of these languages.
  • Completing one graduate course or equivalent (4 graded credits) in an approved language outside the Romance Languages department.

Students will work with their adviser(s) to plan how they will satisfy their second language requirement and submit a petition to the Graduate Committee for approval.