Recent Events
Applied Linguistics | Arabic | ASL | Chinese | Classics | French
German | Italian | ITA & ESL | Japanese | Russian
Spanish & Portuguese
CMLL
CMLL Orientation
August 20, CMLL new and current graduate students gathered in the Qualia Room for
the 2021-2022 CMLL Orientation. Dr. Carmen Pereira-Muro welcomed students and stated
how refreshing it was to meet face-to-face for this orientation. After a light breakfast,
students spent the morning getting acquainted with CMLL administration and with each
other and received training on various TTU entities that will apply to their graduate
studies and teaching assistant positions which included Recognizing & Responding to
Students of Concern, Digital Measures Training, Graduate Student Code of Conduct &
Portfolios, Library Resources, The Writing Center, FERPA Training.
After lunch, students took part in their respective program orientation and received
teaching duties. This orientation concluded a series of orientations for CMLL, the
Texas Tech Graduate School and the College of Arts & Sciences New TA Workshop.
CMLL Fall Retreat
CMLL hosted a department-wide fall retreat on October 22, 2021, beginning with a come-and-go continental breakfast served in the new faculty lounge. As part of the CMLL strategic growth initiative, the CMLL Fall Retreat was a step in the direction of building excellence and facing challenges that arise. Preserving social distancing due to the continued rise in COVID cases, everyone moved to the Zoom platform for presentations and breakout sessions on the following topics:
- Building collaboration
- State of the Department
- Articulating the Value of CMLL
- Strategic Growth
- Program Marketing
Building an environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing ideas and bringing up tough conversations is never easy. However, the CMLL Strategic Growth Team, comprised of Linley Melhem and Kate Brooke, succeed in establishing a time when everyone felt welcome to bring their thoughts and ideas to the table in a psychologically safe environment by focusing on adopting a collaborative mindset, speaking human to human, considering the audience, and leading with curiosity.
Texas Tech moves forward with as a Hispanic-Serving Institution
TTU hosted a panel discussion, “What Does Servingness Mean in a Hispanic Serving Institution?” on September 14 to celebrate Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) Week as part of Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month!
Interim Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, Dr. Brian Still has generously offered to fund an Institute for Mexican American, Latino/a, Latin American and Iberian Studies with CMLL faculty Britta Anderson, Sara Guengerich, Bernd Reiter, and Carmen Pereira spearing heading the organization.
CMLL Language Lab & Research Center
The LLRC now has Sanako, a new lab software. It's fun, user-friendly, and gives us the flexibility we need to meet the diverse instructional, testing, and research needs of the department. Take a tour!
Office of International Affairs 2021 Culture Fest
The Office of International Affairs hosted the 2021 Culture Fest on October 16, 2021, in conjunction with International Week. The event was open to the Lubbock community where attendees experienced the rich and diverse cultural heritage of the international community with music, dance, art, food, and family-friendly cultural activities. Seeing the beautiful cultural attire worn by international students brought an overall feel of a global society to everyone present.
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A special thank you to CMLL Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian programs for setting up delicious food and exquisite culture stands to promote languages and cultures. Students in the Japanese and Arabic clubs demonstrated authentic dances and then invited spectators to join in the fun.
CMLL Fall 2021 Party
After months of isolation, CMLL faculty, staff, and graduate students shared the evening of October 9 at the CMLL Fall Party hosted by Dr. Pereira, Chair. Texas BBQ, party lights, enjoyable conversation, and much laughter made for a splendid reunion!
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Applied Linguistics
The Applied Linguistics fall picnic took place on a beautiful fall day, September 27, in Urbanovsky Park. Students and faculty enjoyed food, fellowship, and fun playing sand volleyball.
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Linguists in Industry Speaker Series
This fall the Department of Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures and the Dean's Office of the College of Arts & Sciences made possible the Linguists in Industry Speaker Series. Four guest speakers shared informal discussions on Zoom about how teachers have taken their language skills into industry. The series achieved its purpose to show that linguists and language experts have many transferable skills and are in high demand outside university campuses.
October 25: Dr. Gran Berry (Amazon/Villanova University)
November 1: Dr. James Leow (Duolingo)
November 8: Dr. Ruth Martinez (MonkeyLearn)
November 29: Dr. Adriano Trovato (Freelancer)
TTU Applied Linguistics Professional Development 3-Part Series
Strategies and Skills for Finding and Using Library Resources
The first of three workshops was a library resource instruction session led by CMLL's personal librarian, Ian Barba on September 10. Graduate students interested in learning effective strategies and skills for locating scholarship in the field of Applied Linguistics participated in this workshop organized by the MA Languages & Culture-Applied Linguistics program.
