News

January 29, 2024 12:42 pm

In the News

Fall 2023 News Highlights

New and Noteworthy

Takako Aikawa launched 21G.55 Japanese V on OpenCourseWare in December, in collaboration with Sharon Lin from the OCW team.
Nilma Dominique teaches a new class in Portuguese in Brazil over IAP
Emily Goodling traveled to Berlin in June to do research on artistic responses to the war in Ukraine (with the CLTL grant).
Min-Min Liang organized and co-hosted several ACTFL Heritage Languages Webinars: “Going from half empty to half full: Empowering heritage leaners through lived experience and critical language awareness” (December) and “The triple bullying of U.S. heritage speakers and how to counter it” in September. She also Co-Organized and Co-hosted the ACTFL Heritage Languages Special Interest Group business meeting (virtual).
Haohsiang Liao launched MITx: Chinese Language in Culture – Level 3 on edX in September.
Per Urlaub and Eva Dessein received a Generative AI Impact Award from the MIT President’s Office/MIT Schwarzman College of Computing for their paper, “The Pocket Calculator, Google Translate, and Chat-GPT: From Disruptive Technologies to Curricular Innovation.” MIT News article.
Per Urlaub received a Humanities Award from SHASS for an MIT Swahili Studies Initiative.
Kang Zhou leads the MIT Bilingual Tour Guide Project, part of course 21G.109. This initiative harnesses students’ bilingual abilities to provide unique insights into MIT’s culture, values, and hidden treasures, with a focus on serving Chinese-speaking visitors.

Publications

Tong Chen co-authored “FullChinese at MIT: A Non-Disruptive Integration of Technology for Intermediate Students,” published in July in Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology Volume 6, Issue 1.
Liana Ewald co-authored with Angelina Craig-Flórez (Columbia U), “Versatility and Value: A Student-Generated Collaborative Digital Book Project,” published in October in Second Language Research and Practice (Vol. 4, Issue 1).
Maria Khotimsky published a chapter called “’The Treasure Trove of World Literature’: Shaping the Concept of World Literature in Post-Revolutionary Russia” in World Literature in the Soviet Union, edited by Galin Tikhanov, Anne Lounsberry, and Rossen Djagalov (Academic Studies Press, 2023), pp. 91-118.

ACTFL conference in November in Chicago

Tong Chen chaired a panel and gave a presentation entitled “Teaching Characters to Beginning Learners: Strategies and Approaches.”
Nilma Dominique co-presented a talk entitled “The Ballad of the Unheard: Demonstration and Protest in Portuguese Lyrics.”
Panpan Gao delivered a presentation on “Diverse Themes in Narratives: leveraging Multi-Source Authentic Language Materials.”
Maria Khotimsky presented “Enhance your program with “Russian for STEM and Professional Needs”
Min Liang presented “Improving Literacy: Inquiry-Based learning and Instruction.”
Haohsiang Liao presented at the special interest group Open edX Educators luncheon by the National Council of Associations of Chinese Language Schools (NCACLS) at the ACTFL conference
Kang Zhou presented “Improving Literacy: Inquiry-based Learning and Instruction”

AATSP conference in June in Salamanca, Spain

Javier Barroso co-authored a paper with former GL colleague Helena Belío Apaolaza titled “Léxico emocional en estudiantes de español como lengua de herencia: análisis de relatos autobiográficos” presented by Helena at the conference. The paper examines the affective lexicon utilized by heritage students in autobiography (see picture below).
Nilma Dominique attended the conference and co-presented (virtually) the talk “Brazilianness and/or Stereotypy? In Search of a Pluricentric Balance Between the Presence of Distinctive Features and Fixed Images in the Portuguese as a Second Language Class.”
Liana Ewald and Helena Belío Apaolaza presented a paper titled “Multiliteracidad y tecnopedagogía crítica en la clase de español STEM: contenido y praxis/ Multiliteracies and Critical Tecnopedagogy in Spanish for STEM: Content and Praxis” at the Aonference.

