Para Mi, Pour Vous, Per Noi

Three professors at CSULB’s College and Department of Romance, German, Russian, Languages and Literature received a grant for a three-year project enabling the faculty and four southern California institutions to work together to foster multilingual students.

The purpose of the program will be to explore the philosophy, methods and application of intercomprehension and pluralingualism in order to teach French and Italian to Spanish speakers. The grant will enable professors with the tools to create curriculum to teach a language at an accelerated pace, connecting the similarities between Spanish and another romance language.

On Friday the directors of the grant, CSULB’S Clorinda Donato, Marie Martin and Markus Muller met with surrounding high school and community college professionals to discuss the program. The language courses specific to this program have already been implemented at CSULB.

Gerry Riposa, the dean of the Liberal Arts Department made an appearance at Friday’s meeting and said that borders are meant for the government, not for people.

CSULB received a $999,900 grant to enable this adventure in learning. Donato said that only 5 percent of proposed projects are accepted. 

“We’re on the brink of extinction- we need to scream really loud to save languages,” Donato said to her colleagues on Friday.

The plan is for the program to become a national model for schools around the country. The four original institutions involved were Long Beach City College, Rio Hondo College, San Pedro High School and Wilson High School.

Millikan High School, San Gabriel High School and El Camino City College professors also attended Friday's meeting with the intent of joining the project.

“People are here early, this is great, they must be excited.” Claire Martin said on Friday. 

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The point of this blog is to seek out professional and academic affairs in order to speak to those who may be interested in what's happening on campus.