Applying to PhD programs
The second in the series of professional development workshops took place on October 18, 2021. The workshop focused on strategies for selecting a doctoral program, the type of documents requested by programs, strategies for requesting letters of recommendation, wring personal statements, and how to optimize their CV. Four TTU MA LACU-Applied Linguistics alums were featured in prepared video-messages by Mourad Abdennebi, Mirai Nigasawa, and Min Yan and an in-person panelist, Irina Lavroa.
Preparing for Comps
On November 15, the third in the series of Applied Linguistics professional development workshops took place. First-year (optional) and second-year (required) students in the MA Languages & Cultures-Applied Linguistics program gained valuable insight in preparation of comprehensive exams.
Arabic
2021-2022 Arabic Language Students Organization Officers
Yasmin Amin - President
Prash & Arianna - Vice president
Sewar & Caleb - Secretary
Rowan & Awot - Social chair
Natalie & Allesio - Treasure
Malak & Morgan - Student Organization Representative
2nd US Universities Arabic Debate Championship (USADC)
Gabriella Ghandour, Yasmin Amin, Mohamad Al Tabaa, Faisal Al-Hmoud comprised the first team from Texas Tech University to participate in the 2nd US Universities Arabic Debate Championship held at the University of Chicago on November 12-14, 2021. Students benefitted from two days of intensive training by expers prior to the debate. The contest was founded by the Qatar Foundation who provided travel and hotel accommodations for the students. The winning team will go to Qatar in March 2022 for further training in Arabic. More than 30 universities participated in the largest Arabic debate championship in America which aims to spread the culture of debating and open dialogue and interest in the Arabic language in the United States and the world.
The TTU team, along with students from 34 of the best universities in the U.S., debated in Arabic on several important social, political, and economic topics. Being the first time in this competition, the TTU team did well and represented the university honorably. The final round was between students from Harvard and Georgetown with the latter prevailing to the end!
Rula Al-Hmoud, lecturer and director of TTU Arabic studies, (pictures far-left) served as a judge on 4 different debates. She is eager to begin training the next TTU student group for the 3rd USADC in 2022.
Office of International Affairs International Culture Fest
The Arabic Language Student Organization does a great job of opening doors to Arabic culture and language. Club members participated in the Office of International Affairs Culture Fest on October 16. Folks from the TTU and Lubbock community enjoyed the sights, smells and tastes of Arabic speaking countries. Guns up, Arabic Program!
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ASL
Silent Raiders held the Deaf Visual Arts Festival Workshop Series 2021 (virtual) on September 8. A presentation, Black Deaf Arts and Culture was given by Michelle Banks which highlighted the artistic work of Black Deaf Artists and their creativity reflecting their culture and bilingual languages, American Sign Language and Black American Sign Language.
Caprock Society of Interpreters for the Deaf spotlighted several guests each week through September during Deaf Awareness Month on their Facebook page, Silent Raiders. Lori Whitfield, Mark Dickson, and Haylie Torres.
As part of Texas Tech University Student Disability Services' “Accessibility is for Everyone!” week, Silent Raiders hosted Deaf Bingo on September 28 in the lobby of Wall-Gates Residence Hall. Participants played Deaf Bingo and learned some sign language, making this a culturally rich event.
High School Visits
On Oct. 6, Canyon High School (Canyon,TX) and Randall High School (Amarillo,TX) brought their ASL3 students to visit Texas Tech. The ASL faculty and several interpreting students talked to them about our programs and organizations.
Trunk or Treat took place on October 28 in the parking lot of Life, Inc. For Deaf children, Deaf parents and their families could enjoy goodies in an ASL/Sign Language friendly environment. The event was sponsored by Texas Tech University ASL & Interpreting Program, Caprock Society of Interpreters for the Deaf, Tech Deaf Alliance, and the Signing Raiders.
Tactile ASL Workshop
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A two-week workshop designed to teach ASL majors about tactile ASL and to appropriately guide people who are blind. Melissa Hays organized this workshop primarily to help those in the observation/field experience class with opportunities to sign. During the workshop students learned the basics of working with DeafBlind consumers (those who are both Deaf and Blind). The basics included learning to guide a blind person while walking and getting oriented to a room/location, tactile interpreting (hand-over-hand), and pro-tactile signals. The students' experience was enhanced with a role-change to being the consumer and using foam earplugs and blindfolds.
