Early immersion adds up for language dexterity

Program will grow with students

11:38 PM, Nov 9, 2012

. .. Only two states have led statewide immersion programs – Delaware and Utah, according to the state department of education. Utah’s program began about five years ago, and it served as a model as Delaware officials developed their program. But while Utah starts teaching language in first grade, Delaware’s program will begin with kindergarten students, according to the department. It is expected to cost about $1.9 million a year...
See
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20121110/NEWS03/311100040/Early-immersion-adds-up-language-dexterity?odyssey=nav%7Chead&nclick_check=1

Good Suggestions for Language Practice

Michigan State University just posted a new issue of their semiannual newsletter, CLEAR News, the Fall 2012 issue is available free for download.

“The main article contains numerous language learning strategies for students and teachers alike. Written by Scott Sterling, the article gives concrete ideas students can use to reach their proficiency goals. You can always go to the Newsletter link on our website to download the current or any past issue of the newsletter.”

Four German-style Christmas Markets in PA

Here are some opportunities to enjoy the upcoming season in German=style Christmas Markets:

 

Downtown Pittsburgh reveals Light Up Night plans

November 2, 2012 By Mark Belko / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

…But one of the biggest attractions of the holiday season will arrive a week later when a European-style market makes it debut in Market Square…

In developing the concept, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership borrowed from the famous centuries-old Christkindlesmarkt in Nuremberg, Germany, and Chicago's Christkindlmarket, which started in 1996 and attracts more than 1 million visitors a year...

Read more:http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/downtown-pittsburgh-reveals-light-up-night-plans-660307/#ixzz2B5Ptp8ZD

Bethlehem, PA:

Christkindlmarkt Bethlehem Celebrates 20 Years of Holiday Magic

Over the past two decades, Christkindlmarkt Bethlehem has delighted almost one million guests from near and far with its mix of unique gift ideas, old-world charm and holiday cheer. This year the festival will celebrate 20 years of holiday magic with a six-week run that features more than 125 vendors each week, the most in its history. ..

http://christkindlmarkt.org

Harmony, PA: German Christmas Market

Harmony Museum will hold its annual German Christmas Market, “WeihnachtsMarkt” onSaturday and Sunday November 10th and 11th 2012. Come experience the fun and flavor of the German Christmas Markets held each Holiday season in Germany. Featured this year are German music and entertainment including the Teutonia Maennerchor Dancers from Pittsburgh’s German Club, Swiss Singers, and Burke’s Bavarian Band….

http://www.harmonymuseum.org/Christmas-Market.html

Mifflinburg, PA: Oldest Authentic Christkindl Market in the U.S.

Mifflinburg's version of an authentic Christmas Market, inspired by the 700-year-old traditional German Christkindlmarkt, or Christ Child Market, is a festive event prepared by various churches, organizations, schools, and residents. For three days, Mifflinburg's Market Street, with its many churches, is lined with festive outdoor huts featuring unique handmade crafts and traditional Christkindl treats…

http://www.mifflinburgchristkindlmarket.com

 

Chicago, Ill: The Christkindlmarket Chicago

Inspired by the Christkindlesmarkt in Nuremberg, Germany, which began in 1545, the Christkindlmarket Chicago brings a cherished German and European tradition with international flair and local charm to Chicago. Chicago's largest open-air Christmas festival was first held on Pioneer Court in 1996. By special invitation of Mayor Richard M. Daley, Christkindlmarket Chicago moved to Daley Plaza in 1997 and has become a staple event on the plaza ever since. Together with the support of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), Christkindlmarket Chicago has grown to become one of the most popular winter attractions in the heart of the city.

