You are warmly invited to the Curriculum Design Trade Fairs, with detailed syllabi and lesson plans for English language learners around the world. Please join us on Wednesday, May 18th!
Curriculum Design Trade Fairs
Leave a reply
Category Archives: Events
Cover Letter Workshop
Photo: Keith Williamson
Hey Graduate Students, you’re invited!
Who: You, the Graduate Writing Center (GWC), and the Center for Advising and Career Services (CACS)
What: Cover Letter Workshop
Where: Second Floor of McCone in CACS
When: Friday, April 29 at 12pm
Bring: Your cover letter and job description
Come to the offices of CACS on the second floor of McCone for a hands-on cover letter workshop that will provide you with the tools to:
- Promote yourself appropriately without sounding arrogant
- Use key words from job descriptions to maximize impact
Working with professional career advisors and writing tutors from the GWC, you will receive personalized feedback on your cover letter that will help attract potential employers.
First Annual Alliance Française Poetry Contest
The first annual Alliance Française Poetry Contest, co-sponsored with MIIS was held on Saturday, February 26 in the Irvine Auditorium and was a big success. One hundred and five students from eight schools (one middle school, 7 high schools and the Monterey Peninsula College) participated. Original poems penned by the students and recitations of famous poems were judged by three experts: published poets Maurice O’Meara and Christiane d’Olive, and MIIS Professor Edgard Coly . A total of 25 trophies and a dozen books were awarded as prizes for the original poems and the recitations in three categories (middle school, high school, university) and three levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced). The winners were applauded by an enthusiastic audience, consisting of their students, their teachers, friends and parents.
It was touching to see so many youngsters – who had obviously worked hard to prepare themselves for this competition – so eagerly devoting a whole Saturday afternoon to poetry in a language other than their native one. Comments from their teachers indicated that the contest had been a real motivating factor in their classes. We hope that the number of schools participating will increase in the coming years, and look forward to many more exciting concours annuels de poésie française.
The Alliance Française is a renowned worldwide non-profit corporation devoted to promoting the use and knowledge of the French language and the appreciation of French culture.
Uwe Muegge’s Presentation at IMUG Meeting
On January 13, Professor Uwe Muegge gave a live presentation at the monthly meeting of IMUG, the International Multilingual Users Group. In his presentation titled “TermWiki: Terminology management in the cloud“, Professor Muegge discussed the many benefits collaborative terminology management with a tool like TermWiki has over traditional, document-centric terminology management approaches. This meeting, hosted at Adobe’s corporate headquarters in San Jose, was attended by approximately 50 industry experts, including several MIIS alumni and students.
Culture and Language Lessons for International Day
On November 19th, the Monterey Institute celebrated International Week with its very own International Day! Local high school students were invited to come on over and experience a trip around the world without having to step foot outside of Monterey. The students were exposed to foreign countries and cultures from some of the international students and learned about real opportunities to go abroad from students who had taken part in various programs overseas.
In addition to learning about cultures, the TESOL/TFL students created mini language lessons and taught them to the high school students so that they could get exposure to a new language. Some of the languages taught included Spanish, French, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian.
In addition to teaching the high school students more about languages around the world, the TESOL/TFL students also had a chance to flex their lesson-planning muscles. All of their language lessons were adaptations of lessons originally planned for large groups of elementary school students when they taught at the International School of Monterey earlier in the semester.
As a sign of their appreciation, one of the local high schools sent thank you notes from all of their students. One student wrote, “MIIS – It was extremely fun learning the different languages. Totally fun day! I can’t wait to go next year.” Now that’s teacher motivation! We’re looking forward to next year’s International Day.
Kumar Trade Fair – Trading Teaching Macrostrategies
In December, the Principles and Practices in Language Education classes came together and showcased some of their knowledge on educational macrostrategies that they had been studying over the semester. The Kumar Trade Fair (named after B. Kumaravadivelu) has become a tradition for the TESOL/TFL students and represents a chance for the students to talk to people outside of the language education department about different teaching approaches.
