Gene A. Budig: Americans must learn to speak bilingually – Opinion – The Charleston Gazette – West Virginia News and Sports –.

Good article on the reasons for learning a foreign language.

WORLD

Shanghai Is Trying to Untangle the Mangled English of Chinglish

By ANDREW JACOBS

Published: May 2, 2010

A commission is trying to clean up signs and menus to rid them of their malapropisms, like “Teliot” and “Urine District.”

Welcome to the Summer Arabic & Persian Language Institute
at Georgetown University!

http://summerschool.georgetown.edu/index.cfm

2010 SUMMER SESSION DATES
PRE SESSION: MAY 24 – JUNE 18
1ST SESSION: JUNE 7 – JULY 9
2ND SESSION: JULY 12 – AUGUST 13

The Language Institute offers students the opportunity to acquire or master skills in reading, writing, listening, and speaking in Arabic and Persian. Language instruction is proficiency-oriented and imparts cultural experiences and knowledge. The materials used are broad-based and help students develop skills for communication. Students learn how to accomplish language tasks in formal and informal situations. Assessments reflect the model of an educated native speaker as well as proficiency (American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Language: ACTFL) guidelines.

Classes are small and students benefit from individual attention inside and outside the classroom. Experienced, dedicated, and diverse faculty use current techniques and incorporate technology-based instruction. The summer program provides real-time and on demand access to current media resources and the latest in classroom language learning technology. The Language Institute offers its students a gateway to an exceptional academic community at Georgetown University, a range of summeractivities in the Summer School, and state-of-the-art language opportunities.

Arabic: A comprehensive undergraduate program of intensive and non-intensive learning in Modern Standard Arabic will last ten weeks, with courses in basic, intermediate advanced as well as media Arabic. In the Pre-session, Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language will be offered which is open to both graduate and undergraduate students.

Content Arabic: Advanced Arabic language courses for advanced high learners are taught entirely in Arabic.. They offer undergraduate and graduate students essential subject matter learning (linguistic, cultural and political) while building their language proficiency. Courses include Arab Politics in the Middle East.

Colloquial Arabic: Undergraduate courses in spoken Egyptian, Iraqi, and Levantine Arabic will be offered with continuation in the Second Session. These courses are not open to native speakers of Arabic, heritage speakers of Arabic, or students who have completed three years or more of Arabic at Georgetown.

Persian: In cooperation with the Division of Eastern Mediterranean Languages, three Persian courses are offered at the undergraduate level. Intensive First Level Persian and Intensive Second Level Persian as well as non-intensive First Level will be offered both sessions.

Partial Tuition Scholarships
Non-Georgetown students accepted into this Language Institute are eligible to apply for a partial tuition scholarship offered by Georgetown University (Please see Financial Information). For further information and special application forms, please contact the Scholarship Coordinator, SummerSchool Georgetown University, 3307 M. Street, N.W., Suite #202, Washington, D.C. 20007. Tel: (202) 687-8700.

For questions, please contact Meriem Tikue at mmt43@georgetown.edu
or the Arabic Department at arabic.georgetown.edu.

Arabic Department Phone:  202-687-2735
Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies website

Lauren Johnson, an International Studies major now in ACU’s Study Abroad program, started writing a blog, Tráigame Uruguay, about her experiences in Montevideo.  The Costa Mesa, CA, newspaper wrote an article about how Lauren’s blog is helping her former teacher, Christine Navakovich, Spanish teacher at Mariners Christian School, teach second-graders Spanish and learn about Latin American culture.  The American Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) with nearly 7,000+ members nation-wide, highlighted the story in this month’s brief.

So,…

Over seven thousand foreign language educators across the United States have seen how an ACU student is using mobile technology while at ACU’s Montevideo program to connect Montevideo with her home town of Costa Mesa, CA.

Read all about it:  Daily Pilot – Serving Newport Beach & Costa Mesa, California.

If you want the most up to date information on contemporary French words (a French dictionary/ not a French English dictionary) you should go to “Trésors de la  Langue française” at : http://atilf.atilf.fr/tlf.htm
This is the most complete French dictionary in existence and is sponsored by the “Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique”
Yann Opsitch

The Department of Foreign Languages will offer the following advanced courses. During the Summer 2010:

• FLFR 388 Advanced French Conversation

During the Fall 2010:

• FLSP 352 Peninsular Spanish Culture
• FLSP 440 ST: Medieval to Golden Age Lit
• FLSP 480 Hispanic Drama
• INTS 301 Language and Culture

Click on the links for more information.  We hope to see you in class next summer or fall!

Registration is right around the corner!  If you are interested in studying one of the languages below, simply click on the Dialektos introduction page, read up on the Dialektos methodology (it’s not like an ordinary language class), and fill in the application to request entrance into the program.  Next fall, we will offer beginning and intermediate tracks in:

• Arabic
• Japanese
• Mandarin (Chinese)
• Portuguese
• Russian

Read all about it and sign up today!

Are you a native speaker of one of the languages above?  Would you like to meet people interested in you and your culture?  Would you like to help English-speaking students learn your language?  If so, we want to hear from you.  Find out more about becoming a Native Conversation Partner here.

Have you ever wondered about using translation machines for your foreign language classes?  You’d better know what you’re doing (grammatically speaking)!

While these are certainly useful tools for helping you understand a website or a page written in another language, they are not able to produce something you would want to turn in.  As the examples from the New York Times article show, it will certainly be easy for your instructors to differentiate between original work and a machine translation.  See the article at:

Putting Google to the Test in Translations.

Each year, the Embassy of Spain recruits up to 1,200 junior and senior university students to participate in their nine month “Cultural Ambassador” program.  In exchange for sharing your knowledge of the English language and American culture for 12-16 hours in a K-12 classroom environment (under the supervision of a teacher), they pay a monthly stipend (approximately €700) and provide full medical insurance.  Among other things, it is a great opportunity to further your skills in Spanish, and travel a bit through Spain and the rest of Europe.

For further information and application, visit their website here.