UW-La Crosse’s annual Festival of Languages was held on April 9 in the Centennial Hall of Nations. Designed as a way to encourage students of all backgrounds to get involved in foreign language speaking or culture classes, the festival offered many different cultural activities, ethnic presentations and games.
Whether it was Chinese calligraphy lessons, French pronunciation games and folk songs, or Hmong mini speaking lessons, the festival encompassed a diverse amount of cultural aspects and offered a brief peek into the lives and facets that make up other cultures.
Ritt Deitz, the Director of the Professional French Masters Program (PFMP) at UW-Madison, was one of the first presenters at the festival. He gave a presentation titled “Languages and Professions” in which he discussed the many different benefits that knowing a second language could have for individuals in the workplace.
Deitz presented profiles of a few PFMP alumni members and explained their educational paths as well as updates on where they are working today in the world and how they are utilizing their foreign language background in their careers.
“Knowing…a second language in general, opens up the possibilities for careers and communication with so many different groups of people,” Deitz stated.
In relation to Deitz’s comment regarding the importance of speaking another language, Leslee Poulton, the Chair of the Department of Modern Languages also had some significant insights.
“It’s been seen time and time again that college graduates who have a foreign language background are seen to make on average more money in their lifetimes than graduates who don’t know a second language,” she said. “It’s not so much that you necessarily know a second language, but it’s more the fact that you understand the cultural contexts that go along with learning another language.”
Poulton also commented on the vast amounts of people that you could open yourself up to communicating with when you learn other languages and the cultures that go along with them.
Poulton and her fellow French professors, Virginia Cassidy and Francine Klein, as well as various French club members, put on many different French-related events throughout the day. Many other professors in the Modern Language Department, as well as many representatives from all of the other language clubs at UW-L, were also at the festival to showcase their languages and programs.
Interested in taking foreign language classes at UW-L? Courses in French, Spanish, Hmong, German, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Tesol,and Russian are offered. Contact the Department of Modern Languages at [email protected] or in 315 Graff Main Hall for more information and advising.