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Monday, February 24, 2014

TandemPlus Pre-Spring Pizza Party

It's the week before Spring Break. Your language students hungry and their second-language skills are depleted after midterms; what can they do? Tell them to refresh themselves at the TandemPlus Spring Pizza Party on Wednesday, March 12 from 3:30 - 5:00 at Punch Pizza in Stadium Village! Like all Tandem events, the pizza party is open to all TandemPlus registrants as well as interested students and community members. There will be many great opportunities to practice one's language of study and maybe even dabble in learning a new one! We'll provide the pizza -- you provide the conversation!

Multilingual TV in the Multimedia Lab

The Multimedia Lab in Jones 135 streams multilingual international TV Monday through Friday in the following languages:

  • Arabic: Al-Jazeera (news), BBC (news)
  • Chinese: CCTV-4 (news)
  • Dutch: RTV N-H (variety)
  • Finnish: Stadi TV (variety)
  • French: TV5 (news)
  • German: NDR (variety)
  • Hebrew: Reshet TV (news)
  • Italian: TVA Vicenza (variety), RAI (news)
  • Japanese: NHK (news)
  • Korean: KTV - Korean National Visual Media and Publishing Center
  • Norwegian: TV Haugaland (news)
  • Portuguese: Programa do Jô
  • Russian: Vesti (News)
  • Spanish: Telesur (news), RTVE (news), Telemadrid (news)
  • Swedish: Aktuellt (News)

Students can watch TV on the wall-mounted large-screen monitor and listen through wireless headphones while relaxing on the Lab's spacious and comfortable couch or lounge chairs. The viewing schedule is available online.

Please inform your students of this fun, authentic, and relaxing language learning opportunity. Instructors can even incorporate the viewing of particular programs into the curriculum.

Attention: Mac DiLL Users Connecting from Off-Campus

Instructors who wish to access student recordings made in the Mac DiLL classrooms from an off-campus computer need to first connect to the University network through a Virtual Private Network (VPN). We've recently learned that connecting to the DiLL will only work if you choose UofMvpn or Full Tunnel options when connecting. Do not choose the Split Tunnel option. Please contact the Language Center Technical Coordinator, Diane Rackowski, at dianer@umn.edu if you need more information about connecting to the Mac DiLL server from off-campus.

Monday, February 17, 2014

World Languages Day: Share your knowledge with Minnesota high school students!

Have you ever wanted to try your hand at teaching high schoolers? If so, World Languages Day (WLD) is the perfect fit for you! WLD is an event that welcomes about 1000 high school students from around the state to campus for short sessions like "The Korean Alphabet in 40 Minutes," "Sagas of the Vikings," and "Caribbean/Cuban Music," plus fun new ideas that instructors like YOU contribute!

This year's event is scheduled for Tuesday, May 20, 2014 on the East Bank and we are still recruiting instructors of every language and cultural area to offer language, history, art, or culture sessions. We would love to have every language at the U represented at WLD 2014!

Please visit worldlang.cla.umn.edu to learn more about about the event and email wld@umn.edu as soon as possible to volunteer to share your expertise.

Breakfast and lunch are provided. Most instructors report that they enjoy the opportunity to work directly with high school students.


TandemPlus Kicked Off With Style

On Tuesday, February 11, TandemPlus held its Spring Kickoff Event in Nolte Hall. More than 40 attendees came to check out the new Tandem registration system, enjoy refreshments, and most importantly meet other Tandem participants to engage in multilingual conversation circles. The biggest groups were Korean-English and Arabic-English, reflecting the growing numbers of learners and native speakers of those languages on campus. Also, an enthusiastic, multi-national French-English group conversed, along with a large Chinese-English group.

Spring registration for TandemPlus will close on Friday, February 28, so tell your students who are interested to sign up soon at tandem.umn.edu.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Spanish Advanced-Level Certificate: March Orientation and Workshop

Students interested in pursuing the Spanish Certificate of Advanced-Level Proficiency are invited to attend an orientation session on Friday, March 14, 3:00-4:30 p.m. in Jones 15 to learn more about this certificate and and ask questions. There will also be an opportunity to take the self-assessment instrument. Testing and Advising staff will be on hand to help students interpret their results.
Registration for the event is not required. However, potential candidates for the certificate are encouraged to fill out this short form to be informed of upcoming events and opportunities.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

VoiceThread Workshop

Are you curious what VoiceThread is? Or how it can be applied in your language classroom? The Language Center will host a 2-hour workshop introducing the basics of VoiceThread and showcasing different examples of VoiceThread activities that you can use with your own classes.

Easily create interactive presentations, generate threaded student comments, get students to describe images orally and to record videos of themselves talking in your language. Come find out about what this voice-recording and presentational tool can do!

The workshop will be held on February 7th from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in Jones 35.

Please register at http://z.umn.edu/j92 by February 5th, 2014.

TandemPlus Spring Kickoff & Orientation

We are excited to announce that on Tuesday, February 11, TandemPlus will host the Spring Kick-off and Orientation Event from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. in Nolte 140. The event is open to all TandemPlus registrants as well as interested students and community members. At the event, participants will be able to meet other Tandem folk, try out some Tandem Speed chats (such as Spanish-English, Arabic-English, Chinese-English, and just English), learn about Tandem Plus and the self-matching feature, and enjoy free snacks and refreshments. Everyone is invited!