Events

• During IAP, Emily taught a three-session fiber arts workshop at the MIT Museum as part of Project Manus, where twelve students from various disciplines across MIT explored the basics of felting with wool. In the first two sessions, they experimented with surface design techniques like 3-D shapes, resists, fringe, geometric forms, folds, and layers. For the final session, students applied these skills to a project of their choice—whether a vessel, wearable, tapestry, or another creative form. No prior felting or fiber arts experience was required, but participants committed to all three sessions. It was an incredible opportunity to share her love of fiber arts with the MIT community, and she loved seeing students from different fields engage with this hands-on craft!

Fiber arts workshop poster

Fiber arts workshop

• Emily Goodling continued to organize the German table Stammtisch, where students can attend and speak German in an informal setting, eat pizza, and listen to music. The events have attracted students from all German classes taught at MIT and beyond, with an average of 17 students attending each meet-up this semester!

German table Stammtisch

German table Stammtisch

• Mark Römisch and Emily took students to a performance with KRAFTWERK, an iconic German electronic/techno group from the 1970s, with tickets generously purchased through a CAMIT grant.

KRAFTWERK band

Emily Goodling (Left), Mark Römisch (right) and two students (middle)

• On February 18, 2025, Wakana Maekawa and Masami Ikeda organized a collaborative Japanese calligraphy event for students enrolled in Hybrid Japanese II (21G.S52) and IV (21G.S54). The event offered students an opportunity to experience the art of shodō (Japanese calligraphy) and deepen their cultural appreciation through hands-on practice. Read more.
  

  Wakana Maekawa(back row first on the right), Masami Ikeda (Left on the backrow agaist the wall) and their students

•  On April 4, 2025, Arabic Language Lecturer Muna Bruce, Spanish Language Lecturer Javier Barroso, and Music and Theater Arts Lecturer Garo Williams collaborated on Melodious Ties: The Legacy of Al-Andalus, a cross-cultural event at Killian Hall co-hosted by Global Languages and Music & Theater Arts. The evening featured live music, poetry, and food, celebrating the historical and artistic connections between the Arabic and Hispanic worlds. Spanish students, guided by Barroso, presented work in Spanish on themes from the Al-Andalus era, while Arabic students performed selected poems in Arabic, exploring their cultural significance. In collaboration with Music & Theater Arts students, they offered bilingual poetry recitations and musical pieces that blended flamenco guitar and Arabic muwashshah. The event highlighted shared linguistic and artistic heritage, engaging students in meaningful performance and scholarship, and was attended by faculty and community members.
  

  Spanish Language Lecturer Javier Barroso with his students

  

  Arabic Language Lecturer Muna Bruce lower row the second from the left side, Music and Theater Arts Lecturer Garo Williams (top row middle) with student representative and event guests

• Dagmar Jaeger organizes the German Studies Writing prize. On April 29, 2025, the German Group and MIT-Germany hosted the German Studies Excellence Award 2025 ceremony, featuring Per Urlaub, Dagmar Jaeger, and Emily Goodling. The event celebrated outstanding student writing in German, recognizing excellence in language, analysis, and creativity. For more details, please read more on the full list of winners.

First Prize winner Tamara Hinderman ’25, with Abby MacKenzie, MIT Germany (left) and Dagmar Jaeger, Senior Lecturer in German, Global Languages

• Portuguese Language Lecturer Nilma Dominique organized a dynamic year of programming for the Portuguese program, which helped facilitate cultural and academic engagement. The program was honored to once again host the renowned musical trio Cia Armorial for a special performance, attended by members of the MIT community and a visiting delegation from Angola. Students deepened their cultural connections through the popular Batucada Brazilian percussion course, which offered hands-on musical expression, and enjoyed a screening of Walter Salles’ groundbreaking film I’m Still Here, the first Brazilian production to win an Academy Award. The year also marked the return of the Brazilian Student Association at MIT, celebrated with an early Festa Junina that brought the campus together for traditional food, music, and festivities, further enriching MIT’s appreciation of Lusophone cultures.
  

  Cia Armorial

  

  Festa Junina
• Eva Dessein actively supported both departmental and campus-wide initiatives through academic and community engagement. On March 14, she collaborated with the African Learning Circle to organize a guest lecture by Dr. Convolbo. On April 3, she facilitated a student-alumni panel discussion, and on May 3, she served as a session facilitator at the CLTL Conference. Throughout the spring term, she also co-hosted the Pause-café French conversation table with colleagues Leanna Rezvani and Cathy Culot, fostering informal language practice and community-building among students.
  
  African Learning Circle features Dr. Convolbo
  

  Cathy Culot(left) and Eva Dessein (Next to Cathy) and students in Pause Cafe

• Leanna Rezvani took her French I & II students and some of her JSF students to see the French musical, Contre-temps, at the Huntington Theatre on May 9th.
  
