Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures
News
2008 URI's Chinese Summer Immersion program
The Chinese International Engineering Program organized its third annual summer intensive Chinese language and culture immersion course at Zhejiang University this year from May 26th to July 4th, followed by a two-week study tour to several cities.
Accompanied by Chinese faculty Dr. Wen Xiong, the 13 students first took six weeks of intensive language study in Hangzhou, which is located on the east coast of China and only about 1 hour and half by train from Shanghai, the biggest metropolitan city of China. Students took “Comprehensive Chinese” and “Conversational Chinese”classes each
morning from 8:30 to 12:00 pm, Monday through Friday, taught by two professors. In the afternoon, students attended either Chinese cultural courses or visited local industrial
sites, such as the Coca Cola Company, Wahaha Beverage Company and the Alibaba (known as Chinese E-bay), or local cultural sites, such as the Tea Farm and silk market.
Please, click here to read a more detailed report on the tour (PDF Document).
URI's Foreign Language Teacher Education Program has earned National Recognition by ACTFL/NCATE
URI's Foreign Language Teacher Education Program has received "nationally recognized" status
from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and the
National Council for Accreditation on Teacher Education (NCATE). In the
report, URI’s committee submitted 8 key assignments that all foreign language
education students do, the rubrics for those assignments, data on student
performance over the past 3 years and sample vita from department faculty who
work directly with teacher education. Below is a brief statement from ACTFL’s
website on the significance of this achievement:
NCATE is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and the Council of Higher Education as a professional accrediting body for teacher preparation. NCATE determines which colleges of education meet rigorous national standards in preparing teachers and other classroom specialists. Functioning as the profession's quality control mechanism for teacher preparation, NCATE is a coalition of 33 national education organizations, which represents teachers, teacher educators, subject matter specialists, and policymakers. ACTFL, in conjunction with the Standards Collaborative, joined NCATE as a member organization in 1998. Member organizations such as ACTFL represent millions of Americans who support rigorous, high quality teacher preparation.
22 URI Students Take a Study Tour To Germany
The International Engineering Program’s annual study tour to Germany took place
from January 7 – January 18, 2008. Accompanied by German faculty members
Doris Kirchner and Norbert Hedderich, the 22 students visited companies all over
Germany as well as the Technical University of Braunschweig.
The tour took URI students to Hamburg (where the group was received by Dr. Joerg Draeger, Hamburg’s senator for science and research), Braunschweig, Goslar, Friedrichshafen, Tübingen, Lake Constance and Munich. Among many other places the group visited the Europe’s largest aircraft maintenance and overhaul facilities at Lufthansa Technik, the headquarters of Volkswagen AG, Leitz- Hexagon (a company specializing in sophisticated measuring instruments), ZF Industries (which manufactures car and truck transmissions and steering columns) and the brand new and futuristic delivery center of the Bavarian Motor Works (BMW).
Please, click here to read a more detailed report on the tour (PDF Document).
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