Article: Valette Honored with Gold Medal for Promotion of French Language, Culture
Source: http://www.bc.edu/publications/chronicle/TopstoriesNewFeatures/news/vallette042910.html
I was very pleased to learn that Professor Emerita Rebecca Valette of Boston College received a gold medal for the promotion of French language and culture from La Renaissance Française, a French non-profit organization. I feel personally indebted to her work because I used the textbooks that she wrote throughout my junior high school and high school French classes – the Discovering French series is forever embedded in my mind. Professor Valette was only one of two honorees to receive La Médaille d'Or de la Renaissance Française – her contributions have truly been exceptional.
She has undoubtedly played a key role in French language pedagogy and even served as president of the American Association of Teachers of French. Overall, it is wonderful to think of what a big impact one person has had on French in the United States.
French is the second-most widely taught language in the United States (after Spanish, but followed by German, Latin, Mandarin Chinese, etc.). In the United States, language teaching is most emphasized in junior high school and high school; I would like to learn more about the formalities and techniques used to teach a language. I was interested in the publication “Foreign Language Teaching in U.S. Schools: Results of a National Survey” but I could not order it. However, it seems like a good overview of language pedagogy in the Untied States. See the publication here: http://www.cal.org/resources/pubs/fl_teaching.html. In my Spanish 1 class, I have noticed that there is a major emphasis on immersion and lots of exposure to Spanish culture (through music videos, magazine articles, and stories).
Article: Listening to (and Saving) the World’s Languages
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/nyregion/29lost.html?pagewanted=1
As a New Yorker, I was also proud of my city for its linguistic diversity! According to a recent New York Times article, there are more than 800 languages spoken in NYC and 176 of them are spoken in NYC’s public schools (Queens is most diverse).
It is amazing that New York City has become the safe haven for some of the world’s endangered languages. I find this phenomenon to be very typical of New York City – because the city is so accepting and intense, people’s identities are amplified (as are their linguistic roots). Professor Kaufman of CUNY has helped start the Endangered Language Alliance to identify and record dying languages. The website is great; check it out at http://endangeredlanguagealliance.org/main/. Also, I think the directors have interesting backgrounds. If you are interested, you can find it here: http://endangeredlanguagealliance.org/main/directors.
Robert Holman, a teacher at Columbia, had a great quote that I wholeheartedly agree with: “It’s not like putting jelly in a jar. A language is used. Language is consciousness. Everybody wants to speak English, but those lullabies that allow you to go to sleep at night and dream — that’s what we’re talking about.”
Indeed, it was due to my confusion about the language of my dreams that spurred my initial interest in languages. Why was I speaking in English during the day but dreaming in Ukrainian?
I look forward to learning more about projects that Professor Kaufman is involved with; maybe I will be able to visit this summer.
There’s a great video associated with the article; you can watch it here: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/land-of-lonely-tongues/.
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