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TTU ASL Interprets for Lubbock Community Theatre and Market Street's Production of Cinderella
ASL students interpreted for the Friday evening production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella on November 19 at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center in conjunction with Caprock Society of Interpreters (CSID).
Chinese
2021-2022 Tech Chinese Language and Culture Association Officers
Kobe Young, President
Sophia Persad, Vice-president
Kelly Mata, Secretary
Zarek Driver, Treasurer
Xenia Hernandez, Social Media Correspondent
The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival Celebration organized by the TT Chinese Language & Area Studies program and the TTU Chinese Language & Culture Association took place at Ramirez Elementary School on September 21, 2021. Nine TTU students enrolled in a new service-learning course, CHIN4300, and 10 students from other courses in Chinese program provided students with a culturally-rich festival.
More than 300 elementary students and parents attended the event. Laura Cook, the specialist of world languages and photographer for LISD, Sam Sumner from TTU Outreach, Charles Olivier from International Cultural Center were also in attendance.
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The event was highly-praised by all sides, school, LISD, TTU, students, and parents who expressed their interest in having similar events in the future.
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Texas Tech University sponsors of the event include College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures, K-12 Global Education Outreach, and the Office of International Affairs.
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Texas Tech students enrolled in Chinese courses also celebrated the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival in class. They enjoyed sampling on traditional Red Beam Mooncakes, making Chinese paper lanterns.
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CHIN 4301 – Practicum
Dr. Yanlin Wang taught a new course in fall 2021, CHIN 4301 Chinese Language and Culture Teaching Practicum, which is the first service-learning course in the CMLL Chinese program.
The nine students majoring and minoring in Chinese learned Chinese language, foreign language teaching methods, and how to design teaching plans by backwards design. They observed Chinese language classes and taught Chinese language in different grades at Ramirez Elementary School. This course successfully increased students' confidence in teaching Chinese in K-12 and helped students explore a new potential career path by using the Chinese language.
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Teatime was offered to Chinese learners every Tuesday and Thursday during which students learned more about Chinese culture and language. The Tech Chinese Language & Culture Association organized a pumpkin carving activity on October 23 in Urbanovsky Park.
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The association also participated in several events this fall on campus. Dr. Yanlin Wang, Dr. Chris Vasquez and Olivia Jones (CMLL ambassador and major in Chinese) presented Chinese language and culture to the AP/IB Chinese classes at Lubbock High School on October 2. While Dr. Wang introduced students to the Chinese program, Dr. Vasquez entertained students with a magic show that included Chinese color words. Olivia gave a talk on Chinese calligraphy and demonstrated writing Chinese calligraphy. The presentation was highly praised by Ms. Laura Cook (Specialist of World Languages in Lubbock ISD).
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On October 17, the Chinese instructors and several students participated in Culture Fest organized by the TTU Office of International Affairs. The event served as a fundraiser for Texas Tech international associations. The Chinese association prepared and sold Chinese dumplings, bubble tea and Chinese pieces of art to the Texas Tech and Lubbock communities.
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Next, the association participated CMLL Culture Day on October 29 followed by Texas Tech's Celebrations Around the World on November 17 to bring awareness to the Chinese language and culture.
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Classics
The Tech Classical Society kicked off the semester on September 16 with pizza and yard games at Raider Plaza. Students gathered to meet the officers and fellow Classics majors and minors.
Lubbock AIA Chapter Fall Lecture Series
The Joukowsky Lecture took place on September 23 via Zoom during which Professor Michael
Chazan (University of Toronto) gave a lecture titled, “Wonderwerk Cave: Archaeology
at the Edge of the Kalahari”.
The second fall lecture featured Parker van Valkenburg (Stanley J. Bernstein Assistant
Professor of Social Sciences and Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Brown University).
The lecture titled Archaeology, Big Data, and Big Questions about lidar in the Andean
Cordillera and Beyond: took place via Zoom on November 11, 2021.
New Archaeological Studies Minor
Texas Tech University's College of Arts & Sciences offers an interdisciplinary minor in Archaeological Studies which combines archaeological courses from Classics and Anthropology. This new minor provides students with complementary perspectives on the discipline with a focus on both the Mediterranean world and the Americas.
