Rosetta Stone Classroom: Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) Stuttgart Invests in Language Learning For Social Science Students.

Challenge

As an institution specifically designed for students of social work, the ZIK offers language courses, diversity trainings and assists students in finding suitable placements in countries worldwide.

Ms Kupferschmidt said, “our students find developing a working relationship with their clients much easier if they speak the language and show interest in their clients’ culture. It helps to open doors that may otherwise have remained closed.”

Many students use their second year placement to gain international experience by travelling abroad to India, Africa or South America to participate in international social work projects.

In addition to existing traditional language tuition options, the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University, Stuttgart (DHBW Stuttgart) wished to offer an online language-learning solution. Ms Kupferschmidt explained:“The nature of our dual concept with regularly alternating theoretical and practical phases can be very demanding and intensive, leading many students to seek a more flexible language learning option than scheduled face-to-face tuition.”

“Learning a new language with Rosetta Stone means being able to chose study time and have free access wherever you are – this is a real value add for our students.” —Doris Kupferschmidt, Head of Centre for Intercultural Awareness and Languages (ZIK)

Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University: At a Glance

• As an institution specifically designed for students of social work.

Solution

A member of the DHBW Stuttgart attended an exhibition looking for Russian and Turkish learning programs. No workable solutions were immediately obvious until he came across Rosetta Stone, which offers 31 language choices, including less common options from Russian and Arabic to Swahili and Tagalog.

Students in eligible courses are given online access to the program for one year, with a renewal option at the end of this term, should they wish to continue their learning.

Results

Since 2008, over 280 students of the DHBW Stutttgart’s faculty of Social Work have signed up to learn a language with Rosetta Stone.

Proprietary speech recognition technology allows students to perfect their accent and pronunciation as modelled by native speaker, helping them to quickly achieve basic communication skills in the relevant language.

Administrators, as well as students, are pleased with the program to date, and have offered praise for the Rosetta Stone Manager tool, which allows them to track student progress, monitor areas where extra support may be needed and edit curriculums to focus on specific skills or activities.

Benjamin Lenatz, the administrator who manages the licence applications, said: “The layout of the Manager tool is extremely easy to understand and user-friendly, and administering the licence registration is simple.”

As well as offering foreign language solutions to the faculty’s students, the program offers support to the annual intake of Erasmus students, who come to study at the faculty of Social Work at DHBW Stuttgart with few or no German language skills.

Doris Kupferschmidt clarified: “We offer these students the opportunity to learn German as a foreign language online with Rosetta Stone, as an additional service from our side, so they can develop language skills even before they commence their studies at DHBW Stuttgart. We have had extremely positive feedback amongst our foreign students”.

“The use of Rosetta Stone in our faculty highlights our innovative approach to education, giving our students access to online language learning. The biggest value of the program is in the breadth of the languages offered, particularly less common options such as Tagalog and Swahili. We would never be able to fund and staff face-to-face tuition for these languages, so Rosetta Stone offers invaluable support to us in offering an exciting range of languages to our future social workers.” —Doris Kupferschmidt, Head of ZIK Centre, DHBW Stuttgart

About Rosetta Stone Ltd

Rosetta Stone is changing the way the world learns languages. Rosetta Stone offers a highly personalised, interactive platform that is acclaimed for its speed and power to unlock the natural language learning ability in everyone. Available in more than 30 languages, the Rosetta Stone language learning solution is used by schools, organisations and millions of individuals in over 150 countries throughout the world.

The company was founded in 1992 on the core beliefs that learning a language should be natural and instinctive, and that interactive technology can powerfully replicate the immersion experience and activate the natural language-learning ability in learners of any age.