Françoise Sorgen-Goldschmidt
reaps the rewards of the grant she received from IES to go
to the CIEE conference
in Budapest in November 2003.
Françoise Sorgen-Goldschmidt received
Title VI funds through the IES Western
European Language Teacher Training Travel Grant (this grant
will be available in July, 2004 -- check the IES
Grants & Fellowships page
as that time approaches for more information) to attend
the CIEE
conference
last November in Budapest. CIEE
(Council
on International
Educational
Exchange) has for many years provided quality programs and
services for individuals, employers, communities and educational
institutions. The University of California sends students
to the CIEE Paris Center.
CIEE holds a yearly conference. This year's topic was "Speaking Up: Language
Learning at Home and Abroad." While the links between studying abroad and
language learning are fairly evident, devoting a conference to the topic allowed
language and study abroad professionals to ask and debate questions such as:
How can one quantify the results of studying at home versus studying abroad?
How does program structure impact language learning? What type of language learning
will help students integrate into the host community? How can one facilitate
language learning outside the classroom in the immersion situation? The wide
array of topics can be consulted at
www.ciee.org/conferenceprogram.cfm?subnav=conference.
Sorgen-Goldschmidt found
Lawrie Davidson’s lecture on
Science Study Abroad particularly stimulating, and reported on it to the Senate
Committee on International Education, where the group has long been discussing
the feasibility of sending science as well as humanities and social science students
on the abroad programs.
Sorgen-Goldschmidt presented a paper on language and academics along with
Nadine
Gerdes and
Scott McElhinney, discussing how to better
prepare students going abroad for a different academic experience: "Language
is Only One of the Hurdles in Studying Abroad: Differences in Higher Educational
Systems Add to the Challenge." Gerdes and McElhinney are advisors from the
Berkeley Programs for Study Abroad (BPSA), the Berkeley branch of UC’s
Education Abroad Program (EAP). The session was chaired by
Peter Wollitzer,
Regional Director for the state wide office of EAP, and the presentation was
very well received: members of the Academic Consortium of CIEE thought the topic
should be explored further, receive more attention than it has in the past, and
be the subject of a workshop and/or article.
"My attendance at the conference will continue to have an impact on my teaching
and on my role as EAP liaison for the
French
Department," said Sorgen-Goldschmidt. "It has shown me that study
abroad educators worldwide share similarly strong convictions and a resolve to
strengthen language training at home and abroad, with the view that language
communication is the foundation of a worthwhile study abroad experience."