  Leanna Rezvani brought her student to see the French musical, Contre-temps, at the Huntington Theatre
• In November 2024, Min-Min Liang organized and collaborated with several GL colleagues on the “Heritage Meets Heritage” event.
  

  SHASS Dean Agustín Rayo attended the Heritage event

  

  SHASS Dean Agustín Rayo gave un opening speech at the Heritage Event

• Per Urlaub actively advanced interdisciplinary initiatives at MIT through both academic programming and large-scale events. In May 2025, he co-organized The MITHIC Language/AI Incubator Colloquium with Leo Celi (Institute for Medical Engineering and Science), bringing together researchers from linguistics, AI, and healthcare to explore cutting-edge applications of language technology in medical and educational contexts. Read more. That same month, Urlaub led Mapping the Future: Language and Intercultural Education in an Age of Technological Disruption, a major conference hosted by MIT Global Languages. As lead organizer, he delivered the opening address and moderated two panels, facilitating critical dialogue among 185 registered attendees about the evolving role of language education amidst rapid technological change. The conference underscored Global Languages’ commitment to shaping inclusive, forward-looking pedagogies.

Honors and awards

• Cathy Culot, Hee-Jeong Jeong and Mark Römischhave been honored with the 2025 James A. and Ruth Levitan Teaching Award in MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, recognizing their exceptional contributions to education.
• Nilma Dominique has been awarded the 2025 AOTP Excellence in Teaching Portuguese Prize, recognized as Higher Education Teacher of the Year by the American Organization of Teachers of Portuguese. This prestigious honor celebrates her innovative contributions to Portuguese language instruction, curriculum development, and mentorship within the Lusophone academic community. The award will be presented at the XIV EMEP World Conference on Portuguese Language Teaching at Duke University in August 2025.
• In May 2025, Muna Bruce was awarded a Canvas Innovation Fund grant to enhance instructional design in my Arabic language course. This summer, she will collaborate with an MIT undergraduate to develop new strategies for student engagement and course delivery. This project reflects her commitment to innovation and excellence in language pedagogy.  
  
• Maria Khotimsky was the recipient of the 2024 ACTR (American Council of Teachers of Russian) Excellence in Teaching Award for Post Secondary Instructors.
• Kang Zhou and Panpan Gao have been award the 2025 Education Innovation Fund to support their project, Enhancing Language and Cultural Competence through AI-Generated Sociocultural Scenarios.
• Takako Aikawa leads Fluid Language Pedagogy (FlaP), an innovative initiative supported by the MIT SHASS Education Innovation Fund. This project reimagines language learning through adaptive, technology-enhanced frameworks, blending cutting-edge pedagogy with tools like AI to create personalized, student-centered instruction. FlaP bridges traditional language education and emerging technologies, fostering dynamic teaching methods that respond to diverse learner needs in multilingual classrooms. By prioritizing flexibility and interdisciplinary collaboration, the project advances MIT’s mission to transform global communication through scalable, humanistic approaches to language acquisition.
• Per Urlaub (Global Languages, MIT) and Leo Anthony Celi (Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, MIT) co-lead the Language/AI Incubator, an interdisciplinary initiative supported by the MIT SHASS+ Connectivity Fund. This project bridges language studies, AI, and medical engineering to explore innovative applications of language technology in global health, education, and cross-cultural communication. The incubator fosters collaboration between MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) and scientific/technical disciplines, leveraging AI to address real-world challenges in multilingual and medical contexts.

