lingua franca - salem state...
TRANSCRIPT
nicating in another language, and learn to know another cul‐ture. Through such experiences, we will grow to understand our differences and commonalities. Sherf: What is your own foreign language study experience? Meservey: Unfortunately it is limited. I studied French in ele‐mentary school and Spanish in middle and high school. I found it very difficult to learn the lan‐guages but enjoyed the experi‐ence. I still find I am able to use both in limited capacity and have found this very helpful when trav‐eling in other parts of the world— and at home. Sherf: What is your language/cultural background? Meservey: My language is English and my cultural background is Irish‐American. I am second and third generation. My grandmother (maternal) came to the US from Ireland when she was a teenager. I enjoyed hearing her stories of her home and have since had the pleasure of traveling to Ireland myself.
Our relatively new Salem State College President, Dr. Patricia Maguire Meservey, feels strongly that all students should learn to study another language and that varied opportunities should be given for language offerings and study experiences. She gra‐ciously agreed to be interviewed on her thoughts related to lan‐guage study for this issue of Lin‐gua Franca. Sherf: How do you view the role of foreign language study at Sa‐lem State College? Meservey: Foreign language study is very important in so many different ways as we con‐tinue to find ourselves moving to a global society. I want the de‐partment to provide the leader‐ship to convey the importance of studying languages and cultures for all of our students. Sherf: What should the role of global studies be in the college? Meservey: Global studies can be imbedded in all majors in varying capacities. Again, we are experi‐encing the importance of the
global experience in so many ways ‐‐ most recently in the economic challenges of the world. We, as citizens of the world, need to un‐
derstand other cultures, and be able to communicate with people throughout the world. Sherf: Who do you think should study a foreign language? Meservey: Everyone. Everyone should develop a sense of commu‐
SSC PRESIDENT WEIGHS IN ON FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY INTERVIEW WITH DR. PATRICIA MAGUIRE MESERVEY BY DR. NICOLE SHERF
WHERE IN THE WORLD DO THEY SPEAK... FRENCH? IN THE CONGO, AFRICA! INTERVIEW WITH DR. DONATIEN M. CICURA BY DR. MICHELE C. DÁVILA
DID YOU KNOW? More than 2,000 languages are spoken in the entire continent of Africa.
The Cambodian alphabet is the world's largest alphabet, with 74 letters. The world's shortest alphabet, used in the Solomon Islands, has only 11.
Modern Japanese employs four writing systems: kanji (adapted from the Chinese hanji), hira‐gana, katakana, and romaji.
Linguists estimate that of the more than 6,000 languages currently spoken, only about 10% will remain viable by the end of the century.
I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E :
Department News: p. 2
Profession: 42nd MaFLA Conference
p. 34
Research: French Feminist Research
p. 4
Students: Alumni Profiles
p. 5
Study Abroad: Change Your Life
p. 6
Summer Study/Travel SSC in Florence
p. 7
Culture: Sephardic Jews
p.7
Words to the Wise: The Glamour of Grammar
p. 8
Ask The Linguist: The Story of H
p. 9
Colloquia: Latina Writers
p. 10
Travel & Politics: Challenging the Embargo
p. 11
Teaching Ideas: Email Pen Pals
p. 12
F a l l 2008
Vo l ume 6 , I s s u e 1
Dávila: Professor Cicura, how many languages do you speak? Cicura: I can speak up to six and I read nine. The ones I am fluent in are French, English, Italian, Swa‐hili, Lingala and Mashi. The others that I can read are Latin, Ancient Greek and German. Dávila: Which one is your family’s language? Cicura: That would be Mashi, but also Swahili. Dávila: How was your education in Congo and was it difficult to study? Cicura: Well, I was the first one in my family to study because I
(Continued on page 10)
The Philosophy Department has an Adjunct Professor from Democ‐ratic Republic of the Congo. His name is Donatien M. Cicura. Dr. Michele C. Dávila interviewed him for Lingua Franca.
Located in Central Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) has a population of 66,514,504. Kinsa‐sha is the capital. There are over 200 African ethnic groups of which the majority are Bantu; the four largest tribes ‐ Mongo, Luba, Kongo (all Bantu), and the Mang‐betu‐Azande (Hamitic) make up about 45% of the population. French is the official language, but many Congolese also speak Lingala (a lingua franca trade language), Kingwana (a dialect of Kiswahili or Swahili), Kikongo and Tshiluba. Established as a Belgian colony in 1908, the Re‐public of the Congo gained its independence in 1960.
L I N G U A F R A N C A A B I ‐ A N N U A L N EW S L E T T E R P U B L I S H E D B Y T H E FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT AT SALEM STATE COLLEGE WWW. SALEMSTATE . EDU/ LANGUAGES/ L INGUAFRANCA
Dr. Donatien M. Cicura, Philosophy
Dr. Patricia Maguire Meservey
¿ Q U É PA S A ? Q U O I D E N E U F ? DEPARTMENT N EWS ABOUNDS Curriculum changes
There has been a lot of develop‐ment of the curriculum in the Foreign Languages Department this year. In Spring 2009, Dr. Rocca will offer a new diversity course in French called "Readings from Francophone Africa and the Caribbean" (FRE 354). Drs. Rocca and Blood are also developing new upper‐level courses in French and Italian culture and literature for next year. In addition, the De‐partment is preparing propos‐als for "Travel‐Study" seminars in Spanish, French, and Italian, that will allow us to conduct courses in foreign countries where students will be able to study and practice speaking the language. In Spanish, new course proposals have been created by Dr. Dávila and Dr. Serra. Dr. Dávila's new course is a survey of US Latino/a Litera‐ture in Spanish and Dr. Serra’s is an upper‐level course on film from the Spanish‐speaking world. Dr. Sherf and Dr. Dávila also proposed a new course for the graduate school, SPN 700, which is an intensive advanced
grammar review. Also, this year, the Depart‐ment is conducting an evaluation of its programs and many students will be involved in taking online proficiency testing in or‐der to gage the outcomes of the various levels of foreign language instruc‐tion at Salem State. Honor Society
The Department recently voted to join the Phi Sigma Iota international honor society. More information about participation in the honor society will be avail‐able soon! Coming in Spring 2009
Look for our annual Inter‐national Photo Contest announcement to come out in early spring! Also, look for the HOPE award essay contest, which awards a cash prize to a student undertaking a humanitarian project.
New Faces in the Department
As we announced in the previ‐ous issue of LF, Dr. Michele Dávila Gonçalves has joined the full time, tenure‐track faculty and our second Hispano‐Americanist. Dr. Dávila can also teach Portuguese. Dr. Kenneth Reeds joined the full‐time faculty for the year, replacing Dr. Ana Echevarría‐Morales, who is on her second year of leave. Prof. Abdelwahab Ab‐delfattah is teaching our Arabic courses this year. He is from Egypt and he is also a composer of contemporary classical music (a member of that nation's third genera‐tion of classical compos‐ers). There were two new part‐time faculty in the fall, Prof. Joel Similien in French and Prof. Terri Gallo and Italian. Nate Gravel will be a new Spanish instructor in the Spring (for SPN204). For more information about our faculty, go to our faculty web page. Fieldtrip to Québec
In November 2008, Dr. Blood and Dr. Rocca accompanied a group of 11 stu‐dents from the FRE 362 Quebec Culture and Literature course that Dr. Blood offered this semester for the first time, on a fieldtrip to Québec City. The students explored the city's cultural and histori‐cal sites and tasted many Québécois delicacies.