Coursework includes ANTH 2301 (Introduction to Archaeology) and CLAS 2335 (Archaeologies of the Classical World), 12 hours of electives from a list of approved courses one of which can be a fieldwork course: ANTH 4642 (Field Archaeology), ANTH 4643 (Field Research in Skeletal Biology) or CLAS 4601 (Classical Field Archaeology). Additional information
French
Merde! Excremental Poetics, Politics and Practices in French and Francophone Literatures and Visual Cultures Conference
With the generous support of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures, Drs. Lucas Wood and Bruno Penteado organized a conference October 8-10, 2021, with keynote speaker Annabel Kim (Harvard University).
Interesting presentations were given on the topics of excremental poetics, politics and practices by presenters from Université du Québec à Montréal, Northwestern University/Université Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle, Université Paris VIII Vincennes-Saint-Denis, ARTEFA, Médiathèque Robert-Desnos, Durham University, University of Hassan II, Harvard University, Princeton University/Université Paris IV Sorbonne, Université de Tours, University of North Carolina-Wilmington, Queen Mary University of London, University of Southern Indiana, Boston University, and University of Mary Washington.
CMLL's own, Dr. Lucas Wood presented a paper titled, Par le sanc Dé ...c'est merde!: The Riddle of the Fabliaux, or How Do We Read This Shit?” and Dr. Bruno Penteado presented a paper titled, “How to Do Things with Turds: Sade's Coprontology”.
French Conversation Hour took place on Thursdays from 1-2PM in the Student Union Building. Students of all levels are welcome to work on improving French conversation skills in a friendly and relaxed environment.
German
Fall 2021, New course content for GERM 4305 – Literature and Culture of East Germany. This course, taught by Dr. Anita McChesney, aims to shed light on true history and popular imagination that has been at play since the GDR ceased to exist in 1990. An examination of life under the regime of East Germany prior to 1990 as portrayed in its literature and culture will be the course focus. This includes the celebrated benefits of GDR society—no unemployment or homelessness, free medical and childcare, low rent, and gender equality—as well as daily struggles with an omnipresent state secret police (Stasi), press censorship, restricted freedoms, and economic shortages. We will weigh the dual sides of the GDR legacy as depicted in essays, stories, poems, and films.
German Club met on November 5th for Kaffeeklatsch and Laternen basteln in Red Raider Plaza. Students made their own lanterns for St. Martin Day followed by a procession through campus.
As tradition has it in Germany, children participate in a procession of paper lanterns in remembrance of St. Martin while singing songs about St. Martin. A patron saint of social justice, racial harmony, and mixed-race people, Martin was born of a liaison between a Spanish grandee and a free black woman and raised in poverty and thus bore the stigma of both his illegitimate birth and his mixed race.
German program launches SPARK for German Lab
In Fall 2021, Dr. Alec Cattell coordinated the first cohort of SPARK leaders studying German at Texas Tech University, including Sarah Costanza, Briana Gary, and Taylor Holvey, pictured here delivering a SPARK session to students at Roscoe Wilson Elementary School.
Supported by the Goethe Institut and the American Association of Teachers of German, SPARK provides university students with practical, hands-on experiences to support their own language development while introducing members of the broader community to the benefits of learning a new language and exploring different cultures. SPARK leaders benefit from the program as they develop and are able to articulate a range of transferable skills that will be an asset to them on the job market.
TTU's SPARK Lab, shown here on the map of SPARK Labs across the nation, will be integrated in second-year language courses in order to provide students of German with high-impact learning experiences and professional development opportunities.
Weihnachtsfest
The annual Weihnachtsfest took place on December 3rd in the International Cultural Center. School age visitors enjoyed making German crafts, listening to storytelling about German Christmas culture that included hands-on shining their lights (mini flashlights) to represent stars in the sky. The puppet show of a rendition of Little Red Riding Hood that students in the German program performed delighted the children.
Italian
CMLL will offer a new online synchronous course, ITAL 2307 - Italian Culture, during summer which fulfills 3 hours of the Language, Philosophy, and Culture core requirement. This survey course will address questions: Why didn't Italy, with its history reaching as far back as ancient Rome, become an official country until almost a century after the U.S.A.?, How did one medieval Italian poet create the most well-known concept of hell in history?, What does the coronavirus have to do with ten young Florentines telling stories about love, sex, wit, and Fortune?, How many different languages, peoples, and ethnicities have come together over centuries to form Italy's transnational culture as we know it today?