In and out of the classroom

Publications

• Nilma Dominique co-edited and contributed to the inaugural special issue of the Portuguese Language Journal, titled “Voices of Leadership: Women in Portuguese Language Programs in U.S. Higher Education.” This landmark issue highlights the contributions of women educators in the field. Access the full publication here: Portuguese Language Journal.
• Teaching Russian Through STEM: Contexts, Tools, and Approaches, co-edited by Maria Khotimsky and Svetlana V. Nuss (New York: Routledge). Khotimsky contributed to several chapters in this publication, including  “Designing Content-Based Modules for Teaching Advanced Russian,” first author, co-authored with Svetlana Abramova and Veronika Egorova (pp. 78-101); “History and Modern Practices of Integrating STEM in the Teaching of Russian as a New or Heritage Language,” first author, co-authored with Svetlana V. Nuss (pp. 3-24); and “Pedagogy of eaching Russian through STEM in the 21st Century,” co-authored with Svetlana Nuss (pp. 233-257). Link to publication.Additionally, the volume Contemporary Translation in Transition: Poems, Theories, Conversations that Khotimsky co-edited with Friederike Reentz, Henrieke Stahl, and William Waters (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2024), is now available in open access, thanks to the MIT Libraries Open Access Publishing Grant. Link to the pubication.
• Leanna Rezvani’s monograph, Hagiography in Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron: Saints and Debates in Renaissance France, (University of Delaware Press) is now available for purchase. Link to the publication.
• Haohsiang Liao published a peer-reviewed article in December, “Mobilizing Engagement in Designing and Implementing Global Chinese Language MOOCs,” in The World of Chinese Language, Volume 132: 27-42.
• Per Urlaub and Eva Dessein published in March “When Disruptive Innovations Drive Educational Transformation: Literacy, Pocket Calculator, Google Translate, ChatGPT” in  An MIT Exploration of Generative AI. They also co-authored “Kasparov, Vygotsky, and ChatGPT: What a Chess Prodigy and Child Psychologist Can Teach Us about AI in Education” in FLTMAG, an online magazine on technology integration in language teaching and learning.
• Leanna Rezvani published a chapter entitled “Innovation, Internships, and Inclusion: Strategies for a Successful French Program at MIT” in the International Handbook of French Education.
• Per Urlaub published “Vygotsky meets ChatGPT” in MIT Open Learning Blog in February. His co-authored chapter “Deutsch als Fach- und Fremdsprache in den USA” appears in the upcoming open-source publication Handbuch Deutsch als Fach- und Fremdsprache edited by Szurawitzki and Wolf-Farré.

In the news

• Takako Aikawa was featured in an MIT News article on the Festival of Learning in April: “MIT faculty, instructors, students experiment with generative AI in teaching and learning.“
• MIT News highlighted GL’s IAP Quechua class and its instructor, Soledad Chango, in “Investigating and preserving Quechua.“
• Nilma Dominique was interviewed in April by the Brazilian Newsletter Valor Econômico Pipeline.
• Emily Goodling was profiled in an article published in MIT News: “3 Questions: Why study theater in a German language class?“
• Kang Zhou was interviewed by The Tech “A Passion for Teaching Chinese” in March.

Conferences, presentations, meetings

• Dagmar Jaeger presented a paper entitled “Social Reading and Digital Literacy” and served as session organizer for “Social Annotation in L2 Reading and Writing” at the NeMLA Conference on March 6, 2025. She also received Dean’s Grant funding to participate in workshops on writing and AI at the CALICO Conference in San Diego in May 2025.
• Haohsiang Liao gave an invited talk, entitled “Three Years of Study Abroad Programs in Taiwan,” at the Chinese Language Center of National Sun Yat-sen University in January.
• Nilma Dominique served for the second consecutive year as an advisor for the Brazil Conference 2025, a flagship event co-hosted by Harvard University and MIT, where she also contributed as a panelist in two discussions. Additionally, in partnership with the Cultural Department of the Consulate of Brazil in Boston, she helped organize a two-day series of Portuguese language workshops, providing heritage language education training and professional development for local Portuguese instructors.
• In 2024 and 2025, Min-min Liang actively contributed to the field of heritage language education through presentations, panels, and organizational leadership. In October 2024, she presented “Community Building: Heritage Meets Heritage Event” at the New England Chinese Language Teachers Association Annual Conference (Tufts University) and co-organized the ACTFL Heritage Languages Business Meeting. Later that November, she delivered the paper “Diversity as Opportunity: Cross-Linguistic Experiences in Heritage Learners” at the ACTFL Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. In January 2025, she was an invited virtual speaker at the University of Toronto’s Department of East Asian Studies, discussing “Focusing on Chinese Heritage Learners: How to Develop and Adopt Teaching and Learning Materials for Them.”Her engagements continued in March 2025 with the presentation “Digital Story: Improving Literacy for Chinese Heritage Language Learners” as part of the panel “Social Annotation in L2 Reading and Writing” at the Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Meeting (Philadelphia). In May 2025, she presented twice at the Chinese Language Teacher Association Conference in NYC: first on “Exploring Identity through Project-based Language Learning for Heritage Learners” and then on “Maximizing Language Gains for Heritage Learners of Chinese: Exploring Course Models and Overcoming Challenges,” highlighting pedagogical innovations for heritage language education.
• In February, Maria Khotimsky attended AATSEEL (American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages), held virtually. She served as a panel chair for the panel on “Poetry and Translation I: Russian Verse Translation,” contributed as a panel discussant for  “Poetry and  Translation II: Identity in Translation (Polish, Qazaq, Russian, and B/C/M/S),” and served as the organizer and chair of  “Connecting the Teaching of Russian with Professional Domains Beyond the Humanities.” On March 26, 2025, she gave a guest lecture “Writing Across Languages: Translation and Translingual Poetry of Post-Soviet Literary Diaspora” at Wheaton College. On May 16, 2025, she took part in the ACTR Roundtable on Open-Access Resources, presenting on “Choose to Study Russian for Professional Needs” resource and its pedagogical applications.
• Panpan Gao delivered several invited talks and presentations throughout 2024 and 2025. In December 2024, she gave an invited talk titled “Practical and Effective Application of ICLE Standards in Teaching and Assessment of the News and Documentary Unit in Chinese Language Courses” at the NECLTA Workshop in virtual.In May 2025, she presented three times: first, an invited talk “Program Planning and Curriculum Design at Middlebury Chinese School: Bridging Language Instruction and Cultural Engagement” at the Chinese Flagship Summer Program, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI; next, a panel presentation “Maximizing Language Gains for Heritage Learners of Chinese: Exploring Course Models and Overcoming Challenges” at the CLTA Annual Conference in New York; and finally, a paper “Autonomous Learning for Cultural Engagement in Intermediate-Advanced Chinese Heritage Classes: Curriculum Design, Activity Planning, and Assessment Adjustments”, also presented at the CLTA Annual Conference in New York.
• Kang Zhou presented research at multiple conferences throughout the 2024–2025 academic year. In October 2024, he delivered the paper “Tone and Intonation Training Strategies in Elementary Chinese Course” at the 13th NECLTA Conference, Tufts University.In March 2025, he presented “The Application of Perusall in Advanced Chinese Language Teaching” as a paper at the NeMLA Annual Convention in Philadelphia, PA. The following month, he gave an invited talk titled “The Art of Chinese Calligraphy: From Ancient Strokes to Modern Expressions”, hosted by the Chinese Program, Department of Asian Studies at Bowdoin College.In May 2025, he presented two papers at the CLTA Annual Conference in New York: “Maximizing Language Gains for Heritage Learners of Chinese: Exploring Course Models and Overcoming Challenges” and “Project-Based Language Learning and Its Implementation in Chinese Classrooms”.
• In March 2025, Eva Dessein co-delivered the keynote “Is Liberal Arts Education Compatible with Generative AI?” with Per Urlaub at Colby College, Maine, addressing the challenges and opportunities of AI integration in humanities education.