Language Clubs
The Foreign Lan‐guages clubs organ‐ized their annual fall film series, with the French Club showing Le dîner de cons, the Italian Club offering La vita è bella and the
Spanish Club presenting Voces Inocentes. Thanks to all who attended. We hope to continue this tradition in the future!
Dr. Dávila, one of the Spanish Club advisors, started “La Ter‐tulia”, a Spanish table on Thurs‐day afternoons in the lobby of Meier Hall. This is an opportu‐nity for students to converse in Spanish in an informal setting.
The Spanish Club is looking for new leadership and increased member‐ship. Please contact Dr. Dávila or Dr. Aske.
The French Club will be fundraising with the Foreign Lan‐guages Department this winter for the
Heifer Project, a non‐profit inter‐national organization aimed at building sustainable communi‐ties in the developing world. We will be raising money to pur‐chase goats for families in need. Goats can produce up to four quarts of milk per day. Look for our fundraisers in early spring!
L I N G U A F R A N C A
FALL HONORS PROGRAM The following MAT in Spanish students are honorees of the Fall Graduate Honors Program. They have a GPA of at least 3.85 and are at least 18 credits into the program:
◊ Lilliam Duffy ◊ Scott Estes ◊ Mary Giordano ◊ Jennifer Gray ◊ Carolynne McCormick ◊ Gerda Pasquarello ◊ Karine Poulin ◊ Jessica Stryhalaleck ◊ Julie Wall ◊ Rebecca Wolf
P A G E 2
Prof. Abdelfattah
Un poema de amor que es canción desesperada
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes este día.
Escribir por ejemplo: Él no me llama y tiritan de rabia mis labios a lo lejos.
Acabada de palabras me niego a declararme extinta de presentimientos de palmas cocoteras de mi infancia que pueblan los augurios más lejanos de muertes solitarias en un llano de azucenas pálidas como aquella muerte saboreada en lo infinito de un duelo siamés olvidando los frutos del vedado arrebol que dejó mis mejillas mucho antes de que me quedara sin palabras de mover montañas a tu huerto aprisionado de recuerdos inútiles que te engañan por no ver como yo no te quiero y me voy antes de ti en tu víspera de muerte volátil de universos vacíos para poblarme de palabras cuando ahora encuentro mi extinción presunta de vanidades caldeadas sin esperanza de volver como un cometa derribado al silencio.
—By Michele C. Dávila Gonçalves
Poetry Corner
Students from Dr. Blood’s new course FRE362 Québec Culture and Literature visited Québec this fall
of a MaFLA Advocacy Action cal‐endar and lovely note cards both displaying MaFLA poster contest winners. Leading off Friday’s morning ses‐sions was Dr. Michele Dávila who presented with colleagues from Brookline High School and Fram‐ingham State College. Attendees were treated to a 75 minute pres‐entation on the use of film in the
classroom. Several Latin‐ Ameri‐can coming‐of‐age films and their potential impact in the classroom were discussed. Under the guidance of Dr. Fátima Serra, MAT in Spanish students Christina Berry, Gerda Pasqua‐rello and Annmarie Quezada fo‐cused on the incorporation of the culture strand from the state stan‐dards into the classroom. Topics included Immigration, Galicia, and the Spanish Renaissance. Dr. Serra was pleased at the support she found at her first MaFLA ex‐perience: “I cannot think of a better way to promote, increase and improve foreign language
Sturbridge—This past Hallow‐een weekend, approximately 800 educators traveled from around the state to attend the three‐day Massachusetts For‐eign Language Association (MaFLA) Conference. This year’s theme was titled “The Foreign Language Standards: Creating Life‐Long Learners.” According to Dr. Nicole Sherf,
Conference Chair, this number of attendees represents over 50% of MaFLA member‐ship. Given the current eco‐nomic climate, this number demonstrates the importance of Foreign Languages in the class‐room. Attendees were given a unique opportunity to choose from over twenty‐two featured, six‐hour and three‐hour workshops, and over eighty concurrent ses‐sions. Topics ranged from inno‐vative technology use in the classroom to creating engaging cultural activities. Between ses‐sions, the exhibit hall was open, offering a wide array of foreign
language teaching materials and information on global education. Of this year’s many participants, there was a strong contingent from Salem State College. With over 20 attendees and a total of 16 faculty and graduate student pre‐senters, the high value placed on this conference at the college is clear. Dr. Sherf commented that “the MaFLA Conference is the only
opportunity in the state for For‐eign Language educators to gather in such large numbers for profes‐sional development purposes. It was wonderful to see Salem State College participating so actively.” MAT in Spanish student, Scott Estes, served as the Advocacy Intern of the conference, writing the lead article for the MaFLA Newsletter about the conference and advertising conference atten‐dee participation in their local newspapers. The Advocacy Booth displayed this year’s photo and essay contest winners from stu‐dents across the state. Estes also coordinated the sale at the booth
SSC EDUCATORS LEARN IMPORTANCE OF “CREATING LIFELONG LEARNERS” AT 42ND ANNUAL MAFLA CONFERENCE BY SCOTT ESTES AND DR. NICOLE SHERF
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study than the MAFLA gathering.” Friday afternoon’s sessions in‐cluded a session directed by Dr. Kristine Doll. Presenters included Catherine Frost, Natalie DeLaria, Julie Wall, Carolynne McCormick and Margret Sears who shared their findings on research dealing with enrollment issues, challenges to foreign language methodology and strategies for creating life‐long learners in foreign languages. Saturday morning’s sessions in‐cluded one given by MAT in Span‐ish student James Donahue. The title of his presentation was “Creation and Innovation in the Foreign Language Classroom with Technology.” Donahue demon‐strated how to engage and moti‐vate students in the target lan‐guage by the use of online tools, PowerPoint and the language lab. Among the final sessions on Sat‐urday was one given by Chairper‐son of the Foreign Languages Dept., Dr. Elizabeth Blood and Italian Professor Dr. Anna Rocca who presented with a colleague from Simmons College. The talk focused on how to access the vast amount of online news resources and their incorporation in the classroom, aiding in the teaching of language and culture. Saturday’s events were concluded by a Business and Awards Lunch‐eon in which Carolynne McCor‐mick was presented with the Helen G. Agbay Scholarship and Lauren Izzicupo the ISE Language Matters Award. Dr. Nicole Sherf, Coordinator of the MAT Spanish program and 2008 MaFLA Confer‐ence Chair gave a warm welcome
and introduction to those in atten‐dance. The overall success of the conference is due, in large meas‐ure, to the effort of Dr. Sherf who spent countless hours organizing and gathering the many fine speakers from across the country. Dr. Sherf has now been elected to the role of MaFLA President.
Standing in front of the 2008 Student Foreign Language Poster Contest winning entries from left to right are Salem State College faculty and students Scott Estes, Christina Berry, Natalie Delaria, Dr. Nicole Sherf, Carolynne McCormick, Dr. Kristine Doll, Julie Wall, Dr. Michele Dávila and Nancy Mirra. Faculty presenters not pictured: Dr. Elizabeth Blood
(Chairperson), Dr. Fátima Serra and Dr. Anna Rocca.
