TandemPlus Spring Partnership Highlight

For Katia Paz and Sangho Yun, meeting twice a week for coffee, Korean and English conversation is just a part of their routine. Every Monday and Friday, Paz, a freshman from St. Cloud studying nursing and Korean, and Yun, a PhD student from Seoul, South Korea studying electrical engineering, meet at a campus Starbucks for their TandemPlus language exchange.

At their meetings they speak half of the time in Korean and half of the time in English and both help each other to improve their language. Paz feels that she can comfortably ask Yun language questions and ask for clarifications on grammatical concepts, while Yun feels that Paz helps him by correcting mispronunciation of English words. They often talk about cultural, social, and political differences and both feel they have gained crucial cultural insight over the past few months. In addition, both participants feel that their confidence has greatly improved in speaking their second languages. Paz feels that due to her growing confidence she is "more vocal in class." Both students share the goal of using their second languages in a future career; Paz hopes to work at a base in Korea, and Yun hopes to use English regularly in a career for multinational technology company. Both participants feel that Tandem language exchanges are essential to improving their language.

TandemPlus Summer Update

The TandemPlus summer session is coming to an end. With the registration for summer now closed, and virtually all possible matches completed, Tandem matched 63% of interested students, and served a total of 149 participants. The most commonly matched languages were English & Spanish and English & Japanese.

The most common partner requests were English speakers seeking Spanish speakers, Chinese speakers seeking English speakers, and Arabic speakers seeking English speakers. Unfortunately, few Arabic language students registered this summer, although we did see an increase in Chinese language learners. We hope to see this number increase in the coming year. In other words, if you are learning Arabic or Chinese, please sign up for TandemPlus!

TandemPlus Bowling Night - A huge success!

Last Friday, March 1, TandemPlus hosted a Bowling Night in Goldy's Gameroom. The event lasted from 3:30-5:30 PM and drew a crowd of approximately 25-30 people, who spoke languages including Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Malay, Farsi, Portuguese and English. It was such a hit that participants continued bowling and conversing long after the free bowling period ended! Many participants made new friendships and learned about many different cultures and ways of life. The next TandemPlus event will take place Friday, April 5. Stay tuned for more details.

TandemPlus: A record number of individual matches for Spring

Spring registration for TandemPlus is now closed, and we are thrilled to have such a large group of participants. This semester, 586 people registered, including many students from universities overseas, including Mexico, Russia, China, and France. Notable this semester is the large number of non-English Tandem pairings, including some Portuguese-French exchanges, Chinese-Korean exchanges, and Chinese-Japanese exchanges. Summer registration will open in May.

New Classroom Support Coordinator

Please welcome Caroline Vang, our new Assistant Classroom Support Coordinator. Caroline is an ESL-MA student whose area of research is in Japanese-American heritage language learners and how/why they code-switch during their conversation. She received her B.A. from the University of California-Berkeley and she currently teaches ESL at the University of Minnesota.

TandemPlus Roundup!

TandemPlus is pleased to announce that it has had a very successful fall semester! There was an approximate total of 481 language partnerships through Tandem's Face-to-Face Exchange program. The most popular language partnerships were Chinese seeking English, English seeking Spanish, and Arabic seeking English. There was also an exciting amount of Korean/English partnerships this year. It was a great fall semester and we are eager to start spring semester off on the right foot. Registration for TandemPlus this spring semester is expected to open during the first week of classes (late January).

TandemPlus Punch Pizza Party a Success!

We are pleased to say that the TandemPlus Pizza Party at Punch Pizza in Dinkytown on Friday, November 2 was a great success! Approximately 40 people showed up, enjoying pizza and great company while playing conversation games such as Taboo in Spanish, Korean, Chinese, and English. The next TandemPlus event is Small World Coffee Hour on November 30. Stay tuned for more details.

TandemPlus Kick-off a Huge Success

On Friday afternoon, September 28, TandemPlus hosted its Fall Kick-off and Orientation Event. Approximately 70 people attended the event, and played multilingual (Spanish-English, Arabic-English, Chinese-English, and just English) Taboo games, partook in multilingual conversation circles, and enjoyed snacks and refreshments. The event was open to TandemPlus participants and interested parties and was enjoyed by all. Stay tuned for more information about the next Tandem event in late October.

FYI -- there is still (some) time to register for a TandemPlus second language culture and conversation partner. Registration for Fall semester will close on Friday, October 5, so if you're interested in registering, do it soon!

Welcome Francisco, New World Languages Day Assistant

Please welcome the new World Languages Day student assistant: Francisco Salinas Vega. He is a senior majoring in Applied Economics. He is also a native Spanish speaker born in Queretaro Mexico. Francisco believes that learning a new language provides a person with different perspectives, and he has experience with event planning and outreach to the Latino community.

As an update on our previous assistants: Bethany Schowengerdt completed her BA in Global Studies and French, and a minor in Teaching English as a Second Language. Over the summer she taught ESL and worked for AFS, a cultural exchange organization. She is currently preparing for her Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) grant to travel to Rwanda.

Rachel Faynik Marbell completed her MA in International Education this past May. She is now working as the France Programs Coordinator at Intercultural Student Experiences, a non-profit educational organization that helps high school language teachers plan short-term immersion programs abroad with their students. She is still involved with the University of Minnesota through her position as the Assistant Coach of the Hockey Cheerleading Team.

TandemPlus and ESL at the St. Paul Saints Game

On Friday, July 27, TandemPlus co-hosted a night of baseball and fun with the Minnesota English Language Program. This is the first event co-hosted by these university programs and it was a great success! Both American and international students attended the Saint Paul Saints baseball game at Midway Stadium in St. Paul and spoke a variety of languages including Arabic, German, Japanese, Chinese, English and Spanish. Overall students had a great time and after 11 innings the Saints pulled through and won the game. The night ended with a spectacular fireworks show and celebration over the Saints win. We hope you will join us for our next event, and don't forget to mark your calendars -- Fall registration is less than a month away!

TandemPlus News

On Friday, December 2, TandemPlus hosted the second annual "Mocktail Happy Hour" at the Tea House Restaurant close to campus. Seventeen students attended the event and spoke languages like Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, and English. We discussed everything from linguistic similarities to culture to politics, all while enjoying a delicious variety of Chinese appetizers. This was the last TandemPlus event for the Fall semester. The Tandem team hopes that you will all join them again next semester.

MELP featured in the MN Daily

The Minnesota English Language Program was featured in the February 8 Minnesota Daily. The article highlights the growth that has occurred within MELP in the past 3 years, while underscoring the importance of welcoming international students to the U of M community.