Live Mocha has launched – this website combines social networking with language learning. Here you can indicate what language you speak as well as what language(s) you would like to learn. There are synchronous and asynchronous opportunities, the ability to track your progress through various courses, and native speakers who are willing to interact with learners. Pretty cool community. I joined tonight – I’m ckendall – I’m going to learn some Chinese. Maybe some Farsi, too. Join me!

“The first instrument of a people’s genius is its language,” said the French writer Stendhal. Literacy, learning, social integration….Everything transits through language, which embodies national, cultural and sometimes religious identity for each person. It constitutes one of the fundamental dimensions of a human being. Yet specialists estimate that within only a few generations, more than half of the 7,000 languages spoken in the world face extinction, because they are not represented in government, education and the media. For this reason, the United Nations had declared 2008 the International Year of Languages, to be launched by UNESCO on 21 February, International Mother Language Day.

There are several interesting articles about languages around the world, bilingualism, and more! Happy reading!

In this 10-day summer institute, K-12 Chinese teachers will explore key concepts and principles related to mentoring, leadership, and change. They will collaboratively develop standards-based, thematically focused, and culturally rich Chinese teaching materials and experiment with compelling classroom applications of emerging technologies such as blogs, podcasts, digital storytelling, and wikis. They will learn to use these technologies to disseminate materials and expand their mentoring and leadership to the profession at district and state levels.

Cherice Montgomery and I will be leading the institute, and Weiqing Wang, the Chinese cultural and linguistic consultant and demonstration teacher will be joining our team! Kudos to Marcia Rosenbusch, Director of the NFLRC, on receiving the grant. Marcia continues providing excellent direction to the Center as well as leadership and mentoring to colleagues and fellow world language educators.