  In June 2025, she presented “From Resistance to Embrace: A Framework for Understanding Technology Adoption in Language Education” with Per Urlaub at the APLIUT Congress in Colmar, France, contributing to international discussions on technology’s role in language teaching. Her ongoing telecollaborative project with ParisTech and ENAM continues to connect students in France and the U.S., facilitating multilingual interaction and intercultural learning for intermediate-level French learners.

• Min-Min Liang presented “Curriculum Design for Chinese Heritage Language Beginning Level Course” as a (virtual) invited speaker in January for The Foundation for Scholarly Exchange (Fulbright Taiwan) organized by U.S.-Taiwan Education Initiative. In April she presented at the 2024 Annual Chinese Language Teacher Association Conference in St. Louis: “Empowering Heritage Language Learners through Innovative Approach and Resource Development,” as well as, “Project Design for Chinese Heritage Language Beginners: A Chinese Tour guide.” In May she presented “Mapping the Terrain: Evaluating and Envisioning Chinese Language Textbooks for Chinese Heritage Learners in the U.S.” at 2nd Heritage Languages Around The World conference at UMass Amherst.

• In November 2024, Muna Bruce presented at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Convention as part of the panel “Diversity as Opportunity: Cross-Linguistic Experiences in Heritage Learners.” Her presentation focused on the role of dialectal diversity in Arabic heritage language instruction, exploring its implications for curriculum design, classroom dynamics, and student identity. Muna emphasized the importance of incorporating dialectal variation to foster more inclusive and authentic learning environments.
• Per Urlaub delivered presentations on language education and AI at multiple conferences in spring 2025. In March, he presented “Dear ChatGPT! Do My Language Courses Still Matter in the Age of AI?” remotely to Ursinus College, Pennsylvania, framing AI as both a challenge and catalyst for reimagining language education.

  In April, he gave three talks:

  • “Lost in Translation: The Art and Craft of Translation in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” at Colby College, Maine, exploring AI’s impact on translation pedagogy.

  • The co-delivered keynote “Is Liberal Arts Education Compatible with Generative AI?” (with Eva Dessein) at Colby College.

  • A remote presentation “Post-Disciplinary Teaching in the Age of AI” at Purdue University, Indiana, advocating for collaborative curriculum design.

  In June, he presented “From Resistance to Embrace: A Framework for Understanding Technology Adoption in Language Education” (with Dessein) at the APLIUT Congress in Colmar, France. Later that month, he delivered “The MITHIC Language/AI Incubator” as an invited remote presentation to KAIST, South Korea, highlighting MIT’s interdisciplinary work in AI and language studies.

Lecturers in the News Elsewhere