Lingua Franca

New Graduate-Level French Course!

The Department will offer a new course this spring! “Quebec: Culture and Literature” (FRE 762), is a graduate-level content course in French that will be offered Tuesday nights, 4:30-6:50pm in spring 2010. In this course, the culture and literature of French-speaking Québec will be explored. Through essays, literary readings, songs, works of art, and films, course participants will follow the development of this province of Canada from its origins as a French colony through the exodus of French-Canadians in the early 20th century and the “Révolution Tranquille” of the 1960’s, up to the present day. The class is conducted entirely in French, three lecture hours per week. Prerequisite: intermediate to advanced fluency in written and spoken French. This course is designed to help meet the professional development needs of North Shore and other area French teachers and professionals interested in acquiring advanced French proficiency. You will be able to find registration information at: http://www.salemstate.edu/registrar/registration.php

Other New Courses

Mandarin Chinese to start Fall 2010! The Department will offer its first Mandarin Chinese I (CHI 101) course in Fall 2010. The Chinese language sequence was created to respond to student demand, and it dovetails with the College’s new student exchange program with China. Given the economic and cultural importance of China in today’s global community, and Salem’s own historic connections with Asian trade routes, we feel the addition of Chinese will add an exciting new dimension to our course offerings.

The Department created a variety of new courses this year in addition to Chinese 101-102, including elementary Latin (LAT 101-102) to be offered through Continuing Education, a third-year Advanced Arabic sequence (ARA 301-302) that will launch in the day school in 2010-2011, an advanced Spanish film course (SPN 405: The Spanish-Speaking World through Film) that will be offered in Fall 2010, and Topics in Literature and Topics in Culture courses in both French (FRE 380, FRE 381) and Italian (ITL 380, ITL 381). In addition, new intensive readings courses were proposed in French (FLT 700) and Spanish (FLT 701) for graduate students in the English MA/MAT programs.

Summer Study Abroad

The Study Abroad office is working with the Department to initiate an intensive immersion program in Arabic for summer 2010. The program will be at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, where students will complete six credits in Arabic language courses. This program will be similar in structure to the existing summer immersion programs the Department offers in Oviedo, Spain; Florence, Italy; and Quebec City, Canada.

What are you doing next summer? Summer 2010 Intensive Study Abroad Programs in Florence, Italy and Québec City, Canada offer 6 credits of language (Italian or French) at any level, plus an incredible cultural immersion experience. Applications available in January. Deadlines for application in early April for summer 2010. See Dr. Rocca or Dr. Blood for more information.

The Italian Club at the Family & Friends Carnival at Salem State College

Alex McNally, the Treasurer (in the picture) and Natalie Dukes, the Vice-President, volunteered to be part of the Family & Friends weekend. They said it was a lot of fun, participation was great and more than 60 masks were crafted! The Carnival included musical performances, arts & crafts, food, and games that involved students, family, friends, alumni, faculty and staff.

Award for our MAT students

Please join us in recognizing the outstanding achievements of 12 of our MAT students. These students were recognized officially by the College and the Graduate School for their academic excellence – they attained a minimum GPA ranging from 3.86 to 4.0! – at a college honors celebration, Thursday Nov.12, 2009. ¡Congratulations! They are:

Graduate students Rebecca Teiwes, Rebecca Hoffman, Benjamin Gerson and Kristen Artinano

Kristen Artinano
Jessica Barber
Ali Carignan
Jessica Clifford
James Donahue
Benjamin Gerson
Mary Giordano
Kathryn Hanchett
Rebecca Hoffmann
Stacey Hopkins
Kathryn Schulte
Becky Tiewes

While on the topic of MAT students, we are very proud to mention that Jessica Stryhalaleck, one of the graduates of the M.A.T. in Spanish program, won the graduate school’s Francis Webbe prize.  Competition for this prize was across disciplines and quite fierce, emphasizing more than a stellar G.P.A. Congratulations Jessica!

On a final note about the MAT program, we are happy to announce that Dr. Doll has been named the department’ MAT in Spanish Coordinator for the graduate School. Dr. Doll takes over the job that Dr. Sherf  held since the Spanish MAT program started. Thank to Dr. Sherf for a fantastic job over the years that has made this program so successful.

Faculty Professional Development

Map by Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres García (1943)

Sponsored by the Department of Foreign Languages, Dr. Kenneth Reeds presented the talk “The South Was Our North: From Ek’ Balam to Torres García, a traveler’s musings on Latin America and what it means to come back home” at Salem State College on November 2, 2009, with a slide show presentation of photos taken during his two month and a half long adventure in Latin America.