L I N G U A F R A N C A P A G E 4
FIRST MAFLA EXPERIENCE BY DR. FÁTIMA SERRA Being a Spanish professor, I have attended mostly confer‐ences on literatures and lan‐guages and the occasional gath‐ering on language teaching and pedagogical issues. Although I was very familiar with the MaFLA Conference taking place every year at Sturbridge, I had never attended it. I always associated it with an emphasis on K‐12 foreign language education. Due to the enthusiasm and profes‐sionalism of some of my students and the impetus from our Graduate Program Co‐ordinator and 2008 MaFLA Conference Di‐rector, Nicole Sherf, I decided to participate at the MaFLA Conference. Together with Christina Berry, Gerda Pasquarello and Ann Marie Quezada, Spanish teachers in Massachusetts and participants of the MAT program, we organ‐ized a Panel on the Teaching of Culture in the Language Class. The MAT students presented an expansion on their final pro‐jects of their Seminar on the Cultures of Spain. Most of all, what I loved was the diversity
of the public: seasoned high school teachers, new teachers, graduate students, college pro‐fessors. Our panelists, all graduate stu‐
dents, presented very profes‐sionally and the public wel‐comed them warmly, adding some tips to their suggestions and raising good informative questions. Young teachers were eager to collect their activity package and some had inquiries about SSC Graduate Program. What a wonderful experience! The MaFLA conference provided a space for educators at all lev‐els to really communicate and interact. We often complain in all disciplines that there is not a
connection between what hap‐pens in the high school and what happens in college, per‐haps more so in the foreign languages classes. Of course, we all analyze the trends in lan‐
guage study, we track the budget cuts and standardized tests at the K‐12 level and we ad‐minister placement tests to our incoming students to see the new level they are at. But the dialogue, informal discussions and human interaction at a conference are as valu‐able as the studies and data gathering. The MaFLA Conference was a great experience person‐ally for me, to see first‐hand what other K‐16
professionals were doing and was great for the graduate stu‐dents to feel included in the professional circle. I cannot think of a better way to pro‐mote, increase and improve foreign language study than the MaFLA gathering. After all, we are the ones who will design a cohesive K‐16 study plan and the ones who will infuse the enthusiasm in our students. In sum, we need each other’s sup‐port.
Christina Berry, Fátima Serra, Gerda Pasquarello and Ann Marie Quezada
FACULTY PRESENTATIONS AT MaFLA
Dr. Fátima Serra with her students Christina Berry, Annmarie Quezada and Gerda Pasquarello presented “La enseñanza de la cultura en la clase de lengua.” Dr. Kristine Doll with her students Jes‐sica Celano, Catherine Frost, Julie Wall, Carolynne McCormick, Margaret Sears and Natalie Dellaria presented “Investigación activa/aplicación práctica en el salón de clase.” Dr. Elizabeth Blood and Dr. Anna Rocca presented “Using Online News Re‐sources to Teach Language and Culture.” Dr. Michele C. Dávila participated in the panel “Crecer de golpe: el cine de formación en Latinoamérica” and presented “El Bildungfilme de Brasil.” OTHER FACULTY PRESENTATIONS
Dr. Nicole Sherf, MAT in Spanish Pro‐gram Coordinator, was the Faculty Speaker for the Graduate Honors Pro‐gram this year. She also coordinated as the Conference Chair the 42nd Fall An‐nual Conference of MaFLA at Sturbridge, MA, titled “The Foreign Language Stan‐dards: Creating Life‐Long Learners.” Dr. Anna Rocca participated in the Fifth Francophone Conference of Feminist Research at the University Mohammed V Agdal Rabat, Morocco on October 21‐25 with the presentation: “Solidarité: Créativité et Stratégies Plurielles d’Écoute” in the panel: “Le féminisme au service de quell développement?” She also published: “Assia Djebar’s La femme sans sépulture: Anxiety and Testi‐monial Writing,” in Women in French Studies, Volume 16, 2008. Dr. Kristine Doll was keynote speaker at “Les complexitats de la traducció,” at the Setmana Cultural Illes Balears, Mallorca, Spain. Via video conference, June 19, 2008. Conference sponsored by Obra Cultural Balear, L'Institut d'Estudis Baleàrics and C'an Alcover. Dr. Fátima Serra presented “Historia sentimental de la Guerra Civil: El Corazón Helado de Almudena Grandes” at the 10th Interdisciplinary Congress on Women, Mundo de Mu‐jeres/ Women’s World at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid (Spain) on July, 2008.
Dr. Elizabeth Blood presented a pa‐per on Franco‐Americans in early 20th‐century Salem at the 2008 meet‐ing of the American Society for Que‐bec Studies in Quebec City. The paper was entitled "'La ville que nous avons adoptée': Franco‐American Identity and the Courrier de Salem newspaper in Salem, Massachusetts.”
THE 5TH CONGRESS OF FRANCOPHONE FEMINIST RESEARCH: "FEMINISM MEETS THE CHALLENGES OF MULTICULTURALISM" BY DR. ANNA ROCCA
In October 21‐25, 136 panelists from all over the world gath‐ered in Rabat for the 5th Con‐gress of Francophone Feminist Research. Forty‐five women came from Europe, forty‐two from North & Sub‐Saharian Africa, forty‐two also from Can‐ada, four from Brazil, two from Mexico, and one ‐ myself ‐ from the United States. Feminism and multiculturalism: two concepts that have fueled intense debate between sup‐porters of the universality of the principles of equality and those sustaining the priority of cultural specificities. Critiques
of multiculturalism are based on the reality that certain cultural values do not improve women's condi‐tions in patriar‐chal societies; these last are often based on gender discrimi‐nation in pri‐vate space and the exclusion of women from public space. Issues coming from the rela‐tionship be‐
tween secular and religious feminisms, as well as between
North and South feminisms differ‐ently exposed to the distortions of globalization, add to the controversy. At the Congress, the following top‐ics were explored: 1. Feminism in Evolution: a His‐torical Approach; 2. Feminism be‐tween Universal‐ism and Claims of Identity; 3. What (Continued on page 8)
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STUDENT AND ALUMNI PROFILES: FRENCH, ITALIAN AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES MINORS BY DR. ELIZABETH BLOOD Many students ask us "What can I do with a degree in For‐eign Languages?" The answer is that foreign language skills can be used in a wide variety of fields from education to tour‐ism to art to business and com‐munications. Employers often seek job candidates with for‐eign language skills and the ability to relate to people from a wide variety of cultural back‐grounds. A major or a minor in Foreign Languages provides students with these valuable skills. Here are a few examples of how students have used their languages in the "real world". Carlos Camelo graduated from Salem State in 2005 with a major in Political Science and minors in both Foreign Lan‐guages (French/Italian/Spanish) and Latin American Studies. He participated in the summer study abroad pro‐
grams in both Spain and Qué‐bec. Upon graduating, Carlos was offered a job immediately and worked for several years as an international sales represen‐tative for Johnson & Johnson. Last year, Carlos decided to make a change and took a job with NBC Universal as a Sourc‐ing Manager for World‐Wide Telemundo, the Spanish‐language television station. In this position, Carlos is able to use his language skills as well as the cross‐cultural people skills he acquired in his Foreign languages classes as he travels around the world. When asked about the job, Carlos says, "I
lead negotiations and contracts with all the vendors and services our company requires to oper‐ate. For example, I deal with advertising agencies preparing our creative content and media placement and the rate cards. I have to work with the special and entertainment departments supporting their world‐wide specials like Miss Universe in Vietnam or the Olympics in China. Or just simply operations in Latin America. So that is why I have to travel so much!" Carlos loves this new job, and its travel perks. He also says, "I also love to meet with the celebrities and go to PR events. So next time you watch Telemundo think of me. I have actually been on cam‐era a couple of times already!" Stephanie Izzicupo graduated from Salem State with a Bache‐lor's degree in Psychology and a Minor in French in 2007. She was awarded a fellowship from the French government to spend the year after graduation as an "Assistante d'anglais" in France, teaching English conversation classes to French high school students in Nancy, France. This
year abroad, fully funded by the French government, gave Stephanie the chance to expand on the French skills she learned at Salem State and in Québec on the summer study abroad pro‐gram. She says of the year abroad, "It was incredible! I met so many people and traveled all over Europe. I'm so glad I ap‐plied!" Upon return to the US this past summer, Stephanie
landed a job as a bilingual sec‐retary at the International School of Boston, a private K‐12 school offering instruction in English and French. Stepha‐nie is enjoying the job and says "I get the chance to use my French on a daily basis!" She is currently applying to graduate schools. Antanas Meilus is a current undergraduate student study‐ing Music and Italian. This past
summer, he had the opportu‐nity to tour Italy with the Inter‐national Lyric Academy based in Rome and Viterbo, Italy. This opera company selects opera singers to travel around Italy and perform for Italian audi‐ences, allowing Antanas to use his language skills to seize a great professional opportunity in his field. Antanas was se‐lected to perform on opening night of the tour in Viterbo. He writes in his blog "It was a great show and very well re‐ceived by press and the 'full piazza' we had. It was a great experience for me as an artist to sing a full role with a fully professional orchestra...The craziest part of the entire show that night was that it was broadcast on TV. I'm not sure where, when, or anything like that. I just know it happened apparently!" You can read more about the ups and downs of Antanas's summer in Italy on his blog at antanasmeilus.com.
