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Dear WLL Community:
Greetings and Happy New Year from the Department of World Languages and Literatures at San Jose State University. The summer and fall of 2014 were marked by a number of events, visits from famous authors and faculty and student achievements, as well as strong community support that left an impact on all of us. Students' lives were changed by foreign travel and study abroad, faculty engaged in fascinating research, and alumni shared their experience and expertise with a new generation of job seekers. In short, the adventure study of world languages and literatures continued. 
Over the years, individual students, faculty, staff, and alumni have all come together to give our department community its unique personality. As we continue grow and evolve, we hope you will stay in touch with us and continue to support us. We look forward to hearing from you. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact us at 
worldlanguagesandlit@sjsu.edu.
Sincerely,
Damian Bacich, Ph.D.
Chair, SJSU Department of World Languages and Literatures

 
In Loving Memory of Dr. Dominique van Hooff
It was with heavy hearts that we said goodbye to former Chair, colleague and friend Dominique van Hooff, Ph.D. in October. Dr. van Hooff was an accomplished professor, author and exemplary human being. She will be missed by the department, her students, friends and family. A touching obituary was written by Spartan Daily staff writer Samson Ho and can be found here. Professor van Hoof is survived by her husband Walter van Hooff and two sons.
Department News and Events

Portuguese Studies Receives Commendation and Donation

On October 2, 2014, Mary Alsheikh (center) of the Portuguese Studies SJSU Advisory Board presented the Department of World Languages and Literatures with a commendation from outgoing Mayor Chuck Reed and Councilmember (now Mayor) Sam Liccardo of San José. In it, the officials recognized the Portuguese Studies Program at San José State University for "acting as a bridge between the Portuguese-speaking community and the greater community of the City of San José." Mary also presented chair Damian Bacich (left) and Portuguese Studies coordinator Deolinda Adão (right) with a check for $1,000 to support scholarships for students studying in the Portuguese program at SJSU. The funds were raised through Portuguese Heritage Night with the San Jose Earthquakes soccer team. Many thanks to the Portuguese Studies Advisory board who, together with Fecha A Luz Productions, helped organize this amazing event!