 

The Christkindlmarket Chicago is also the perfect place for teachers and professors of the German language to bring their students. Here, they have the opportunity to practice skills at the market with numerous German speaking vendors. Several educational activities for students visiting the market include: scavenger hunts, interviews with vendors, or even singing German holiday songs for all to enjoy. At the market, students get to experience authentic German traditions without having to travel any farther than the city of Chicago. From Kindergartners to graduate students the message is loud and clear: The Christkindlmarket is fun, fun, fun!

http://www.christkindlmarket.com/en/

NECTFL'S FIRST 2012-2013 GENERAL WEBINAR

 

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 4-5 P.M. (Eastern Time)

"Engaging Millennial Learners by
Broadening Class Participation"

 

See www.nectfl.org for more information

Swedish Researchers Suggest Learning a Foreign Language can Make Your Brain Grow

 

Sci-News.Com

Published: Oct 10th, 2012

By Enrico de Lazaro

Suggest Learning Foreign Language Can Make Your Brain Grow

A team of Lund University scientists has discovered that the accelerated learning of foreign languages can lead to the growth of language-related regions of the brain...

Read entire article at: http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/anthropology/article00642.html

U.S. Department of State Youth Exchange Scholarships for U.S. High School Students

The U.S. Department of State announces scholarships for American high school students to study abroad:

The National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) offers merit-based scholarships to U. S. high-school aged students for overseas study of seven critical foreign languages: Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Korean, Persian (Tajik), Russian and Turkish. The NSLI-Y program is designed to immerse participants in the cultural life of the host country, giving them invaluable formal and informal language practice and sparking a lifetime interest in foreign languages and cultures. Applications for summer 2013 and academic year 2013-2014 programs are due November 1, 2012. Visit www.nsliforyouth.org http://www.nsliforyouth.org/> for more information.

The Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Abroad Program offers scholarships to American high school students to spend the 2013-14 academic year in countries that may include Bosnia & Herzegovina, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali (semester), Morocco, Oman, South Africa, Thailand, Tunisia, and Turkey. This post 9/11 program focuses on increasing understanding between people in the U.S. and countries with significant Muslim populations. The application deadline is January 16,2013. Visit the YES Program's website http://www.yesprograms.org/yesabroad> for more information.

The Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program (CBYX) was established in 1983 to celebrate German-American friendship based on common values of democracy. Secondary school students live with host families, attend local schools, and participate in community life in Germany. Young professionals (undergraduates) and high school graduates of vocational studies ages 18-24 study and participate in practical training. Scholarships are now available for academic year 2013-14; application deadlines vary by U.S. region and range from September 2012 to January 2013. For more information and application deadlines, visit the organization in charge of recruitment for your state at USAGermanyScholarship.org http://www.usagermanyscholarship.org/> .

The American Youth Leadership Program offers opportunities for American high students and educators to travel abroad on a three- to four-week-long exchange program to gain first-hand knowledge of foreign cultures and to collaborate on solving global issues. Several different organizations implement this program, and each has organized an academic and experiential educational exchange focused on dialogue and debate, leadership development, and community service. Recruitment areas and application deadlines vary, so please check the American Youth Leadership Program http://exchanges.state.gov/youth/programs/ylp/current-youth-leaderships-programs.html> website for more information.

Crystal Goldie JNCL–NCLIS
4646 40th St., NW, Suite 310
Washington, DC 20016
Tel: 202-966-8477
Fax: 202-966-8310
E-mail cgoldie@languagepolicy.org

(Contribute to JNCL-NCLIS!)

The campus tsunami: Online education is the wave of the future, even at elite universities

May 7, 2012 By David Brooks Online education is not new. The University of Phoenix started its online degree program in 1989. Four million college students took at least one online class during the fall of 2007. But, over the past few months, something has changed. The elite, pace-setting universities have embraced the Internet. Not long ago, online courses were interesting experiments. Now online activity is at the core of how these schools envision their futures. Last week, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology committed $60 million to offer free online courses from both universities. Two Stanford professors, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, have formed a company, Coursera, which offers interactive courses in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics and engineering. Their partners include Stanford, Michigan, Penn and Princeton. Many other elite universities, including Yale and Carnegie Mellon, are moving aggressively online. President John Hennessy of Stanford summed up the emerging view in an article by Ken Auletta in The New Yorker, "There's a tsunami coming."... For complete article please see: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/david-brooks-the-campus-tsunami-online-education-is-the-wave-of-the-future-even-at-elite-universities-634705/