More conferences, presentations, meetings

Takako Aikawa presented “A Mini-lecture on the Japanese Language and Culture,” for the participants of the Innovation Discovery Japan (IDJ) at MIT in December. In November she was on a panel,“AI & Language Education,” at the 2023 Annual US-Japan Council Conference in Washington D.C. In October she was a plenary speaker, presenting “AI-Augmented Language Pedagogy: Perspective Shift is All You Need” at the VI Consortium Workshop for Language Teaching and Learning (CLTL), at Princeton University. In August she co-presented (with Feina Niu) “An Automatic ‘Read-Aloud’ Assessment Tool: A Preliminary Report” at the International Conference on Computer Assisted Systems For Teaching & Learning Japanese (CASTEL/J) 2023 held at Ho Chi Minh City University of Education in Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam in August. Also in August she presented “A Use Case Scenario of Machine Translation for Language Instruction” at the Annual European Association for Japanese Studies 2023 held in Ghent, Belgium. She presented “言語教育におけるChatGPTの使用法と実例” (Methods and Practical Use Case Scenarios of Using ChatGPT in Language Education) at a Virtual Workshop at Kanda University of International Studies in July. Aikawa also taught a graduate class called “Pedagogical Japanese Grammar” at the Middlebury Japanese Summer Language School in July.
Tong Chen chaired a panel and gave a presentation entitled “Teaching Reading and Writing to True Beginners” at New England Chinese Teachers Association (NECLTA) Annual Conference, Tufts University in September.
Eva Dessein presented “Learner Identity and Curricular Development: Building Communities of Critical Inquiry in Language Classrooms” in July at the World Congress of the Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée (AILA), Lyon, France. She also presented with Per Urlaub in October at Princeton (see below).
Nilma Dominique gave a talk at the Middlebury Portuguese Summer school in August about Brazilian hand gestures.
Panpan Gao gave a panel presentation titled “Middlebury Summer School Intermediate Chinese Course—Navigating from Macro Course Design to Micro Skill Instruction” at the New England Chinese Language Teachers Association (NECLTA) Annual Conference. She also presented on “The Multiple Roles of Authentic Materials in Business Chinese Teaching” at in the 2023 International Annual Conference of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language at College in June.
Emily Goodling presented “Teaching Stas Zhyrkov’s Sich waffnend gegen eine See von Plagen” at the German Studies Association Conference in Montreal in October.
Maria Khotimsky made a number of presentations this fall: in December she contributed to the round table discussion at “The Importance of Anthropology in Teaching Russian in an Era of Decolonization” at the University of New Hampshire, Durham. In November she presented a paper titled “Poetry Translation as Decolonization: A Cross-Atlantic Perspective” at the ASEEES Annual Convention in Philadelphia. In October she participated in a panel discussion “Technology, education, research, and humanity” at Digital Horizons: Redefining Education for the Future Conference, the Kutaisi International University (KIU), Georgia.
Min-Min Liang was invited to present at Mala Hanyu y Zhejiang University Excellent Chinese Teachers Innovation Workshop in December (virtual). Her paper was entiitled “Responsive Classroom: Classroom Interaction for Active Learning. In November she presented “Empowering Heritage Leaners: Innovative Approaches in Material Development” as an invited speaker to the Language Council at Duke University (virtual). In October she was an invited speaker for “Chinese Heritage Language teaching and material development: A Conversation with the Authors of Modern Chinese for Heritage Beginners” at San Francisco State University (virtual). In September she presented “Content-based Instruction: A Reading Project for Chinese Heritage Language Learners” at the The New England Chinese Language Teachers Association Annual Conference at Tufts University. In August her invited talk “Modern Chinese for Heritage Beginners” was presented at the Chinese Language Teachers Association Chinese Heritage Language SIG online conference (virtual). In June she presented “Project Designs for Chinese Heritage Language Learners” at the 14th Heritage Language Research Institute conference at UCLA.
Haohsiang Liao gave a talk in July at the 2023 International Conference on Open and Innovative Education at Hong Kong Metropolitan University.
Leanna Rezvani delivered a paper entitled, “The Virgin Mary and the ~~Seduction~~ Assault of a Virgin: Reading the Heptaméron’s 72nd tale in the Post-#MeToo Era” at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference in Baltimore, Maryland in October.
Per Urlaub and Eva Dessein presented “From Socrates to ChatGPT: Reactions to New Technologies in Academia” at the Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning, Workshop on Current and Future Trends in AI at Princeton University in October. Per Urlaub presented “Integrating Language, Literature, and STEM Education Through Translation Studies” at the World Congress of the Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée (AILA) in Lyon, France, in July.
Kang Zhou presented “Empowering Students: Innovative Chinese Curriculum Design for Autonomous Learning” in December at the 2023 International Annual Conference of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. In October he presented “Empowering Students: Innovative Chinese Curriculum Design for Autonomous Learning” at the 5th Harvard International Conference on Chinese Pedagogy (Harvard ICCP) at Harvard University. In September he presented “Refining Advanced Chinese Language Instruction: A Collaborative Online Reading Approach with Perusall” at the NECLTA 12th Annual Conference of the New England Chinese Language Teachers’ Association at Tufts University.