ITA & ESL Program
The ITA program has continued to provide English proficiency assessments to incoming international teaching assistants. Two special interviews were held via Zoom in May and June during which fifty-one interviews were conducted. Next, one hundred-seven international teaching assistants participated in the ITA summer online workshop. Extenuating circumstances or late admission prevented ten students from participating in the scheduled interviews, thus, an additional special interview via Zoom was conducted for them.
Participants had the opportunity to meet one another on August 26 at the ITA Meet & Greet, “Popsicles in the Park”, held in Urbanovsky Park. With some pointers from Katie Weiss, ITA instructor, students had fun learning ball-handling skills.
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English in the Evenings
CMLL is committed to reaching out to the Lubbock community by offering English in the Evenings. Adult learners from the community had this opportunity this fall to work with skilled instructors to grow their communication skills in four areas: reading, writing, listening, speaking.
A Reading and Writing class was offered from August 23 to October 4. Following this,
Listening and Speaking class was offered October 6 to November 15.
Students enroll in six-week-long classes that meet twice a week. Upon successful completion
of each course, students earn a certificate of completion. Students who successfully
pass the course will earn 1.0 continuing education unit (CEU) and a certificate of
completion.
Reading and Writing course prepares international students for critical reading, academic writing, and basic research skills for success in academic contexts while Listening and Speaking course prepares international students for successful interactions in academic, professional, and social settings by developing their listening comprehension and spoken communication in English.
Learn more: English in the Evenings
Japanese
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Opening doors to new cultures is important especially for CMLL and its language programs. Japanese graduate students participated in the Office of International Affairs Culture Fest on October 16. Folks from the TTU and Lubbock community enjoyed the sights, smells, and tastes of Japan. Guns up, Japanese Program!
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Russian
TRSA/Russian Club participated in CMLL Culture Day on October 29th during which area high school students demonstrated curiosity about the Russian language and culture we offer at Texas Tech. They asked so many questions, and our volunteers led the discussion on some hot topics related to Russia.
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TRSA/Russian Club members enjoyed activities to promote Russian language and culture. The annual Halloween Lecture: Slavic Pagan Mythology was presented by lecturer Irina Drigalinko on October 29th. Movie Night on November 13, via Zoom brought club members virtually together to view one of the favorite Russian blockbuster films, “The Night Watch”. A brief introduction video prior to the viewing followed by a discussion of the film made for a spooky night. Somehow, Dr. Qualin ended up with mirror windows for Zoom, adding to the night's spookiness!
Students in first- and second-year Russian language courses joined in the LLL initiative to decorate a Christmas tree with letters to Santa written in different languages. Adding their letters written in Russian bring the semester to a close with a nice sentiment, С Рождеством всех и всем спокойной ночи !
Spanish & Portuguese
Conference Keynote Speaker
Priscilla Solis Ybarra, writer and Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of North Texas gave a talk titled, “What to the Mexican American is Wilderness? A Meditation on #LandBack and Abolition” on November 29 at the What the Land Remembers: Southwest Latinx Ecologies Conference. Her publications include Writing the Goodlife: Mexican American Literature and the Environment (University of Arizona, 2016) and Latinx Enviornmentalisms: Place, Justice, and the Decolonial (Temple University Press, 2019). For 2021-2022, she is Clements Senior Fellow for the Study of Southwestern America at Southern Methodist University. This talk was made possible by the Department of Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures, the Dean's Office of the College of Arts & Sciences, and the Charles B Qualia Endowment, with assistance from the Humanities Center and the Literature, Social Justice, and Environment Program. List of CMLL graduate student presentations
The Spanish Club continued offering conversation hours this semester. Most of the conversation hours took place online, but a few were in person. Students in the face-to-face courses of the Spanish Foundations program can earn extra credit by attending and participating in conversation hours.
Club officers:
President: Fernando Martínez-Caleano
Vice President: Veronica Cora-Castillo
Treasurer: Omar González
Secretary: Yunuen Velázquez Campos
Public Relations Officers: Dakota Tucker and Cristina Hernández Oliver
The Spanish Club put up an altar for el Día de los Muertos and welcomed local high school students for CMLL's annual culture day.
The Spanish Club also participated in Culture Fest with the Office of International Affairs! Visitors were encouraged to try their best at trabalenguas, or tongue twisters, to win prizes!
Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures
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Address
CMLL Building, 2906 18th St, Lubbock, TX 79409 -
Phone
806.742.3145