INTERNATIONAL
PHOTO CONTEST
2009 The Foreign Languages
Department announces the third edition of its successful international photo contest. The Department will select the top 12 photos to be published in a calendar for 2009‐2010. The best 24 will be made into a
free screensaver. We still have a few copies left of the 2008‐2009 calendar.
Call x6258. Only $8. Proceeds will support student scholarships. For information on
sending your pictures, go to this page
www.salemstate.edu/ languages/photocontest
There you can also view the previous years’ entries
and download the free screensavers.
Deadline: March 1, 2009
Only high-quality digital
photos will be accepted
BE A WORLD CITIZEN
TRAVEL THE WORLD
STUDY ABROAD
Carlos Camelo, ‘05
Stephanie Izzicupo
Antanas Meilus
L I N G U A F R A N C A P A G E 6
“STUDY ABROAD WON’T CHANGE YOUR LIFE” BY DR. KENNETH REEDS
a result of this protracted delu‐sion, I sat before my advisor lis‐tening to him explain that the only way to graduate without an extra semester was to spend three months abroad. Worse still, only one program met the needs of my calendar and permitted a student with next‐to‐no language training: Oviedo. If I had to visit Spain, I wanted a city I had heard of. Why not Madrid, Seville, or Barcelona? “No,” my advisor affirmed, “it has to be Oviedo. Don’t worry though; study abroad won’t change your life. Just get it over with and you’ll come home ready to graduate and continue where you left off”. In almost every sense, Oviedo proved to be the opposite of what I had expected. This was first felt as the plane descended to reveal green valleys and snow‐covered peaks – far from the arid plains stereotyping their way through my mind alongside bullfighters, sangria, and flamenco dancers. My misconceptions were more apparent as, right from the begin‐ning, the apathetic attitude with which I had greeted the trip was
quickly melted by an open city and the generous people who inhabited it. This was aug‐mented by the most surprising reality of the experience: Span‐ish came easily. Now, do not misunderstand what I am say‐ing: learning the language re‐quired a lot of hard work, nightly headaches, and occa‐sional frustration‐born tears. However, that effort felt natural. I wanted to be part of the city; to participate in a world so dif‐ferent from my own; to compre‐hend as much as I could. All of this required motivation which, back in the US, had been squashed by what felt like insur‐mountable challenges. In Oviedo the challenges of learn‐ing Spanish paled in comparison to my enthusiasm. I wanted to learn Spanish and there was no better place to do so. My college advisor was wrong. Not just because the experience brought a new language into my life and altered career plans, but thanks to Oviedo I have gotten to know the person who is most
important in my life: me. Today I realize that the base emotion resting behind my resistance to study abroad was fear. I was afraid of facing a foreign land, leaving the comfortable exis‐tence I had set out, and being challenged in unimaginable ways. Unsurprisingly fear is also a big obstacle to learning a language. Being abroad forced me to confront and overcome these fears and the language followed naturally. Challenges are often like mirrors in that they force us to see ourselves, including the parts we do not like. I did not like how much I had let fear inhibit me and thanks to study abroad I not only learned how to admit this to myself, but I was also able to overcome those fears. Whatever fears you may be facing, my advice is to not per‐mit them to stop you from ta‐king advantage of the opportu‐nity: study abroad can indeed change your life.
Charged with m o t i v a t i o n ‐razing discour‐agement, this opinion was articulated by my college advi‐sor the summer before my senior
year. The ears it fell upon were receptive, searching for any pretext to avoid spending the next three months in the northern Spanish city of Oviedo. Life was good: law school around the corner, steady girlfriend, and the feeling that life’s next steps appeared obvious. Study abroad was an unnecessary deviation. I had never left the country and could not fathom a reason to do so. Money was tight and, most importantly, foreign language acquisition had long felt impossible; so why waste time and effort on the futile? The answer to this question was that I had no choice. My degree stipulated a certain number of credits in a foreign language. For three years I had pretended this requirement had not existed and as
STUDY ABROAD—OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND FOR SALEM STATE COLLEGE STUDENTS Summer Study Abroad programs will be of‐fered again next year in Oviedo, Spain, in Florence, Italy and in Quebec City, Canada. There is also the option for advanced French students to study in Avignon, France. Each program gives students the chance to earn 6 credits in foreign language at any level (beginner through advanced), plus the ex‐perience of a lifetime! Deadline for the Que‐bec, Avignon, and Florence programs is April 1, 2009. For applications or more information, see Dr. Blood for French summer study programs or Dr. Rocca for Italian summer study programs. For information on the Oviedo Program, see Dr. Serra. During the year there are several Summer Study Abroad Information Sessions. One just took place (for all three abroad programs) on November 24. If you missed it, don’t worry, it is not too late. Contact one of the programs’ coordinators. For more information go to: www.salemstate.edu/languages/abroad (Picture on the right: Oviedo 2008 students)
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SALEM STATE IN FLORENCE BY MUZAFAR QAZILBASH, LATIN & ITALIAN TEACHER AT BEVERLY HIGH
I spent the summer in Italy on the Salem State program in Florence at the Centro di Cultura per Stranieri (Culture Center for Foreigners; www.unifi.it/ccs/index.html). Salem State arranged lodgings for the pro‐gram participants at the Hotel Masaccio about five minutes on foot from the Centro which is across from Piazza Savonarola – a fifteen‐minute walk or short bus ride from the center of Florence. Classes ran from 8:45 until 1:30 every day from Monday through Friday. My in‐structor was an Italian woman that works in the Italian school system from September through June and teaches this class for foreigners every sum‐mer. It was great fun for me as a foreign language teacher to be behind a desk in a classroom once more. Italian, like every language, has its strange quirks. The word for “the” with masculine nouns is normally “il”, but for masculine nouns that begin with gn, ps, s + a consonant, and z, the article is “lo”. “Il padrone” means “the godfather”, but the word “zaino” takes “lo” to formulate “the knapsack”. Such are com‐plexities of the language of
Dante. Italian is more difficult for its smaller words than its larger ones which immediately call to mind English derivatives and cognates. The staff at the Centro speak English, French, German and Spanish. They are affable, agree‐able persons. During our first days there, they would speak to
us in our native languages and then gradually switched into Italian. Their relaxed manner made our transition to Italian life much easier. The family that runs the Hotel Masaccio also spoke Italian with me at first. When they saw that I was trying to learn their language and was feeling more comfortable, they switched into Italian. They offer breakfast every day and then supper in the evening for an additional charge. It is a com‐fortable hotel with a very friendly staff.
