Back to: WLE-LCTL Newsletter Page February 1, 2003 Vol. 1, issue 1.1	The WLE News Letter
In this issue: ü A contest for the best WLE Newsletter title is announced!!! (see “From the Editor for details) ü First Call for Papers for the following issues of the News Letter. ü Introduction of WLE sections and organizations. ü Early Linguistics at USF ü Conference report. ü Traditions around the world - Chinese New Year	From the Editor
	Dear WLE Instructors, I am pleased to introduce to you the first issue of the WLE newsletter. It was created by the collaborative effort of several members of the WLE faculty who wrote about our department. The goal of the newsletter is to provide a forum for us to share professional information, communicate, and - why not – to have fun. As an editor, I will be publishing calls for papers but you are also welcome to send me your writings on your own. There are two important constraints to be considered when submitting your information: 1. Topic – it can be serious or funny BUT about language or linguistics or about WLE issues. 2. Size - it should not be longer than 200-250 words. Consider this to be the WLE Newsletter first call for papers. You can send it to my email: sapicoa@chuma1.cas.usf.edu or leave a hard copy in my mailbox (electronic copy is preferable). And another call J - as you see, our News Letter is simply called “News Letter” at this point – kind of plain, right? A contest for the best WLE Newsletter title is announced!!! Apply your creativity and sense of humor and propose a name for our Newsletter. To enter the contest, simply write the name you are proposing and the last four digits of your SSN. On a separate piece of paper, write again the last four digits of your SSN and put it in an envelope, seal it, staple the two and leave both the paper with the name and the envelope in my mailbox at WLE. The deadline for entering the contest is February 21. The contest committee is: Yomiko Tamakava, James Aubry, Joe Terantino. Good luck! Note that there will be a prize for the winner! Newsletter editor. Iona Sarieva sapicoa@chuma1.cas.usf.edu CPR 432 Phone: 4-3257
	From the Head of the Department
	Dear Colleagues, I am pleased to announce once again the visit of the President Genshaft. She will spend the morning of February 6^th in our department. Dr. Genshaft will meet with WLE faculty between 10:00 and 12:00 in CPR 459. Head of WLE Department Dr. Peppard
	Congratulations!
	Dr. Gaetan Brulotte received the President’s Award for Faculty Excellence. We are happy that a WLE faculty member has been recognized as one of the best educators in the University. Let’s congratulate him! Back to top
		The WLE News Letter	February 1, 2003 Vol. 1, issue 1.2
		Early Linguistics at USF Jacob Caflisch, Ph. D.	Introduction Introduction Back to top
The sun ushered in a bright, beautiful day that Monday in September, 1970. I came into the FAO II Building and made my way to N 100. It was my first day teaching at USF my class in graduate syntax – a class I designed and added to the graduate catalogue. I had been hired as a professor of Linguistics and Russian. I had taught English linguistics and speech at Edinboro University, Pennsylvania. My nerves were a bit raw. “How will things go? What will they think?” I was preparing myself over possible questions. I started a brief description on Noam Chomsky’s views of syntax. I spoke a few minutes and began to wander even more. Then, it happened. A good student, Arnold, asked a question, “Who’s Noam Chomsky?” I was relieved that morning. I could relax and start at the beginning of linguistics and take things from there. My charge as the new hire was to help build up the offerings in graduate linguistics. I taught Russian as well. Next came Polish for some three years, and one year of a directed reading course in Czech. The courses were all of a theoretical nature. I managed to get some twelve courses in place along with a reasonable prerequisite matrix for each term. Meanwhile, Linguistics, previously autonomous, had to amalgamate with the Speech Department where our expertise joined with the speech offerings to become A Department of Communication. My phonology course made use of the Kay Sona Graph. That was in the 80s. After that, we decided to amalgamate with Foreign Languages. The academic thrust was theory and all of its forms. I chaired 12 MA theses and was a member of 11 more. A few ears later, theory began to go the way of the dodo. Today, some theory is beginning to find its way back to the curriculum. My LIN 6117 and many more directed readings courses – Sanskrit linguistics and Pānini, Polish verbs, Japanese pragmatics field methods, Tannen’s genderlect program – are such courses. Perhaps some of this may return someday. Meanwhile I continue to offer linguistic theory and write articles. I decided to work on interface theory (music and language) after having written an article on the mathematics-linguistics interface.
