German Total Immersion Weekend: April 6-8

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Volume 1, Issue 1

( Dr. Schmidt, continued from p. 1)participation of students in extracurricular activities, for example at the weekly “Kaffeestunde” and the “Stammtisch” we held earlier this semester at the Corner Café.

As we move into spring and summer, I’m looking forward to working with the Committee for Responsible Sexuality and to teaching a new XIDS course that I designed, “Sex and The

City: Berlin, Vienna, New York,” which will be offered this summer. I developed the idea for this course last summer when I attended a NEH Institute in Austria entitled “Melting Pot Vienna” and while working on a research project about the representation of racial and sexual outsiders in contemporary Germany and Austria. (Gary Schmidt)

 

 

 

Welcome to our wonderful new secretary Channa Cole.  Channa has been with us since October and is settling in well.  She is fast, effective, friendly and a welcome addition to the department.  We’re all happy to have her and look forward to working with her for a long time.  Welcome Channa!

(Emily Alexander, continued from p. 2) language skills on a daily basis, but also the opportunity to interact with people from all over the world.  I have thus been able to continue to gain a deeper understanding of the world outside my native context.   Learning a second language has also strengthened my overall communication skills, helping me both in the execution of my professional

duties as well as in everyday life. Currently I am exploring advancement opportunities within the company, which will hopefully enable me to satisfy my lifelong passion of getting to further explore the world.  In the meantime, I still return to the Total Immersion weekends and visit Cobb Hall occasionally.

 

students were engaged, happy and friendly and worked hard cooking and cleaning and trying to find just the right word for the soup ladle big enough to wear as a Viking helmet (Dmitry models it below.) One student even coined his own verb (doppeltmannschaften)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and this lead to wide-ranging discussions about whether it

was regular or irregular, a separable or inseparable prefix verb, what the helping verb would be for the present perfect tense and so on.  Fun was had by all and a Facebook group, “I was totally immersed in German and I survived,” now commemorates the occasion.  Join us next year if you speak any German and are willing to forgo English for 48 hours. (Muriel Cormican)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The German section spent Easter weekend 2007 at John Tanner State park with 18 students and 4 guests speaking German, watching German films, making German meals, playing charades, taboo, Frisbee, walking, and being generally silly.  This was the fourth annual Total Immersion Weekend and all who had been there before agreed that it was, without doubt, the best.  The

Channa Cole: New Senior Secretary

Andrea Valenzuela: Spanish Major

I did my student teaching at Villa Rica High School and I began my first year teaching here last fall. I am currently teaching Spanish 1 and 2. It took a little while to find my "groove" with teaching.  Until that point, I was spending an excessive amount of time trying to get everything together.  By the middle of last semester, I had found it, and everything began going as smoothly as possible.  I feel that because I got such good training,  watching professors I admired (Dr. Cormican, Dr. Overfield and Dr. Lee), in my Methods and FLES classes, and by having such a great student teaching experience with Rhonda Stephens at VRHS, I was able to find what worked for me quickly and to become effective in the classroom.  I would do it all over again (plus majoring in German!) in a heartbeat!  My husband and I live in Temple.  He works for the Department of Banking and Finance in Atlanta as a Mortgage Examiner. We have no children  currently. I am thinking about doing my Masters in the next couple of years.

The Chair of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Dr. Denise Overfield was named Spanish Professor of the year in Georgia by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish in Georgia in recognition of her teaching at UWG and her work both in preparing teachers for the schools and organizing workshops for their continuing education.

Dr. Denise Overfield Acknowledged by AASTP of Georgia