The afternoon lectures at the Centro encompassed everything Italian from Etruscan civilization to Renaissance Art to Tuscan cuisine (Tuscans love beans which they brought over from the New World) to Modern Ital‐ian Cinema. The Centro ar‐ranged afternoon and weekend day‐trips to sites in and around
Florence. One such was to the grounds of the city’s museum for archeology. The web‐site for the mu‐seum is: www. firenze‐mu s e i . i t / 0 0 _ e n g l i s h /archeologico/. To avoid the long, long lines at the museums, plan a guided tour or pay a few extra euros at the advance ticket counter at the church on Piazza San Marco. This
extra fee lets you select a day and time for your visit. San Marco is a ten‐minute walk from the Duomo, the cathedral on the city’s geographic center.) Florence is well‐situated for brief trips to many fine neighboring cities such as Pisa, Bologna, Siena and the Cinque Terre region. Attending the Sa‐lem State program in Florence, one will have many opportuni‐ties to learn about Italy and the Italians on an economical pro‐gram that fits in nicely with the academic year schedule of both students and teachers.
SEPHARDIC JEWS FROM SPAIN AND THEIR LANGUAGE LADINO BY PROFESSOR BERNICE J. MITCHELL
In the Fall, 2006, issue of Lingua Franca, I wrote an article entitled “Ladino: Another Version of Spanish.” Recently, at a a
lecture I attended by Dr. Gloria Ascher of Tufts University, who began teaching a Ladino course in 2000, I had the privilege of meeting her and a gentleman, Mr. Carlos Becerra, of Ecuador. Mr. Becerra is Sephardic and a speaker of Ladino and he was Vice President of the Sephardic Federation of Palm Beach County (2005‐2006). He has
also taught a 20 hour course about the Sephardim at local synagogues in Massachusetts as well as in Florida. I ended up inviting Mr. Becerra to speak to my SPN 416 class and other guests a few weeks later about where the Jews went when they were expelled from Spain in 1492. The topics he covered in his presentation were: The Ori‐gin of the Sephardim, Jews in Roman and Visigoth Spain, the Invasion of the Moors, the Golden Age of Córdoba, the illus‐trious Jews of Moslem Spain, the Reconquest, the Spanish Inquisi‐tion, the expulsion in 1492, the
Sephardim diaspora, the Otto‐man Empire, the Sephardim in the Americas and in modern times, along with their culture and traditions. He and his wife, María Becerra, sang to the group in Ladino with both the Spanish and English transla‐tions. It is worth noting that in all the courses we teach, the discussion of the Spanish Jews ends with their expulsion from Spain. However, Mr. Becerra told us where they went and how they maintained the me‐dieval Spanish language, La‐dino, and their religious tradi‐tions.
DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
SEMESTER STUDY ABROAD
OPPORTUNITIES Several Spanish Universities have affordable semester programs. Oviedo, the site of our summer studies also runs a very successful semester program: 5 courses to choose among a range of level and subjects, 200 hours of study, 18 hours per week, less than $1,500 tuition for the whole semester. For more information, visit www.uniovi.es/cepe/english/spanish_courses.htm#4 SSC also has affiliation agreements with several organizations. Study Abroad opportunities in just about any country in the world are also available through programs spon‐sored by other institutions. In the past few years, SSC students have studied in Austria, Australia, Ecua‐dor, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, and Spain. Visit www.salemstate.edu/cie/study_abroad.php for more infor‐mation and how to start the proc‐ess. GRANTS FOR NORTH AMERICAN LANGUAGE & CULTURE ASSISTANTS IN SPAIN
Once again the Education Office of Spain will offer this great opportu‐nity. Check their website in the next weeks for the 2009‐2010 academic year. www .m e c . e s / s g c i / u s a / e n /p r o g r a m s / u s _ a s s i s t a n t s /default.shtml Duties
◊ Grantees will work as English language assistant teachers, under the supervision and guid‐ance of a classroom teacher.
◊ Assistant teachers will teach 1216 hours per week.
◊ Assistants and the classroom teacher (or the school represen‐tatives) may agree upon other activities and responsibilities.
Specific conditions of the grants ◊ A monthly allowance of € 700
after taxes, ($1,038, as of No‐vember 24, 2007). The duration of the grant is eight (8) months, October to May.
◊ Medical insurance.
L I N G U A F R A N C A P A G E 8
WORDS TO THE WISE: THE GLAMOUR OF GRAMMAR BY DR. JON ASKE What do I mean by “the glam‐our of grammar”? Is grammar really glamorous? Some people certainly think so. Of course, it depends on what you mean by grammar. For some people grammar is about rules for speaking “correctly”, so that there is “good grammar” (he isn’t) and there is “bad gram‐mar” (he ain’t). For linguists, grammar refers to all the patterns that we use when we speak to put words and sentences together. So for a linguist, a sentence such as I ain’t got any it is just as grammatical as I don’t have any, since both follow regular structural patterns, even though the former sentence is viewed by society as cor‐rect and “glamorous” and the latter as incorrect and stigma‐tized by society. From a lin‐guist’s point of view, though, value judgments associated with different grammatical patterns are a societal issue, similar to other prejudices people have, not a matter of correctness or logic. But I am not here today to extol the virtues of linguistic relativ‐ism but rather to talk about the relationship between the word glamour (sometimes also spelled glamor in the US) and the word grammar. And the words ‘glamour’ and ‘grammar’
are indeed related, which, as you know, means that they both either come from the same original word or, alternatively, that one comes from the other. In this case we have an example of the latter. The English word grammar comes from French word gram
maire, which ultimately comes from the Ancient Greek adjec‐tive grammatikē (in Spanish, gramática), meaning “having to do with letters” (that is, it is the adjective form of the Greek noun grammatos, meaning ‘letter’). Studying grammar is not a big thing nowadays (though some say it should be), but in the Mid‐dle Ages in Europe, (Latin) grammar was the main disci‐pline studied by those few who received an education (grammar, along with rhetoric and logic, formed the trivium, the cornerstone of liberal arts studies in medieval universi‐
ties). So grammar was associ‐ated with learned people and with thick books for rules and fancy and, to most people, unin‐telligible gibberish (that is, Latin). It is thus not surprising that the word grammar came in at least one dialect of English to be asso‐ciated with “erudition with occult practices”, incantations and the like, in the words of Merriam‐Webster’s diction‐ary. It seems that books of rules and incantations used by witches came to be called grammars by association. This special use of the word gram‐mar seems to have started in the dialect of English spoken in Scotland, where the word
grammar also suffered a sound alteration, namely the change of the first R to an L, which is a rather common historical change in many languages. For, if you discount the spelling, you can see that the only difference in pronunciation between gram‐mar and glamo(u)r is the R/L alternation. Neat, uh? So that is the story of the word ‘glamour’. Another interesting example of the history of words. By the way, glamour is an ex‐ception to the rule that words borrowed from French with the OU letter in them lose the U in the American spelling (as in behaviourbehavior).
FRANCOPHONE FEMINIST RESEARCH
Type of Development Should Feminism Promote? 4. Femi‐nism and Modernity; 5. Femi‐nism and Democracy; 6. Does Feminist Research Help Women’s Movements? Presenting within topic 3 and entitled “Solidarity: Creativity and Plural Listening Strategies,” I under‐lined the crucial inter‐connection between personal, interpersonal and social change. Feminist cultures and practices of solidarity start from the analysis and acknowledgement of
(Continued from page 4) our own prejudices towards "the other." This never‐ending self‐observation of suppositions will eventually support inter‐personal and social change. I
explore possible collaborations between María Lugones' analy‐sis of racialization, Chandra Talpade Mohanty's theory of transnational women's solidar‐
ity and Ruth Fassinger's works on multicultural‐feminist collaborations in Counseling Psychology. During these five days, in spite of our differences and disagreements, the sharing of Moroccan food, music and singing that Professor Malika Benradi beautifully organized made visible and possible our solidarity and our 'common differences.'
