Come to the LRC to practice your language skills and meet new people. Conversation Hours provide an opportunity to use the target language in an informal, low-pressure atmosphere. Have fun practicing a language you are learning! Gain confidence through experience! Just using your new language skills helps you learn more than you might think. Conversation Hours are open to any learner, including the public.

Come to the LRC to practice your language skills and meet new people. Conversation Hours provide an opportunity to use the target language in an informal, low-pressure atmosphere. Have fun practicing a language you are learning! Gain confidence through experience! Just using your new language skills helps you learn more than you might think. Conversation Hours are open to any learner, including the public.

Join us on Zoom to practice your language skills and meet new people. Conversation Hours provide an opportunity to use the target language in an informal, low-pressure atmosphere. Have fun practicing a language you are learning! Gain confidence through experience! Just using your new language skills helps you learn more than you might think. Conversation Hours are open to any learner, including the public.

Join Spanish Conversation Hour on Zoom.

The Caribbean has been identified as a region particularly vulnerable to changing climates, where conservation imperatives have advocated for the protection of fragile ocean ecosystems. As shifting ocean environments refigure marine ecosystems, making fish scarce in the shallows, diver fishermen along the coasts of the Dominican Republic dive deeper and stay longer in risky conditions. As a result, decompression sickness (the bends) has become a pervasive injury, and a way that coastal communities experience changing ocean health. In this talk, I examine the connections between bodily health and environmental health among Dominican diver fishermen, alongside the ways marine conservation initiatives further marginalize the health and well-being of fishing communities. Drawing from ethnographic research with divers who “caught air,” the local term for the bends, I argue that decompression sickness is a symptom of the overlapping injustices of ecologies in decline and colonial conceptualizations of conservation in the Caribbean.

Kyrstin Mallon Andrews is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Syracuse University. Her work explores shifting ocean ecosystems, environmental politics, and experiences of health among spearfishermen in the Dominican Republic. Her articles and photo essays have appeared in American Anthropologist, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, and Current Anthropology.

"Implementing Undergraduate TAs in the Language Curriculum"
Mijeong Mimi Kim
Teaching Professor of Korean Language and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Washington University in St. Louis

This presentation examines the strategic integration of Undergraduate Teaching Assistants (UTAs) into the Korean language program at Washington University in St. Louis, drawing from 15 years of implementation experience. The model can be adapted across diverse language instruction contexts, offering valuable insights applicable to language programs more broadly. The presentation highlights how UTAs create opportunities for improved language proficiency, increased speaking confidence, and enhanced cultural understanding through structured peer interactions. By facilitating additional practice opportunities, UTAs help build supportive learning communities both within and beyond classroom settings.
The session provides practical frameworks for effective UTA recruitment, training, and retention strategies adaptable to various language programs. As integrated members of the language curriculum, UTAs receive course credit and benefit from experiential learning through direct teaching practice, exposure to diverse cultural perspectives, and reflective examination of their own language use. Furthermore, the UTA model promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion by incorporating varied linguistic and cultural perspectives into the learning environment. UTAs foster inclusive and accessible learning spaces where students comfortably practice language skills, addressing individual learner challenges through targeted supplemental support. UTAs link formal instruction to authentic language experiences, establishing meaningful pathways for language acquisition and cultivating inclusive learning communities where learning becomes a shared and enriching experience.

Bio: Mijeong Mimi Kim is a Teaching Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Washington University in St. Louis, where she serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies. She also coordinated the Korean language program through 2024. Since joining the university in 2002, she has taught Korean at all levels, developed curricula for both traditional and heritage learners, and founded the WashU Coalition for Language Teaching and Learning, which promotes collaboration among language faculty and students.
Dr. Kim's interests include language pedagogy, curriculum design, and technology-enhanced instruction. Drawing on critical pedagogy, she creates content-based curricula that immerse students in Korean culture through media, fostering both language proficiency and cultural agency. She is co-author of several textbooks, including the You Speak Korean OER series (2023), Advanced Korean (2021), and Tigers, Fairies, and Gods: Enchanting Folktales from Korea (2019). She has served on the Executive Board of the American Association of Teachers of Korean (AATK) and contributed to national initiatives such as the Standards-Based Korean Language Curriculum project and the Korean Honor Society (KHS). Dr. Kim is committed to student-centered pedagogy that integrates cultural literacy into language education, recognizing its transformative potential in cultivating global citizenship.