THE BILINGUAL BRAIN IS SHARPER AND MORE FOCUSED, STUDY SAYS

April 30, 2012, 5:01 PM Wall Street Journal Blog / Health Blog By Robert Lee Hotz The ability to speak two languages can make bilingual people better able to pay attention than those who can only speak one language, a new study suggests. ...Through this fine-tuning of the nervous system, people who can master more than one language are building a more resilient brain, one more proficient at multitasking, setting priorities, and, perhaps, better able to withstand the ravages of age, a range of recent studies suggest. Indeed, some preliminary research suggests that people who speak a second language may have enhanced defenses against the onset of dementia and delay Alzheimer’s disease by an average of four years, as WSJ reported in 2010. The ability to speak more than one language also may help protect memory, researchers from the Center for Health Studies in Luxembourg reported at last year. ... See: http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2012/04/30/the-bilingual-brain-is-sharper-and-more-focused-study-says/?mod=dist_smartbrief

Momentum Builds for Dual-Language Learning

.....Experts say the interest in dual-language programs now is driven by an increased demand for bilingual and biliterate workers and by educators who see positive impacts on academic achievement for both English-learners and students already fluent in English.... Still, several studies in recent years have demonstrated that ELL students and other frequently low-performing groups, such as African-American students, do well in dual-language programs. ... http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/03/23/26duallanguage_ep.h31.html?tkn=SVRFiB%2BHyniCxugGb6XDd7Fwu6eYTyd1p%2FQd&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1

NEALLT 2012 CONFERENCE

Teacher Roles and Practices in Technology-Enhanced Instruction March 30 - April 1 Carnegie Mellon Pittsburgh, Pa See http://www.neallt.org/

Adventures of a Teenage Polyglot

NY Times Article By JOHN LELAND Published: March 9, 2012 SOME people pick up a little Hebrew before their bar mitzvahs, or learn Spanish from their mothers, or can speak some Japanese from a semester abroad. Timothy Doner, 16, is not one of those people. In the fall of 2009, after studying for his bar mitzvah, he decided he wanted to learn modern Hebrew, so he continued with his tutor, engaging in long dialogues about Israeli politics. Then he felt drawn to learn Arabic, so after eighth grade he attended a summer program for college students at Brigham Young University. It took him four days to learn the alphabet, he said, a week to read fluidly. See complete article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/nyregion/a-teenage-master-of-languages-finds-online-fellowship.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

U.S. Ethnic Mix Boasts German Accent Amid Surge of Hispanics

The U.S., first populated by Native Americans, rediscovered by Europeans and colonized under the flags of the Spanish, English and French, is now filled with Germans. More than half of the nation’s 3,143 counties contain a plurality of people who describe themselves as German-American, according to a Bloomberg compilation of data from the Census Bureau’s 2010 American Community Survey. The number of German- Americans rose by 6 million during the last decade to 49.8 million, almost as much as the nation’s 50.5 million Hispanics. (Click here to explore an interactive county-by-county map of U.S. ethnic groups.) see entire article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-06/u-s-ethnic-mix-boasts-german-accent-amid-surge-of-hispanics.html

ACTFL announces revision of Proficiency Guidelines and support materials.

Important news for everyone who tests proficiency! The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines have been revised for 2012 with updated descriptions of what individuals can do with language in terms of speaking, writing, listening and reading. A new feature of the Guidelines is their publication online, supported with glossed terminology and annotated, multimedia samples of performance at each level for speaking and writing, and examples of oral and written texts and tasks associated with each level for reading and listening. See....http://actflproficiencyguidelines2012.org/