Jarchas Students of Dr. Kristine Doll’s lit‐erature classes examine Spanish literature through themes that are at once Spanish as they are univer‐sal: love, death, the possibility of an afterlife, the role of the individual in society and the experience of patriotism. Following is a poem written by one of the program’s graduate students as part of an assignment in creative writing for SPN706. This poem, selected by the class and published anonymously, is modeled on the early “jarchas” of Spain: Paso las noches con tanto amor, ahora sin ti vivo con temor. ¡Te busco hasta la muerte, el alma llena de dolor! I spend the nights so full of love Now without you I live in fear I look for you till death draws near the soul so full of pain
Poetry Corner
Université Mohammed V, Agdal, Rabat, Morocco
¿Presidente blanco o negro? By Prof. Ernesto Oregel On October 13, before the recent presidential elections, Spanish professor Ernesto Oregel was visited by the muse as he often is and sent these verses to Castellano, the Spanish language/culture list:
¿John McCain? ¿Barack Obama? Blanco o negro es el mañana. ¿Cuál de ellos buen presidente será del pueblo indigente? ¿Demócrata o republicano? ¿De pelo negro o ya cano? ¿Con experiencia y medallas? ¿O retórica sin fallas? ¿Con planes bien definidos? ¿O fantasía de sonidos? Los millones de afectados: jugamos a los volados. You can see (and buy) Professor Oregel’s poetry books at his Web page: www.lrc.salemstate.edu/oregel
P A G E 9 V O L U M E 6 , I S S U E 1
ASK THE LINGUIST: THE STORY OF H BY DR. JON ASKE
Orthography is supposed to represent the pronunciation of words. That is the (ideal) prin‐ciple behind alphabetic writing systems: A sound is repre‐sented by a symbol—and vice versa. However, orthography doesn't follow that principle all the time for a variety of rea‐sons. The main one is that once the spelling of words is fixed, as happened for English and Span‐ish a few hundred years ago, it tends to reflect the pronuncia‐tion of earlier times, although pronunciation is in a con‐stant state of change. Another major reason for orthographies not being perfect is, of course, dialec‐tal variation: some dialects pronounce things differently from others and if you want to have a single spelling for words, you will end up with mis‐matches of spelling‐pronunciation. Think about it. The case of the letter H is very interesting indeed. The letter H existed in the Latin alphabet, from which both the Spanish and the English alphabets de‐rive. In early Latin it repre‐sented the same sound as that of the letter h in English words like house. However, by the time Latin became the language of the Iberian Peninsula (Hispania) it had ceased to be pronounced (but continued to be written out of "habit"). In the early Middle Ages the Romance languages (Spanish/Castilian included) developed out of spoken Latin and by 1,000 years ago they were being writ‐
ten down. Interestingly, early Spanish did not write the letter H, since it was not pronounced. So in Spanish you wrote onor, ‘honor’, from Latin HONOR (I write Latin word in caps be‐cause Latin only had caps). Then at some point the letter F in Spanish started to be pro‐nounced like the letter H had been pronounced in Ancient Latin. So Lat. FARINA ‘flour’ was pronounced /harina/. Still it continued to be written with an
F. (This F to H change had exceptions, as in frente ‘front’, and fuego ‘fire’.) Much later Spanish started importing many cultured words from written Latin
back into Spanish (‘learned words’), and some came with the letter F, such as FORMA ‘form’. So the F letter now repre‐sented two sounds: F and H. The word FORMA ‘form’ could be pronounced /horma/ or /forma/. So a spelling reform brought about the new spelling horma (and harina, etc.) for words that had the original F that had changed to an H sound. But eventually, however, the sound H in words like harina ceased to be pronounced alto‐gether, much as it had happened to the same sound in Latin much earlier (H is an unstable sound). So the new H became a silent letter, much as it had happened in Classical Latin. Spanish also imported many learned words around this time from written Latin which had an H in them that had not been
pronounced even in Latin since very early times, such as the word historia ‘history’. Spanish spelling also introduced some H’s where there had never been any. For instance in the the words huevo ‘egg’ (adj. oval), from Lat. OVUM, and hueso ‘bone’ (adj. óseo), from Lat. OS‐SUM. First the Latin letter O came to be pronounced UE in words like these. So these words were pronounced /webo/ and /weso/. But Latin didn't have a letter W. The letter V served both for the vowel U and the consonant V (or, rather, B, in Spanish). Thus scribes decided to write these words with an initial H to indicate that hueso, for instance, was pro‐nounced /weso/ and not /beso/. Also, when word‐initial G‐ stopped being pronounced in words like GELO (hielo, ‘ice’) and GERMANO (hermano, ‘brother’), Spanish scribes de‐cided to put a silent H there as a placeholder for the sound ([g])that had been there and was not pronounced anymore.
And that is basically the story of the letter H. In Romance lan‐guages (those derived form Latin) H is not pronounced, but it is often written (not so in Italian, which got rid of most of them). It is written in French, but not pronounced. Since Eng‐lish borrowed many words from French in the Middle Ages, Eng‐lish too has many silent h's (honor, honest), alongside pro‐nounced h's (he, home) in words of Germanic origin.
I know in our linguistics class you taught us about the origin of the "h" at the beginning of words in Spanish, but I could use a refresher on this. My students often ask me, "if the H is silent at the beginning of a word in Spanish, then why
is it there at all?" If I recall, there is a direct connection to the Latin F, but other than that, I have to admit that my memory is blurred. Another interesting
story that a colleage of mine was very interested in is the history of the tilde....but this is a story that I remember well (the saving of the ink, insted of writing two consecutive n's)...and I suppose this does not pertain to etymology per se, but it is an interesting fact nonetheless that others might like to know.
—Jessica Stryhalaleck, MAT-Spanish Student
H
You probably already know what a blog is. If not, you really should learn about it, because Lingua Franca is about to become a blog too.
In the words of Wikipedia "a blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site... with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly dis-played in reverse-chronological or-der. … Many blogs provide commen-tary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog com-bines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs."
One neat thing about blogs is that you don't have to go visit the page to look for new content, but rather you can have changes come to you. And you do that by means of what's cal led a "news feeder" or "aggregator". Many people use the free Google news reader for this purpose. Go to reader.google.com, create a Google account if you don’t already have one, and sign in. Then every time you go to this page you will see what is new in all the blogs that you have subscribed to.
You know that you are in a blog when you see the blog symbol (pictured to the sides of the title of this column). You subscribe to the blog typically by clicking on that icon.
Blog software is now being tried at the College and we would like to be the first ones to try it.
Among the advantages of having Lingua Franca as a blog are the following:
◊ No strict space limitations for articles and other news
◊ Readers can leave comments about the articles
◊ Zero impact on the departmental budget or on forests or our car-bon footprint
Visit the Lingua Franca blog at:
www.lrc.salemstate.edu/linguafranca
BLOGGING You probably already know what a blog is. If not, you really should learn about it, because Lingua Franca is about to become a blog too.
In the words of Wikipedia "a blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site... with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly dis-played in reverse-chronological or-der. … Many blogs provide commen-tary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog com-bines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs."