This event will be held in person in G25 Stimson and will also be streamed live over Zoom (registration required). Join us at the LRC or on Zoom.

The event is free and open to the public.

"The Rise of OER in Language Teaching and Learning"
Fernando Rubio
Director of the Center for Language Study, Yale University

Compared with STEM fields, second language (L2) education has only recently begun to embrace open education and the new knowledge ecologies it produces. L2 educators may have been hesitant to participate in the open education movement due to a lack of research which investigates the benefits and challenges of L2 learning and teaching in open environments. This talk contextualizes open education in L2 learning and teaching in terms of a dynamic ecology, along with a discussion of how the open movement affects L2 education beyond the classroom context. Also discussed will be the new ways of creating, adapting, and curating OER for language learning.

Bio: Fernando Rubio currently serves as the Director of the Center for Language Study at Yale University. Prior to that, he was a Professor of Spanish Linguistics in the Department of World Languages and Cultures and co-founder and Director of the Second Language Teaching and Research Center at the University of Utah. Over the past two decades, he has been actively involved in various professional organizations, including The Modern Language Association, The College Board, and ACTFL. He also served as president of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations.
Dr. Rubio's research interests lie in the fields of applied linguistics and teaching methodologies, with a focus on technology-enhanced language learning and teaching. He is the author of two textbooks, Tercer Milenio (Kendall-Hunt, 2009) and Juntos (Cengage, 2018). Additionally, he has co-edited the volume Hybrid Language Teaching and Learning: Exploring Theoretical, Pedagogical and Curricular Issues (Heinle, 2012) and co-authored Creating Effective Blended Language Learning Courses: A Research-Based Guide from Planning to Evaluation (Cambridge UP, 2020), which was honored with the 2019-2020 MLA Mildenberger Prize.

This event will be held in person in G25 Stimson and will also be streamed live over Zoom (registration required). Join us at the LRC or on Zoom.

The event is free and open to the public.

Last Public Issues Forum

This film series has been created to celebrate the new minor in Caribbean Studies. It invites viewers to reflect on the Caribbean as a space of media creation, as well as to consider social issues of global concern from the perspective of the Caribbean. With films from Colombia, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic, this series aims to consider different parts of the Caribbean, allowing for a reflection on how the region is affected by geopolitics at a global scale, national politics, and by social issues including race, gender, sexual orientation and class. It also insists on and highlights the possibility and the power in narrating and creating from the margins, emphasizing the Caribbean not only as a subject matter but also and especially as agent and creator of languages, worlds, and ways of resistance.

These films are part of the LACS UISFL grant, funded by the Department of Education.

The schedule would be as follows:

Monday, September 15 at 6pm - Memorias del subdesarrollo (Tomás Gutiérrez, Cuba, 1968) Monday, September 22 at 6pm - Cocote (Nelson Arias de los Santos, 2017, Dominican Republic) Monday, September 29 at 6pm - La estrategia del mero (Edgar de Luque Jácome, 2022, Colombia)

Join us this year for Bienvenidos 2025! It will be an incredible time to learn more about the LatinX student organizations, resources, music, performances, and more! We hope you're ready to mingle and enjoy light foods/refreshments Party popper

Food Provided- RSVP required for food lineup!

Note: After registration you will be redirected to sign a waiver for some of the activities we'll have a Bienvenidos! Please make sure to sign the quick waiver in order to participate. Thank you.

OPEN TO THE CORNELL COMMUNITY!

Hosted by the Latino Living Center.