Events

Global Languages presented the Mamoru Hosoda film “Summer Wars” on September 5 Reg Day film event
January Scholars in France (JSF) anniversary celebration: In September, the French group celebrated the 20-year anniversary January Scholars in France with a dinner at Ostra restaurant. Attending were current and former French faculty, current students and alumni, and friends of the program.
The Octoberfest of Ideas was hosted with the German consulate on September 28.
The Heritage Meets Heritage event was held October 19. This event was organized by Min-Min Liang along with other lecturers at Global Languages.
In October, GL sponsored a lecture by April Baker-Bell on “Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy.”
The October GL Colloquium featured presentations by two lecturers. Hee-Jeong Jeong discussed “Metaverse-Based Language Education: Situated and Collaborative Learning,” explaining how the popular 3D avatar platform can be used to create adaptable language learning activities and materials for various levels and languages. Emily Goodling presented “Teaching through Theater: The German Artistic Response to the War in Ukraine,” explaining how the German politico-artistic response to the ongoing war of aggression in Ukraine was integrated into her upper-level German class.
Nilma Dominique co-organized several events related to the Portuguese language program including film screening and Q&A with filmmaker Fernando Moureira; Brazilian Batucada “Joy is an act of resistance” in November. Dominique also organizes the Solta a Língua Portuguese language table, which brings students together to enjoy Brazilian food and Portuguese conversation. She has also hosted speakers at the Solta a Língua events, including Álvaro Lima (Nov. 1) and Heloiza Barbosa (Dec. 6) Read More.
In October, GL hosted a virtual celebration of the publication of “传承中文 Modern Chinese for Heritage Beginners: Stories about Us” Speaking at the event was co-author Min-Min Liang (MIT), as well as the other co-authors: Yan Liu (Duke University), Jingjing Ji (Northwestern University), and Grace Wu (University of Pennsylvania).
The Korean group hosted a Hangeul Day celebration in October.
The Spanish group hosted a Day of the Dead celebration in November.
Global France Seminar guest speakers were: Jennifer Anne Boittin (9/19), Joseph Kai (9/17), and Souleymane Bachir Diagne (10/11).
The Global Languages pre-reg fair was held December 4.

In and out of the classroom

A Russian Language conversation table organized by Maria Khotimsky was launched and held three times this fall – joining a roster of other language-oriented social events for students: (Stammtisch (German) and Solta a Língua (Portuguese).
Nilma Dominique is teaching a new subject for students to study Portuguese over IAP in Brazil. READ MORE. In October she broght students from the Portuguese Program to attend the singer Carminho at the Berklee Performance Center, thanks to CAMIT support.
Tong Chen took students from 21G.105 Chinese V to visit the MFA’s exhibition of Weng’s collection in November. Through this exhibit students learned to appreciate Chinese traditional paintings and calligraphy and explored how the aesthetics of rocks have influenced Chinese architectural landscape design and painting styles for a millennium. In October, Tong Chen invited guest speakers Alexander Lee and Yaya Tang to present “Understanding Chinese Romanticism, Marriage, and Family through Tea Culture” to students in 21G.105, discussing tea’s role in everyday Chinese life and its connections to marriage customs among ethnic groups, emphasizing the significance of the bride and groom serving tea to each other’s parents during weddings. Students also had a chance to sample renowned Chinese tea. In December, students from 21G.105 held an in-class activity on the cuisine of China to learn about Chinese cooking techniques, culture, and history.
Emily Goodling brought virtual guest speakers to students in her class 21G.411 Conflict, Contest, Controversy: A Literary Investigation of German Politics. With the support of an Artists in the Classroom grant from the Council for the Arts at MIT, she hosted a displaced Ukrainian theatermaker working in Germany, and a young artistic director at Berlin’s Schaubühne theater.
Leanna Rezvani took a group of students in November to see Piaf! The Show at Berklee Performance Center on November 10, 2023. (see photo below)