Tibetan Language Program

CU's Tibetan language program is the leading program in North America, but works in a very collaborative manner to bring together language instructors and textbook editors in the diaspora community—specifically with the goal of developing effective learning materials beyond the elementary level that address the needs of learners of Tibetan as a foreign language in higher education. Both CU’s Sonam Tsering and UW-M’s Jampa Khedup are active members of the North American Tibetan Language Program, which develops teaching materials based on the communicative approach for the North American Tibetan language training. In fact, CU’s role goes beyond teaching and developing materials solely for North America.

Columbia University is one of the strongest centers for modern (colloquial and literary) and classical Tibetan language. Because it is one of the few places in the North America where students can take three consecutive years of Tibetan modern language classes, we want to share the Tibetan language open access resources developed here with as wide an audience as possible. The Modern Tibetan Studies Program has substantial experience working with inter-university arrangements that allow New York University, the City University of New York, and, in the case of language courses, Yale and Cornell students to cross-register at no extra cost through the Language Resource Center. All Tibetan language courses are open to students in any of the Inter-University Doctoral Consortium (IUDC): Princeton University’s Graduate School, CUNY Graduate Center, Rutgers University, Fordham University’s GSAS, Stony Brook University, Graduate Faculty of the New School University, Teachers College, Columbia University and New York University’s GSAS.

Tibetan language courses at Columbia began before 1988 with courses in classical Tibetan language. Courses in modern Tibetan language were added in 2000 with the advent of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program, funded by the Luce Foundation. Enrollment in Tibetan language courses increased significantly in 2014 with the arrival of Mr. Sonam Tsering (who previously taught Tibetan in Paris and at the University of Michigan), as the Director of the Tibetan Language Program. Sonam Tsering has developed a three-year course in modern colloquial and literary Tibetan and currently teaches six courses per academic year. He earned a teaching award in 2019 for his dedication to his students and innovative teaching. For example, he has developed learner-centered curricula and teaching materials that incorporate multimedia instructional technology (including audio and video clips of Facebook and WeChat as well as real Tibetan televisions shows made available to students on YouTube) for interactive and collaborative language learning in the classroom. Meanwhile, the classical Tibetan language instructor, Dr. Sonam Tsering Ngulphu, has been teaching at Columbia since 2021, at first with support of WEAI and now with matching support from EALAC and the Khyentse Foundation. Enrollments in classical Tibetan have doubled since Columbia has been supporting a full time instructor in this position. Tibetan classes at Columbia are linked via high-definition video-conferencing with students at Cornell and Yale as part of Columbia’s Shared Course Initiative (SCI).

To support Tibetan language teaching, Columbia has hosted participants from the Department of Education at the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in India, who are directly involved in designing and developing Tibetan language textbooks and workbooks for North American Tibetan schools. Additionally, from 2022-4, Columbia organized three American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) workshops. Tibetan language instructors from the Tibetan Community Language School of Santa Fe, NM, the University of Chicago, and the University of Wisconsin participated and delivered presentations. The Tibetan Language Program at Columbia is the leader in Tibetan language training and textbook development and the first program to use ACFTL standards.

The Columbia-led team of Tibetan instructors is already working with Michigan State University’s Library and its Pressbooks’ Open Educational Resource (OER) is nearing completion of the first year Basic Tibetan textbook, which will be available for free online and for minimal cost ($8) to print. The current MSU OER grant will extend into next year to support the development of second year Intermediate Tibet.