		Español Maritza Chinea-Thornberry
¡Hola! My name is Maritza and I am the Coordinator of Lower Level Spanish and the Director of Destinos. I would like you to know a little about us. Within the World Language Education Department, we are the largest group of first year language instructors. This semester we have 10 sections of SPN 1120 and 14 sections of SPN 1121. We are also a diversified group of people. We have approximately 13 Teacher Assistants from all over Latin America and the United States: they are from Venezuela, Argentina, Guatemala and Chile. If you go to their offices “en el barrio” you will hear a lot of Spanish. They like to get together and speak of their culture, their countries and of course, soccer. They are also very kind and generous. This past Christmas, Juan Carlos Ramírez invited some of them to announce in their classes a program for sponsoring a foster child. They mentioned in their classes and the Spanish students response was incredible. The students sponsored more than 200 kids. ☺¡Bravo por nuestros estudiantes de español!☺ The World Languages Department also offers a Telecourse for SPN 1120, SPN 1121, SPN 2200 and SPN 2201. The first year is proctored by Carlos and Vanessa Maradiegue from Perú. The course has been developed so that the students are able to complete assignments at their own convenience. They hand in their homework every week at CPR 408, by fax or by mail. It is harder than the classroom course but it is beneficial to the students that can not be here everyday or two nights a week. Now you know a little more about us. ¡Hasta luego!

January 31 Vol. 1, issue 1.3
Introduction	Français Anne Ortiz
Introduction	Bonjour! Did you know that French is the second most frequently taught language in the world after English? Or that French is the official working language of the United Nations? These are only some of the reasons we offer a French language track for International Business, in addition to undergraduate and graduate French studies. Students can also combine Foreign Language Education with French. Our T.A.s, who come from such varied places as Haiti, France, North Africa (and even Russia!), teach most of the lower-level undergraduate French courses, where they are able to share their knowledge of Francophone cultures. Faculty members teach literature, civilization, business, and linguistic courses, some of which have combined undergraduate and graduate levels. We offer French I-IV both in a traditional classroom as well as a telecourse. Other classes include Conversation I & II, Composition I & II, Civilization, and literature classes. Every semester, we also offer various classes such as African Images in Francophone Film, Love Stories in Translation, and Linguisitics. Several of these classes fulfill exit requirements and are even taught in English for those students interested in French culture. Don't forget to ask about our study abroad programs in Paris and other Francophone locations! Now that you know more about French at USF, come see us anytime in the World Languages Department in Cooper 419! Au revoir!
	Less Commonly Taught Languages Iona Sarieva
	I will simply say: Hello from the Less Commonly Taught Languages section of WLE, since it will be quite a long list of words if I greet you in every single language that belongs to this WLE section. This semester we offer nine languages: Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Greek, German, Italian, Japanese, Latin, and Russian. Our instructors are coming from over six different countries on three different continents. You can experience this richness of languages and cultures just by walking down the hallway of our department and listening to the discussions that go on in all these different languages. Hopefully two more languages will join our big multilingual family next semester: Polish and Urdu. We are building our own collection of websites that support foreign language teaching with technology and CALL (computer assisted language learning). It is located on http://nicenet.org/. If you decide to join us in order to use or/and contribute to our collection, you are very welcome! Just use the option “Join a class” on http://nicenet.org/ and when prompted, enter the class key: Q63759W40. We had our Nicenet training session last semester, but if you are experiencing problems getting to our collection, just give me a call at:4-3257 and I will be happy to guide you through. Greetings. Iona Sarieva LCTL Coordinator Back to top

		January 31 Vol. 1, issue 1.4
	Dobro Slovo: INTERNATIONAL SLAVIC HONOR SOCIETY AT USF Jacob Caflisch, Ph.D., USF Chapter President .	Introduction ü Dobro Slovo at USF has nearly 20 members. ü The initiation Ceremony is offered twice a year. ü In the Spring of 2003 the initiation ceremony is scheduled for MONDAY, MARCH 17, 3--5 p.m. Conference Report
The prestigious honor society in Slavic Studies, Dobro Slovo, was chartered at USF May 10, 2000. As president, I received the news from Dobro Slovo headquarters at Tempe, AZ that USF had been grated unanimous acceptance for a charter establishing our Chapter, Delta Zeta. Dobro Slovo began October 29, 1926 at Berkley, CA. The honor society to this day is in the same honors room in Bryan Hall sharing space with Phi Beta Kappa. The society expects a very high standard among its initiates, accepting student scholars, faculty, and Honoris causa initiates. A high B average in Slavic Studies (Russian and the other twelve Slavic languages) is required as well as B average overall GPA. Our bay area is an ideal source for recipients of such honor since many Slavic groups live in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Largo and Clearwater. Since its inception at USF, Dobro Slovo has initiated nearly twenty members. We offer the ceremony during both semesters, around midterm. I am currently working on the USF Dobro Slovo website. Now it appears as a link from my own page, together with a facsimile of the Slavic course offerings at USF.
