This year's World Languages Day (WLD) took place on Tuesday, May 17th, 2011. The event was a great success, and very engaging for high school students.
This was the eighth annual event, and probably the most innovative since 2004.
Changes for this year included:
- A compressed time frame, with five class hours instead of four.
- A move to the West Bank. This change was necessitated by the absence of Northrop and Folwell, but we found the West Bank to be a convenient and accessible location.
- A new option for students to attend virtually. Lincoln High in Thief River Falls was our pilot school, and three German classes from that school attended virtually. Beth Kautz debuted her new "Green Germany" class to this group.
- An internally-developed welcome video directed by Lindsey Lahr, and featuring U of M language students. This video was played to enhance the live welcoming remarks, and serve as the primary welcome for students attending virtually.
You can view the video created for the Welcoming Remarks at:
Over 1000 high school students from a variety of diverse, metro public schools and several far out-state schools attended the event, along with some teachers, counselors and parents.
You can see a full list of classes, and the faculty, P&A, and graduate instructors who volunteered their time to teach at the World Languages Day site.
WLD is a collaborative effort between instructors, staff and students in several colleges and units including, but not limited to, CLA, OIP, CCE and Admissions. In all, about 120 people were on the West Bank helping in some capacity and we want to extend a huge thank you to all of our wonderful instructors, staff, volunteers and video talent, who contributed their time, energy and talent to the event.