One neat thing about blogs is that you don't have to go visit the page to look for new content, but rather you can have changes come to you. And you do that by means of what's cal led a "news feeder" or "aggregator". Many people use the free Google news reader for this purpose. Go to reader.google.com, create a Google account if you don’t already have one, and sign in. Then every time you go to this page you will see what is new in all the blogs that you have subscribed to.
You know that you are in a blog when you see the blog symbol (pictured to the sides of the title of this column). You subscribe to the blog typically by clicking on that icon.
Blog software is now being tried at the College and we would like to be the first ones to try it.
Among the advantages of having a Lingua Franca blog are the following:
◊ No strict space limitations for articles and other news
◊ Readers can leave comments about the articles
◊ Zero impact on the departmental budget or on forests or our car-bon footprint
Visit the Lingua Franca blog at:
www.lrc.salemstate.edu/linguafranca
BLOGGING
LATINO WRITERS’S VISIT: SONIA RIVERAVALDÉS & PAQUITA SUÁREZ COALLA BY DR. FÁTIMA SERRA
meeting I witnessed mothers with young children, academics, college and high school students, film makers and teachers. The differ‐
ent backgrounds of the presenters and general public, yet united by LART, made everybody feel the vibrancy of the endeavor. The same spirit of inclusion and live culture was behind the crea‐tion of their own publishing house,
Editorial Campana. Their objectives are: “First, to promote Latin@ writers whose work reflects the thematic needs of groups whose vision of the world and literary concept dif‐fers from the vision and aesthetics imposed by the most privileged sectors of society. Second, to pub‐lish works that contribute to the recovery of our personal and historic
memory as well as those that will develop the pleasure of reading literature written by Latin@s.” The company has been a success,
culturally and commercially. Their books are published in English and in Spanish to reflect the reality of Latinos in the US,
who are well read in both languages. And above all, they have selected high quality works by living au‐thors that readers can get to know and follow their personal and professional trajectory. Barnes and Noble and other powerhouses of the book industry have opened their doors to their books. The question is how
two established professors de‐cided to emphasize the cultural into their intellectual life. Dra. Coalla explained that it all came out of their own life experience. Born and raised in a rural com‐munity in northern Spain, she dreamed of becoming a writer. However, in a 150 in‐habitant town, there were no female writers. There were no exam‐ples in the literature that reflected her rural environment without ridiculing it. In all her years of schooling, BA and Ph.D. studies, there were hardly any titles written by women in her program of stud‐ies. Additionally, nobody with a Ph.D. was publishing in her rural, vernacular language, As
L I N G U A F R A N C A P A G E 1 0
FRENCH IN THE CONGO: PROF. CICURA
wanted to. I didn’t have a model. I was born in a small, remote, con‐servative village. I walked every day five miles each way to go to school. There is no free schooling in Congo. I used to go to school in the morning and then I went to work. My first salary was when I was 7 years old; that’s how I paid my studies. I worked with a guy that processed the tree to make the medicine quinine. In fact, I began to work before I began to go to school. Dávila: Did the Civil War affect
(Continued from page 1) your studies? Cicura: I had left school already when the war started. I did a B.A. and a M.A. in Philosophy in Kinsa‐sha. Then I went to Rome and did a
Bachelor of Theology in 2002 because I wanted to become a priest. In 2005 I even got a Master of Theology here in Cambridge, MA, but then I
decided to return to Philosophy and got my Ph.D. from Boston College this year. Dávila: How long have you been in the United States and why?
turianu. Once in New York she met Dr. Rivera and a group of Latina writers. Suddenly, there was a group of women writers who encouraged each other’s work; it was o.k. to write in Castilian, Puerto Rican, English, Spanglish, etc. All together decided to produce platforms to promote Latino cultural life at all levels beyond the intellec‐tual and academic frames. That is the way LART and Editorial Campana came to light. Dra. Coalla now is a successful pub‐lished author with several titles published in Spanish, English and Asturianu. It was truly an enjoyable and inspiring evening. SSC under‐grads, MAT students, profes‐sors and teachers in the area enjoyed Sonia and Paquita’s conversation and readings. It
gave me the im‐pression that eve‐rything is possible. Perhaps one day we could host a LART event at SSC, where all Latinos in surrounding communities, aca‐demics, intellectu‐als and artists share and celebrate their Heritage. Photos of the event
can be seen at www.lrc.salemstate.edu/pictures/latinawriters2008 where you can also find links to some of the titles they pub‐lished that will make very good holiday reads.
On October 28th, we were fortunate to receive the visit of Dr. Sonia Rivera Valdés from Cuba, and Dr. Francisca Suárez Coalla from Spain, both professors at the City University of New York. Sonia and Paquita, as all her friends call her, told us about their cultural life and activism. As professors, they are highly intellectual, but they have al‐ways strived to not just study the culture, but live it and share it with others. Apart from their fruitful academic life, they want to engage their students out‐side the classroom in an enrich‐ing and meaningful way. Their efforts paid off and in 2000, LART came to light: Latino Artists Round Table. LART or‐ganizes events, lectures, perform‐ances and full blown conferences. Their mission is to spread and share Latino Culture from all over the world. The organization is inclusive and participatory which is the key to its success. Their confer‐ences embrace academic presentations, short film contests, theatre per‐formances, original mu‐sic and fine arts. Their purpose is to do some‐thing different from what is usually offered at academic conferences. And of course, they in‐clude peoples from the whole Spanish speaking world: US, the Caribbean, Central and South America and Spain. They include established au‐thors and new ones, old tendencies and unknown ones. Their diversity extends to the attendees; at a LART
Cicura: Four years. I came to do my Ph.D. in Philosophy. Dávila: What are your plans for the future? Cicura: I would like to have a full‐time position in teaching be‐cause teaching is my passion. Also, to start a family and pub‐lish my work. Dávila: Thank you very much for your time, professor Cicura.
JULY 3, 2008: THE PEOPLE VS. THE EVIL EMPIRE BY MARYBETH STOCKING, SPANISH MAJOR
where I turn. Although the Cuban people are indeed poor, I am amazed to see that despite this, no one is hungry, sick, homeless, uneducated, or unemployed; food rationing, universal healthcare, housing reform, and free educa‐tion through graduate school have guaranteed these basic human rights. Coming from a wealthy country where education, health care, and home ownership lie increasingly outside the economic reach of a growing number of people, I find myself wondering why our country is not actively trying to learn something from this conscious government and people. It is then that I realize how important our work is, and feel honored to help support the sur‐
vival of the revolution
n o t only by express‐ing my solidarity and helping to deliver humanitar‐ian aid, but also by sharing my experiences in this beautiful coun‐try with those who await me at home. I pass my glorious days in Cuba visiting universities, hospi‐tals, farming and fishing coopera‐tives, cultural events, community centers, and Cuban households. The sense of community concern for the welfare of all inspires me and gives me hope that the spiri‐tual revolution we all dream of is indeed possible. Upon our return border crossing into the United States, we find the political pressure we had exerted on our travels down has paid off: the computers are waiting for us at the border. To show our relent‐less commitment to get the aid to our Cuban friends, and our out‐right refusal to acknowledge an inhumane blockade imposed by the U.S., we immediately take the computers and head back on foot across the border into Mexico. With the Texas sun beating relent‐lessly on my head, and a long walk ahead, I decide not to allow the computer to be taken out of my hands until safely on Mexican soil, regardless of whatever challenge confronts me. My conviction goes unchallenged; however, as the Department of Homeland Security allows us to pass without hin‐drance, a small but meaningful victory, and a literal and meta‐phorical step in the direction of bringing down the blockade.
