Of the 16 foreign languages taught at Penn State this semester, only five offer tutoring in The Language Center, 7 Sparks Building.

Sessions are offered in Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese and Russian.

Donald Jackman, language coordinator at the center, said these languages were chosen because they are five of the six with the highest enrollment. The sixth is German. Undergraduate students assist their peers anywhere from one to five nights a week at the drop-in sessions.

The center had to adjust its budget in order to increase the number of Spanish sessions to 50 a week, Jackman said.

"Spanish has grown astronomically," he said.

Jackman said the Center has no plans to add tutoring for languages such as Chinese, Ukrainian or Arabic.

"We could, but we also rely on people coming forward to tutor. And a decision needs to be made whether we can afford it or not," he said. Stephanie Sorkin (freshman-communications) said she feels let down Hebrew is not offered at the tutoring session. "It's disappointing because it's an important and complex language," she said.

Last semester, students in Hebrew 003 tutored Sorkin, but she said they have not been available this semester.

Badis Guessaier (graduate-French civilization) teaches Arabic this semester, as he did last fall. When his students came to him for places to get extra help, he referred them to the Language Center. They soon discovered, however, that Arabic was not offered there.

Guessaier found out that in order for Penn State to make tutoring available, it needs to be able to have a "significant number" of students enrolled in the subject. He said students do not enroll in these languages because they do not know about the variety of languages offered, Guessaier said. "First of all, what needs to be done is to make more publicity about the languages," he said. Guessaier said he tells his students to accept that they do not have extra help, and that it is their responsibility to spend extra time learning the language.

"Ultimately it is the student's choice," he said.

Rhonda Mays (junior-international politics), who is taking Arabic, said if tutoring was offered, she thinks most people in her class would take advantage of it.

"I kind of understand because some of the programs are really small," Mays said. "But on the other hand, the programs that they don't offer it for tend to be some of the harder languages because they don't have Western alphabets."

Aaron Rosenberg (graduate-comparative literature) teaches Swahili. He said he would like to see tutoring for Swahili offered, but he understands why it is not.

"It would be better if students had access to other assistance, but it's unrealistic to ask that of Penn State," he said.

As an alternative to the Center, Jackman suggested visiting the comparative literature or classics departments, where private tutors leave their names.

He also said the Office of International Students and Scholars offers the Conversation Partners Program, where English-speaking students can talk to a native speaker of the language they are learning.