	Junior Faculty Development Program – Conference Report Liudmila Tsirlina
Midyear term Conference of JFDP (Junior Faculty Development Program) has recently passed in Washington DC.  All the JFDP fellows were there, as usual, full of ideas and eagerness to accomplish them. Inspired by the Program management team and their host Institutions, they do their best to develop new teaching courses, establish contacts between the Institutions, to represent at the US Universities in they are visiting as scholars.   The Conference turned out to be a very successful and useful one. This year it was held under the slogan: "The University as catalyst for promotion and development of civil society". In the promotion of academic inquiry, leadership, and free exchange of ideas, universities embrace key components necessary for an open and free society. The conference examined the ways in which the university acts as an agent for change within the context of a larger community.  The models that US administrators, policy makers, and educators utilize to initiate change on a national, regional  and  local level were emphasized.     Recognizing that the first step in an open and free discourse is the gathering of like-minded individuals, the conference facilitated academic dialogue and professional networking among Fellows, thus providing a means for furthering their work in the areas of teaching and learning, curriculum development, research and long-term professional development projects. The program is run by the U.S.  Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Among the speakers for the conference I would like to mention scholars like Richard Brecht, Director of National Foreign Language Centre, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of American Councils for International Education; Kerry Bologness, Associate Director of Federal & International Relations Board of National Association of State Universities; Jane Buck, President of American Association of University Professors, and many other people who are devoted to initiating new ways of education and collaboration of people from all over the world to make the world more humane.    Back to top

February 1, 2003 Vol. 1, issue 1 .5	The WLE News Letter
Traditions around the world	February 1 - China is celebrating the New Year Information provided by Linda Carroll
	Adapted from http://www.educ.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/438/CHINA/chinese_new_year.html	On February 1 China will celebrate the coming of the year of the Ram year. Celebration starts with the New Moon on the first day of the New Year and ends on the full moon 15 days later. The Chinese calendar is based on a combination of lunar and solar movements. The lunar cycle is about 29.5 days. In order to "catch up" with the solar calendar the Chinese insert an extra month once every few years (seven years out of a 19-year cycle). This is why, the Chinese New Year falls on a different date each year. There are several important rituals that need to be observed when celebrating. One of them is House Cleaning. The entire house should be cleaned before New Year's Day. On New Year's Eve, all brooms, brushes, dusters, dustpans and other cleaning equipment are put away. Sweeping or dusting should not be done on New Year's Day for fear that good fortune will be swept away. After New Year's Day, the floors may be swept. Beginning at the door, the dust and rubbish are swept to the middle of the parlor, then placed in the corners and not taken or thrown out until the fifth day of the New year celebration. At no time should the rubbish in the corners be trampled upon. In sweeping, there is a superstition that if you sweep the dirt out over the threshold, you will sweep one of the family members away. Also, to sweep the dust and dirt out of your house by the front entrance is to sweep away the good fortune of the family; it must always be swept inwards and then carried out, then no harm will follow. All dirt and rubbish must be taken out the back door.
	Our Cartoon Corner – artist DR. J. Caflisch
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