For the Trade Fair, a small team of students designed and demonstrated a series of tasks that students could do as part of a language lesson. Some of the tasks included tasting salads to learn about different food cultures, thinking about dream jobs, and learning about cultural differences through watching a Saturday Night Live skit.
After the Trade Fair, the students gathered and discussed what they had learned from the Trade Fair, and most students agreed that it was interesting to see how a single macrostrategy could be represented in so many different ways. A member from another department mentioned that she had always considered her own department to be the one that tried to “save the world”, but she was pleased and surprised to see that the language education students were also creating activities which worked toward the same goal.
MIIS Translation and Interpretation Seminar in Taipei
On November 27th, a team of representatives of the Monterey Institute met in Taipei to discuss the topic “Language As Asset” and give an introduction to Translation and Interpretation careers. MIIS alumni, prospective students, and translation and interpretation professionals were greeted with a slideshow of photos of Monterey, and then were invited to listen to two panels made up of MIIS alumni.
The first panel session included Daniel Steve Villarreal who discussed the topic “Court Interpreters — Why are we here and who do we serve?”, Joyce Yao who discussed “The Charm and Reality of Novel Translation”, Rachel Yang who discussed “Life as an Interpreter”, and Jackie Yeh who discussed “Race with Time: Working as a News Translator”.
The second panel session included Weisheng Wu who discussed “Technical Career Writing”, Yu-Hsiang (Carol) Kaowho discussed “Studies of Students’ Simultaneous Interpretation Performance with Live Speeches”, and Joyce Yaowho discussed “Introduction to Localization Industry and Translation Memory Software”.
The seminar was well-attended with the 100 person seminar room packed full of attendees and interactive panel discussions. The event was extremely successful at building an interest in the Monterey Institute as well as the field of Translation and Interpretation.
Without the support of Luke Hsieh, Dan, Weisheng Wu, Claire Tao, Joyce Yao, Rachel Yang, Carol Kao, Jackie Yeh, the MIIS Alumni Relations office, MIIS Admissions office, and generous MIIS Translation and Interpretation graduates, none of this would have been possible. We thank them for their help!
Uwe Muegge presents about TermWiki
MIIS Translation and Localization Management professor, Uwe Muegge, will be giving a terminology tool presentation about TermWiki titled “Translation Tools in the Cloud” at the next Original Multilingual Computing User Group (IMUG) meeting.
The meeting will take place on January 11, 2011 at 7:00pm at the Adobe headquarters in San Jose, CA. The meeting will also be webcast live, so you can attend the event via the internet.
For more information about attending the meeting, please see the IMUG webpage about the event.
9th Annual Kumar Trade Fair
Photo: -ratamahatta-
Can’t see the pedagogic forest for the methodological trees? Dont’ worry! Learn all you need to know at the
9th Annual Kumar Trade Fairs
Thursday, Dec. 9th
10:15- 11:30am & 4:15-5:50pm
Casa Fuente 434
Come and join EDUC 8500 Sections A & B (Principles and Practices of Language Teaching) as they present and explore the macrostrategies proposed by B. Kumaravadivelu as the basis for a well-founded approach to language learning and teaching. It’s the Monterey Way!
Dress informal. Light refreshments will be served.
MIIS Ski Trip Meeting!
Photo: milesgehm
A great MIIS tradition is the annual MIIS ski trip, which will be held this year from February 4-6 at beautiful Northstar-at-Tahoe. There will be a very, very important meeting for all those interested in learning more about the ski trip and signing up for it at 12:15 on Tuesday, December 7th in Morse B104. Faculty and staff members are most welcome to join the trip! We will go up by bus arranged by DLI. DLI will also supply needed ski and snowboard equipment. Northstar has excellent, well groomed slopes for everyone from advanced skiers and snowboarders to intermediates to beginners.
Many TESOL and T&I students often attend this ski trip, so if you’re interested, be sure to drop by the meeting!
Students Chris Nyberg and Willow Array are organizing the trip. Free ski lessons will be offered to beginners by Professor Peter Grothe who used to be a professional ski instructor. Tell your friends about the snow trip meeting.