Archive for the ‘People’ Category

Apr
11
2010

Spelling bee champ conquers language barrier

By DAN DEARTH. APRIL 11, 2010

SMITHSBURG — Smithsburg Middle School student Joanne Lee couldn’t speak English when she started kindergarten.

But things have changed since then.

On June 2, Joanne will take the stage with 274 other students from across the United States to represent Washington County Public Schools at the 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

The event will last until June 4.

“The nerves are the worst,” Joanne said. “I have to remember not to spell too fast so I don’t miss a letter.”

Joanne’s mother, Hsiu-Hsueh Schubel, immigrated to the United States from Taiwan in the 1990s.

Because Hsiu-Hsueh’s English wasn’t very good when Joanne was a toddler, Hsiu-Hsueh said she spoke Mandarin Chinese around the house to prevent her daughter from developing bad speech habits.

As a result, Joanne received exposure to a foreign language early on but had to take special English classes when she started school.

“She had to go through this language barrier all by herself,” Hsiu-Hsueh said. “It made me very proud of her.”
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Jul
24
2009

Wedding bells chime for couple brought together by Esperanto language

Jul 24 2009 by Tony Collins, Birmingham Mail

A BIRMINGHAM woman has found love in the unlikeliest of settings – after discovering the almost forgotten language of Esperanto on the internet.

Clare Hunter, from Kings Heath, checked out the 120-year-old language through an internet search engine in 2006, and ended up meeting a fellow Esperanto enthusiast.

They now plan to marry next year after boyfriend Tim Owen proposed, in more traditional English, on Valentine’s Day.

Clare, aged 25, who has become the youngest trustee of the Esperanto Association of Britain, has just flown to the Czech Republic where she is attending the Esperanto International Youth Congress.

She then heads off to Poland for the 94th Esperanto World Congress, in Bialystok, birthplace of Esperanto creator Ludovic Zamenhof.

Clare, who works as a chartered accountant, said: “If you’d have told me that I would find romance through Esperanto, I would have said ‘no way, never in a million years!’.

“I never thought for a moment my involvement would lead to me finding my future husband.

“We both speak Esperanto, but not all the time with each other because we’re both very good at English.
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Jul
24
2009

Teacher in line for a language award

Friday, July 24, 2009, 07:00

A TEACHER in Plymouth has been selected as one of four finalists in the Scholastic/La Jolie Ronde Primary Language Teacher Awards 2009.

Helen Berry, of Salisbury Road Primary School in St Judes, will attend a ceremony at the Houses of Parliament in November when the winner will be announced.

Ms Berry has made it down to the final four due to her sterling work promoting languages to the young children at Salisbury Road.

She has lived and worked in Plymouth all her life and did her teaching degree at Marjon in Derriford.

Now in her third year of teaching at Salisbury Road, she has ‘ensured that languages are an integral part of the curriculum from Foundation to Year 6′, according to competition organisers.

They say she has developed links with seven schools worldwide, runs Spanish clubs, has introduced Mandarin lessons and organises language-themed activities ‘for the whole school to enjoy’.

The person who nominated her said she deserved to win for her ability to ‘inspire and motivate all the pupils she has contact with and because she is organised, approachable, hard-working and a great ambassador for primary modern languages’.

Ms Berry organised two language- themed events for pupils at the school at the end of term.
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Jul
10
2009

Cahuilla elder, one of last fluent in language, dies

10:00 PM PDT on Thursday, July 9, 2009. By ERIN WALDNER, The Press-Enterprise

Alvino Siva, who strove to preserve ancient Cahuilla Indian bird songs, culture and language, died of natural causes June 26 at his Banning home. He was 86.

“It’s sad to see him go,” said friend Albert Chacon, of Moreno Valley.

Cahuilla bird songs describe the early days, the lives and movement, of these American Indian people.

“The language and the bird songs, that tells us who we are,” said Sean Milanovich, a member of an Agua Caliente historic preservation committee.

Mr. Siva, a Cahuilla elder and member of the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla & Cupeño Indians, helped preserve the songs by teaching them to others, including younger Cahuilla generations. He sang them in the Cahuilla language.

Mr. Siva was one of the few remaining Cahuilla people fluent in the language, according to Daniel McCarthy, a U.S. Forest Service tribal liaison.

Cahuilla culture was important to Mr. Siva.