3 STUDY / TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES!!

1 University of Rhode Island German Summer School 2012 Deutsche Sommerschule am Atlantik June 24 - August 3, 2012 http://www.uri.edu/iep/dssa Please forward to anyone interested! Intensive German language instruction in an immersion setting for undergraduate, graduate students and high school teachers of German Six week immersion program, consisting of two 3-week sessions (June 24 - July 13; July 15 - August 3) Fully-accredited intensive courses at five levels of instruction, including beginners Participants earn transferable University of Rhode Island credits Native-speaker instructors from Germany Complete two semesters of college German in 6 weeks of total immersion Extensive extra-curricular program of cultural presentations, recent films & excursions Internationally recognized Goethe Institute Certificate Exams B1 and B2 offered Optional short courses in German for Reading Knowledge, Pronunciation and Intonation, Technical German, Business German, German for Musicians, German for Philosophy, History and Art History Partial work-study financial aid available Deadline for application June 1st. Early application advised. For more information visit http://www.uri.edu/iep/dssa or email hedderich@uri.edu. Norbert Hedderich, Ph.D. Professor of German Chair, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures 112 Swan Hall Director, German Summer School University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI 02881 Tel. 401-874-4710 Fax: 401-874-4694 From: Alena Palevitz [mailto:apalevitz@americancouncils.org] Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 1:15 PM Subject: Reminder: State Dept. Grants for Educators ``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` 2 Dear Colleague: Our non-profit organization, American Councils for International Education, would like to remind you of two fully-funded programs for educators, whose deadlines are fast approaching. I would appreciate your assistance distributing these announcements to anyone who you think is interested, and I am happy to answer any questions you have about these programs. My contact information can be found at the bottom of this email. Both programs are fully funded through the U.S. State Department. Study Language in China or Egypt Intensive Summer Language Institutes (ISLI) provides fellowships for U.S. classroom teachers to spend six weeks overseas studying intermediate and advanced-level Arabic in Alexandria, Egypt, and Chinese in Changchun, China. Current K-12 teachers, community college instructors of Arabic and Mandarin Chinese, and students enrolled in education programs who intend to teach these languages can apply. Participants earn ten hours of graduate credit through Bryn Mawr College, and are provided with peer tutors and roundtrip airfare. All travel and study-related costs are fully covered. For more information, please visit www.americancouncils.org/isli or email isli@americancouncils.org. Program Application Deadline: March 2, 2012 Connect Internationally The Educational Seminars Program provides short-term professional development opportunities to teachers and administrators from around the world, for 2-3 week reciprocal exchange programs and one-way professional development programs. Participating countries include Argentina, Brazil, Thailand, and Uruguay for reciprocal exchanges and Greece, India, and Italy for one-way programs. All Educational Seminars provide airfare, training, travel health care, and living costs. For more information, please visit www.americancouncils.org/es or email edseminars@americancouncils.org. Upcoming Program Application Deadline for Argentina, Brazil, Thailand: March 30, 2012 Sincerely, Alena Palevitz Program Officer, Teacher Programs, Arabic and Chinese Intensive Summer Language Institutes American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS 1828 L Street, NW, Suite 1200 Washington, DC 20036 Tel: 202.833.7522 Fax: 202.833.7523 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~``` 3 Dear Educators, Hello! The Keizai Koho Fellowship is an all expense paid fellowship to Japan. This once in a lifetime experience is open to Social Studies teachers and educational administrators. Applications for the 2012 Keizai Koho Fellowship Program must be received byFebruary 17, 2012. The application is straightforward and available online... http://kkcfellowships.com/fellowships/index.html Check out this not-to-be missed all expense paid ten day backstage pass to Japan! Who: Middle and High School teachers of Economics, Social Studies, and History. Supervisors,specialists, and school administrators at the district and state levels; and faculty associated withcolleges directly concerned with the training of K-12 teachers. What: Two-week Educator Tour of major industrial and corporate facilities, meetings with key businessleaders, meetings with educators including school visits, discussions with teachers and students, and ahome stay with a Japanese family in Japan. Where: The ten-day itinerary in Japan will focus on Tokyo. Typically, there is at least one scheduled visitto a destination outside of Tokyo. When: July 1 - July 13, 2012 (Tentative) Why: For an opportunity to learn first hand about contemporary Japanese societyand enhance the teaching of Japan in the classroom. How: Apply Now! Applications are due February 17, 2012.