World Languages & Cultures

Since the arrival of the Spanish to Ecuador, indigenous peoples have struggled against political and economic elites trying to introduce Western norms that undermine cultural identities. Elon senior Chris Jarrett is examining how groups interact with Ecuadorian society through political activity and development projects, and his research on the Amazonian Kichwa people is the latest work to be featured in a series of E-net profiles on Lumen Scholars in the Class of 2011.

With their growing number of students who speak little or no English, American school systems have turned largely to one of two approaches for teaching such children. Elon University senior Lindsay Mann compared the models – “English as a Second Language” and “Spanish Dual Language” – and her work is the first to be featured in a series of E-net profiles on undergraduate research to be presented during CELEBRATE! 2011.

Iris Versmissen '10 was recently awarded the North Carolina Science Teachers Association Outstanding Elementary School Student Teacher of the Year Award. Versmissen was an elementary education Teaching Fellow with a Spanish minor.

With the growing number of Spanish-speaking patients who visit emergency rooms and doctors’ offices across the country, medical professionals often confront language barriers that can hinder treatment. Public health researchers have taken note, and a new introductory Spanish textbook authored by Elon University professor Ernest Lunsford takes aim at the problem.

Elon University students started a fundraising drive this week to aid victims of the March earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan. The same students are gathering messages of support from the community that will be translated into Japanese and delivered abroad to survivors whose lives have been upended by the natural disasters.

Jacy Lance, an Elon College Social Sciences Fellow, presented her research at the annual conference of the Southeast Council for Latin American Studies (SECOLAS), which took place March 16-19 at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Spanish faculty Donna Van Bodegraven, Mayte de Lama, and Nina Namaste presented on literature and film at the X Congreso Internacional de Literatura Hispánica held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from March 2-5, 2011.

Yumika Araki, an assistant professor of Japanese, and Dr. Ketevan Kupatadze, a lecturer of Spanish, presented March 7 at the International Conference on Technology, Education and Development held in Valencia, Spain.

Meaghan Britain, a senior strategic communications major and student of German, has been accepted to the Congress-Bundestag Exchange program. The highly competitive, fully funded program is "a full-year work-study scholarship program with a strong focus on cultural exchange between the U.S. and Germany," according to the program's website.

Donna Van Bodegraven, a Spanish professor in the Department of Foreign Languages, presented a paper titled "'Chac Mool' de Carlos Fuentes: ?sincretismo deliberado?" ["'Chac Mool' by Carlos Fuentes: Deliberate Syncretism?"] at the X Congreso Internacional de Literatura Hispa'nica [10th International Congress of Hispanic Literature] in San Juan, Puerto Rico on March 3, 2011.