“Language, too. He was preserving the language,” said his friend, Palm Springs anthropologist Lowell Bean.
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Jul
06
2009

Jacksonville woman is nation’s top Spanish teacher

By Jessie-Lynne Kerr. Story updated at 6:57 AM on Monday, Jul. 6, 2009

Cathy Soud fell in love with the Spanish language when she was a student at Episcopal High School of Jacksonville more than three decades ago.

Since 1977 she has shared that love with her students at The Bolles School, with the exception of five years away teaching at Maryville (Tenn.) College.

On Saturday she will be recognized as the nation’s top Spanish teacher on the secondary school level by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. She’ll be honored at the association’s 2009 conference in Albuquerque, N.M.

So how did a tall, green-eyed blonde from a Southern family who had to learn the language at school, not at home, come to love the language?

At Episcopal, one of her favorite teachers was her Spanish teacher, Emily Cristofoli.

“I was good at Spanish and did better in that class than in math,” Soud said. When a person enjoys a subject and does well in it, that can influence a choice in careers, she said.

After graduating from Episcopal, she headed to Vanderbilt University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and graduated magna cum laude in 1975. She remained at Vanderbilt to earn a master of arts in teaching degree in Spanish in 1977.

“Years ago people would ask me why in the world would I want to teach Spanish,” she said.
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Jul
06
2009

Edith Kovach: Pioneered language teaching styles

BY JOE ROSSITER • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • July 5, 2009

Thousands of Latin students around the country learned the language from the voice of someone they never met: former educator Edith Kovach.

Her enthusiasm and dedication in her Latin and Greek teachings endeared her in the hearts and minds of students and faculty alike.

A onetime chairwoman of the University of Detroit’s classical studies department and a longtime instructor in the Detroit Public Schools, Ms. Kovach died Wednesday of cardiac arrest in her Bloomfield Hills home. She was 88.

“Without a doubt, teaching was her passion and knowledge was the reward,” said her longtime friend, Alice McIntyre. “She had a marvelous ability for bringing all classic arts and languages together so that people developed a depth of understanding and a genuine appreciation.”

Ms. Kovach was a nationally recognized figure in the development of methods to teach Latin and Greek at both the high school and college levels, and conducted frequent summer workshops and seminars at college campuses around the country.

Fluent in Spanish and German, she was instrumental in the improvement of the drill tapes and tests she helped develop for Macmillan & Co. to accompany Latin textbooks. As a result, her voice became a familiar learning tool for students around the country.
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Jun
30
2009

Keep the language spark burning

Paul Bickford, Northern News Services. Published Monday, June 29, 2009

THEBACHA/FORT SMITH – A teacher in Fort Smith has won the NWT Teachers’ Association Aboriginal Education Award.

Eileen Beaver, who teaches Chipewyan language and culture at Paul William Kaeser (PWK) High School, said she is honoured to have received the award for her efforts to preserve Chipewyan.

It is struggling because it’s not being used as the dominant language in the community, she said.

“I’m trying to keep the fire burning, even if it’s just a little spark somewhere.”

Beaver said, when she hears her students speak Chipewyan, she feels she is doing something that is helping to make a difference.

Many people in Fort Smith can speak and understand at least some Chipewyan, she added.

“They just don’t use it. It’s just too convenient to use English at home.”

Beaver learned to speak Chipewyan, Cree and French at home, before speaking English.

This past school year, she taught about 80 students, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal.

PWK also has a teacher the Cree language and culture.
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Apr
28
2009

A Knack for Languages Evolves Into a Career

APRIL 28, 2009, 9:34 A.M. ET
By AMY PALANJIAN

From an early age, Paula Shannon was taught the importance of language from her mother and grandmother. After using her college education to combine her interest in linguistics with her computer science skills, she moved up the ranks at language firm Berlitz International. Now, Ms. Shannon, 49, is the top female executive at Lionbridge Technologies, a global firm based in Waltham, Mass., that provides international companies with translation services in over 100 languages, where she works with over 4,600 employees across 26 countries.

Full Name: Paula Shannon
Age: 49
Hometown: Baie d’Urfe, Quebec
First Job: A little shop on the water in Massachusetts that sold antiques and maritime curios in the front and lobsters in the back. I started when I was 15.
Favorite job: Current job.
Education: B.A. in Russian and German, minor in linguistics from McGill University
Years in current industry: 23
How I got here in 10 words or less: Never worried about taking detours and accepting lateral moves.

Q: You became interested in language at an early age. How did that happen?
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