On the eve of Independence Day 2008, I find myself aboard a brightly painted school bus ap‐proaching the United States/Mexican border in Pharr, Texas, en route to Havana, Cuba. Five school busses, brightly painted with slogans promoting solidarity and peace worldwide, and over one hundred like‐minded political activists encompass this caravan, joined together under the leader‐ship of Reverend Lucius Walker and Pastors for Peace. With the goal of exercising the few slivers of patriotism we do possess by celebrating our right to freedom of speech, we are travelling to Cuba as a means of speaking out against both the travel bans to Cuba and the hideously outdated and inhumane economic embargo, imposed almost fifty years ago during the Cold War. We declare to the U.S. Customs officials that we intend not only to travel to Cuba in direct violation of this U.S. law, but also that we plan to bring humanitarian aid in the form of medical supplies and educational materials, unavailable to our brothers and sisters in Cuba due to the blockade, with us in the process. What better way to cele‐brate “freedom” and “liberty and justice for all” than with acts of civil disobedience, by standing up for what we believe in, and by challenging our country’s eco‐nomic oppression of others? As the border comes into sight, the busses are immediately flagged and herded into the cus‐toms corral. A hundred caravanistas stand in the hot sun and watch as giant, monster‐like x‐ray machines scan each bus, as uni‐formed Border Patrol guards snap picture after picture of both the humanitarian aid and of the caravanistas, and as the hard work of the last four days is systematically
undone; boxes we have carefully packed, taped, labeled, and loaded meticulously onto the busses are ripped open and inspected. Sud‐denly boxes are being seized and loaded into U.S. Homeland Security vans. Thirty‐two computers in all are confiscated from us at the border, leaving us all wondering, “How can humanitarian aid be a crime?” We decide that we cannot sit and watch in good conscience as our friends in Cuba are deprived of aid so desperately needed; deprived of aid by the same forces that have caused the need in the first place by years of debilitating economic embargo. Drums and chants de‐manding an end to the blockade grow into a protest for the return of the computers, and a rally which effectively shuts down the border crossing for almost an hour. “¡Cuba sí, bloqueo no!” we chant as we watch cars and trucks headed for Mexico line up in front of us, un‐able to pass and impatient to pro‐ceed. At this point, I am horrified to find out that the U.S. government is still unwilling to release the com‐puters, and one by one the horde of caravanistas pull out their cell phones, placing calls to Senators and Congressmen, speaking out about the injustice we are facing. We pile into the busses to avoid additional aid from falling into the hands of Homeland Security, and head across the border into Mex‐ico. We make it across Mexico by sunset, and amidst torrential downpour, we spend the remain‐
der of the night loading the aid onto barges bound for Cuba in the port city of Tampico. The sun is rising, and with my feet on Cuban soil, the warmth of the Cuban people in the air and my heart, the reality of all that the revolution has done for the people of Cuba becomes apparent every‐
P A G E 1 1 V O L U M E 6 , I S S U E 1
FYI
LANGUAGE STUDY 1. broadens your experi‐
ences; expands your view of the world
2. encourages critical reflec‐tion on the relation of language and culture, language and thought; fosters an understanding of the interrelation of language and human na‐ture
3. develops your intellect; teaches you how to learn
4. teaches and encourages respect for other peoples
5. contributes to cultural awareness and literacy, such as knowledge of original texts
6. builds practical skills (for travel or commerce or as a tool for other disciplines)
7. improves the knowledge of your own language through comparison and contrast with the foreign language
8. exposes you to modes of thought outside of your native language
9. a sense of relevant past, both cultural and linguistic
10. balances content and skill (rather than content ver‐sus skill)
11. expands opportunities for meaningful leisure activity (travel, reading, viewing foreign language films)
12. contributes to achieve‐ment of national goals, such as economic develop‐ment or national security
13. contributes to the creation of your personality
14. enables the transfer of training (such as learning a second foreign language)
15. preserves (or fosters) a country's image as a cul‐tured nation
Adapted from Alan C. Frantz, "Seventeen Values of Foreign Language Study" (ADFL Bulletin, vol. 28, Nr.1, Fall 1996).
Marybeth with a Cuban friend
“Señora, do all people who speak Spanish eat tacos?” “Do people wear sombre‐ros all the time?” “Is Spanish only spoken in Mexico?” These are the types of questions the students in my 7th grade Spanish class
began to ask me last spring. Stunned by the na‐ïveté of their questions, I decided that it was time to reflect upon my own teaching. I quickly came to the conclusion that I needed to incorporate more lessons on culture into my daily classroom activities. As a Spanish teacher, I often feel pres‐sure to cover the essentials of grammar and vo‐cabulary, which unfortunately means that discus‐sions of culture are often squeezed into the last few minutes of a class period, or even omitted altogether. Obviously, though, my students were harboring in their minds various stereotypes about the Spanish language and culture. As an educator, I feel that it is my personal responsibil‐ity to help dispel such myths about the language I teach. Within each unit of our Spanish textbook there are reading passages related to culture, but clearly this was not sufficient – I felt that my stu‐dents needed something more tangible than a brief article from their textbooks. Over the sum‐mer, I did a bit of research to try to determine how best to incorporate the teaching of culture into my middle school classroom. While re‐searching, I discovered www.epals.com, a web‐site which is designed to allow teachers to estab‐lish an e‐mail exchange between their classroom and a classroom abroad. In late August, I set up a free user profile with epals.com. In a quick ten minutes, I described my own class and set up parameters for the type of classroom with which I hoped to communicate. Just a few days later, I received an e‐mail from a teacher of English in Barce‐lona who was interested in setting up an exchange with my 8th grade Spanish class. She and I e‐mailed back and forth several times to estab‐lish a format for our exchange. We paired up each of our stu‐dents with an international “e‐pal,” and set up a “theme of the month” to help focus our communication. Each month, our students communicate about a differ‐ent topic. For example, in September we exchanged e‐mails about school life, and in October we wrote about the physical geography of our town and region. Future top‐
ics for communication include sports, fashion, holidays, and food. To ensure the safety of my students, I ask that they each e‐mail me their letter directly to my own address, and that they only use their last initial in their letters. I then screen each of my students’ letters individually before pasting them into one single document, which I then e‐mail to the teacher in Barcelona. The instructor in Barce‐lona e‐mails me her students’ letters using the same procedure. Admittedly, the e‐mail exchange has had some disadvantages thus far. The exchange is a time‐consuming process for the instructor, since all letters need to be collected electronically and screened before they are e‐mailed abroad. Also, certain students have been disappointed because not all of our e‐pals reciprocated letters in a timely fashion. However, the benefits of my class’s e‐mail ex‐change are far outweighing the drawbacks thus far. At the beginning of the year, when I described our e‐mail exchange, some of my students asked, “But, Señora, are there computers in Spain?” Now, not only do my students realize that there cer‐tainly are computers in Spain, but they are also beginning to understand that life in Spain for a teenager is, in many ways, not extraordinarily different than life in the United States. As much as I try to teach my students this crucial lesson on my own, they are learning more enthusiastically from their “amigos internacionales,” rather than from my own personal anecdotes or from cultural passages in their Spanish textbook. If you feel that you would like to incorporate more instruction of culture into your own classroom, I encourage you to visit www.epals.com. It only takes a few minutes to register, but it will almost certainly give your students a new perspective on life in a foreign country. For some of my students, this is exactly the spark they needed to inspire them to learn Spanish.
FROM BOSTON TO BARCELONA (AND BACK): TEACHING CULTURE VIA EMAIL EXCHANGES BY JESSICA STRYHALALECK, MAT‐SPANISH STUDENT
L I N G U A F R A N C A
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Kimberley Driscoll, Mayor of Salem , with students in Dr. Doll’s SPN385 class