Dr. Nicole Sherf together with Katherine Lopez Natale participated in the Panel “Negotiating the Licensure Process,” a seventy-five minute session at MaFLA (Massachusetts Foreign Language Association Annual Conference), on October 30, 2009. The next day she was the Panel Moderator of “Programmatic Assessment that Improves Instruction,” another seventy-five minute session of MaFLA, in Sturbridge (10/31/2009). Also together with Cherie Baggs and Madelyn Gonnerman, she participated in the panel “Inter-State Collaboration to Strengthen Our Profession,” a sixty minute session at the 2009 American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Annual Conference, on November 21, 2009.

Drs. Doll, Abdelghany, Rocca and Blood at MaFLA

Dr. Elizabeth Blood and Dr. Anna Rocca, together with Dr. Louissa Abdelghany, from Simmons College, presented at the Panel: “Communicating Through Images: La Bande Dessinée,” at the 43rd Annual Conference of MaFLA (Massachusetts Foreign Language Association), in Sturbridge, MA on October 29, 2009. Teaching strategies for French language and culture by the use of comics and graphic novels were offered. In addition, Dr. Elizabeth Blood, Dr. Kristine Doll and Dr. Anna Rocca, also presented at MaFLA the Panel: “About Better Community Connections.” The session presented strategies used by Spanish, French, and Italian programs to connect with groups in the community.

Dr. Serra and Malin Sohr of the Center for International Education at the 2009 Study abroad Fair

Dr. Fátima Serra co-organized with Donald Ross and Malin Sohr from the Center for International Education the fall 2009 Study abroad Fair. More than 15 providers with programs from all over the world participated in the well attended fair. Also, she was invited to participate in the 2009 Workshop Program for US Higher Education Institutions sponsored by the Education Office of the Embassy of Spain in USA, to be held in Spain, from November 30 to December 4, 2009. The goal of this workshop is to foster faculty and student exchanges between the two countries.

Dr. Serra and Dr. Dávila participated in NECLAS (New England Council on Latin American Studies) at Union College, NY, on October 3, 2009. Dr. Fátima Serra was the Panel Chair of “Las nuevas tendencias en la narrativa latinoamericana,” and presented the paper: “La ciencia como activadora de la memoria en La piel del cielo de Elena Poniatowska.” Dr. Dávila presented “El universo caleidoscópico de Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro.”

Dr. Michele C. Dávila also presented the talks “Ethnic Perceptions between Puerto Ricans and Puerto Rican-Americans,” at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (9/29/2009), and gave two workshops for teachers of the community: “Entendiendo a Puerto Rico: su historia, lenguaje y música” at Lasell College, Newton, (8/15/2009), and “Puertorriqueños y Nuyoricans: su cultura a través de la literatura, lenguaje y música” at the 43rd Annual Conference of MaFLA (Massachusetts Foreign Language Association), in Sturbridge, MA (10/29/2009). Dr. Dávila published “Andando por los márgenes: travestismo y lenguaje en Sirena Selena vestida de pena de Mayra Santos-Febres” in La mujer en la literatura, Vol. VIII, edited by Juana A. Arancibia (Argentina: Instituto literario y cultural hispánico, 2009); the “Prologue” of the short-story collection Archivo de oscuridades by Puerto Rican author José E. Santos (San Juan, P.R.: Editorial Callejón, 2009), and the “Prologue” in Rosario Ferré y Mayra Montero: entre la espada y la cruz by Alejandra Rengifo and Dolores Flores-Silva (México: Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad de Juárez, 2009).

Dr. Doll with Catalan poet, August Bover, in Wales

Dr. Kristine Doll was an invited speaker at the Dylan Thomas Center in Swansea, Wales this past June (2009). She read several translations of Thomas’ poetry, as well as those of the contemporary Catalan poet, August Bover. Bover is known throughout Catalonia for his writing of tanca – a traditional eastern lyric form similar to that of haiku. While at the Dylan Thomas Center, Dr. Doll also taught a poetry workshop for graduate students and local poets. Also, Dr. Doll published, with Dr. Sherf, “A View from Higher Ed. Action Research: Engaging in Inquiry to Improve Instruction (Part I)” in MaFLA’s Fall 2009 newsletter.

On May 28 Dr. Jon Aske gave a presentation on the Basque Country, its culture, language, and politics, for Spanish and French students at Hopkinton High school, MA. More recently, he participated as an invited guest in a national workshop for teachers of Spanish on November 5-6 in Miami Beach. The workshop was called Una Mirada al Futuro: Visualizing the Future of Spanish Education and it was sponsored by the Wiley Faculty Network. Finally, Dr. Aske has provided two educational technology workshops this semester for SSC faculty through the Center for Teaching Innovation.