Faculty Retirement Party

Four long time faculty of our department retired this past fall: Dr. Juan Matallana (Spanish), Dorina Cereghino (Italian), Dr. Carmen Sigler (Spanish) and Helene Chan (Foreign Language Education). They have all contributed to the many successes of WLL throughout the years and we were sad to see them all go. We wish Juan, Dorina, Carmen and Helene all the best in their future endeavours and hope to see them around the department and the campus often.
Top picture from left to right: Professor Rina Katzen (Hebrew), Walter Chan, Professor Chunhui Peng (Chinese), Professor Damian Bacich (Department Chair), Helen Smith (FLED), Helene Chan (Former FLED Coordinator), Professor Yasue Yanai (Japanese), Professor Y.M. Shimazu (Japanese), Professor Jean-Luc Desalvo (French), Dr. Carmen Sigler (Spanish), Professor Cheyla Samuelson (Spanish), Professor Romey Sabalius (German) and Profesor Keach Inaba (Japanese).
Bottom pictures left to right: Professor Juan Matallana and Dorina Cereghino who were unable to attend the celebration.
Helen L. Stevens Award for Outstanding International Educator: Dr. Yasue Yanai
Congratulations to Professor Yasue Kodama Yanai (Japanese) for being granted the Helen L. Stevens Outstanding International Educator award (picture here, second from left with her husband Atsushi). Dr. Yanai is the second World Languages and Literatures faculty member to win the award in two consecutive years.
​Anne Jensen, Foreign Languages Education (FLED) Instructor with WLL, will receive the CLTA (California Language Teachers' Association) Hal Wingard Lifetime Achievement Award at the CLTA Conference in Sacramento, March 5-8.  Click here to find out more information about the CLTA.
Dr. Fountain and the AATSP
This spring, Dr. Anne Fountain will begin her duties as president-elect of The American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP). Dr. Fountain has been a lifetime member of the organization since she was a graduate student at Indiana University. 
AATSP is a national organization serving teachers of Spanish and Portuguese at all levels.​She will serve as President –Elect in 2015, President in 2016 and Past-President in 2017. Read more about her campaign and eligibility here.
Lunch Time Talk: Careers in World Languages
In participation with International Education Week, WLL hosted our second annual Lunch Time Talk series with special guests David Mohr of Adobe and Denise Hamilton from the SJSU Career Center. The topic was Careers in World Languages and the discussion was facilitated by Chair Damian Bacich. David and Denise shared some advice and experiences working in fields that required world language and gave useful and insightful tips and advice to students wanting to know how they can use their second or third language after graduation. We thank Denise and David for their time and for being a part of our event.
SJSU Persian Studies Program together with the Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute
San José State University’s Persian Studies Program, with the generous support of the Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute, is inaugurating an international collaborative that shares the photography of students from SJSU and Alzahra University in Tehran, Iran. Art from Alzahra University students will be displayed at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library from March 8 to April 4, 2015 with an opening night event on March 12. Join us at the opening night event on Thursday, March 12 for an engaging talk by Pantea Karimi, the Bay Area based artist and art educator, who will discuss her experience as a student of both SJSU, and Alzahra University. A Reception will follow.
Foreign Language Week at SJSU
National Foreign Language Week will take place March 9 - 15, 2015 and will be coordinated at SJSU by Professor Blanca Smith (Spanish). National Foreign Language Week has been celebrated every year since 1957, and aims at making the American student aware of the vital necessity for foreign language study. This year's event will include a tutorial on how to make Chinese Wontons or Boba Milk, a special screening of "Saved by Language" and Sumi-e, Japanese ink painting. More details on FLW will be posted on our department website and Facebook page soon.
Cuban and American Authors visit SJSU
Famed Cuban poets and great friends of Prof. Anne Fountain (Spanish), Nancy Morejón (pictured left) and Nancy Alonso (pictured bottom right) visited San José State to speak with SPAN 102B students in the fall semester. Professor Fountain also invited back to SJSU Author William Gordon (bottom left) to discuss his most recently published book and to answer students questions. The department thanks Professor Fountain and her esteemed guests for visiting SJSU and speaking with students.
Professor Juan Sempere's Fall 2014 Sabbatical
In August of 2014 Dr. Sempere traveled to Murcia, Spain on sabbatical to work on the Atlas Lingüístico del Murciano using notes gathered in past years by dialectologists and with material of that he has collectedsince 1990. While there, he had access to unedited fieldwork notes and once the transcriptions were digitalized, he turned his attention to his own data which he had chosen from dictionaries, novels, newspapers and from his own fieldwork collected in the early 1990s. Consequently, linguistic maps were laid out containing responses by three generations in different periods. Then he wrote footnotes dealing with linguistic observations and ethnographic comments, while comparing the rate of linguistic change and attrition through the years, especially at the lexical level. He has already submitted three articles for publication based on his project while he was conducting research in Spain, two of which have already been published, and the other one has also been accepted and it will be published this spring. In addition to this, last December he submitted the book Vocabulario y Folclore del Murciano for publication currently under review in Spain. In November 2014, he also published a review of a book examining Spanish dialectology in the United States.
Faculty Spotlight: Yasue Yanai, Japanese
"I think the biggest benefit of learning foreign languages and cultures is to be able to know yourself and your language and culture objectively, satisfying your intellectual curiosity for different cultures."
Professor Yanai has loved foreign language and culture study since she was 12 years old and participated in a homestay program in the US for the first time. When she was older, she became a tutor for students from Germany, Italy and Hong Kong. During Japan’s economic bubble, she was able to attend a new graduate school for Japanese language teachers of foreigners as a first generation student. Dr. Yanai has been with SJSU for 6 years and enjoys the diversity and curiosity of her students as well as the collegiality of the other faculty members.
What sets Professor Yanai apart is her willingness to evolve her teaching style to the interests of her students. For example, using authentic materials such as Japanese songs, TV dramas, Manga, namely graphic novels, that her students are interested in as much as possible. Started by Dr. Keach Inaba, Professor Yanai has taken students on a Faculty Led Program to Kyoto, Japan for several summers. For students who cannot afford to go, she has created Collaborative Online International Learning course, or COIL, which allows students to participate in a continuous cultural and language learning environment without going overseas by engaging in cultural projects with students at Kagoshima University in Japan. She writes, “In the class, they are trained to be sensitive to various cultural differences and consider why they are different reflecting themselves and their own culture throughout the course.”
Her favorite course to teach is JPN140: Japanese Modern Drama and Lyrics because she enjoys music and drama and how the songs used in class teach students natural Japanese such as people’s mentality, human relationship and related language and communication strategies.
 The Department of World Languages and Literatures would like to thank Professor Yanai for allowing us to feature her in this newsletter.
Student and Alumni News
Student Spotlight: Saba Jalali
"It's not about culture, it's about hearts." - Saba Jalali
Saba Jalali is an international student from Iran who started in the Spanish MA program at SJSU in spring 2014. Saba says that she didn’t know what to expect as far as being an international student or how people would receive her but says that she feels at home in San Jose and has made a lot of friends. In Iran, she originally wanted to study art but was not accepted into the program in her home city. She decided to follow her interest in languages and chose to study Spanish because there was a greater demand for Spanish speakers and because of positive relations between Iran and many Latin American countries. Saba also studied French for a year after her receiving her BA but she does not have any plans to study abroad during her time at SJSU. She is already researching Ph.D. programs for when she finishes her master’s degree either next fall or the following spring. Her ideal post graduate school life would include staying in the US to work for a few years before completing a doctoral program in Linguistics. When asked what her best advice is for students learning a new language or looking to improve their fluency, she told me what one of her Spanish teachers in Iran always told her, “Reading, reading, reading”.
Thank you to Saba for sharing your story.
Spanish MA Alumnus visit Spain through Rotary Club Scholarship
Last summer, Spanish MA graduates Adrian Buenrostro and Rosita Suarez were awarded a scholarship from the International Rotary Club to study in Mallorca, Spain.
Dr. Juan Sempere (Spanish) nominated Adrian and Rosita for a scholarship to study abroad in Mallorca, Spain last summer learning about the Spanish island's culture and history. They both knew that it would be competitive but were confident in their abilities because of the education that they received from SJSU's masters and undergraduate programs. Adrian and Rosita enjoyed the beauty of Mallorca, the infrastructure, gastronomy and the people. They especially enjoyed Petra, Mallorca and learning about Junipero Serra, the Spanish friar who founded several missions from San Diego to San Francisco. In addition to the amazing opportunity to study in Spain and gain invaluable experience that they hope to bring to their future high school students, they also took advantage of being in Europe to visit 8 other countries. Rosita and Adrian recommend that all students apply for this scholarship and they were very grateful for the opportunity. 
Alumni Spotlight: Jared Oliva
"The greatest benefit [to] studying a second language is that it emancipates learners from a monolingual mindset. They analyze situations more objectively because they can approach it from multiple perspectives."
Jared Oliva graduated from the Department of World Languages and Literatures with a minor in Japanese. He is currently a civil servant working for a prefectural Board of Education in Japan where he is able to use his Japanese often when interacting with non-English speaking coworkers and when preparing educational surveys in Japanese. His desire to have an interdisciplinary education is what inspired him to study Japanese and seek out a strong foundation in intercultural communication. In addition to his use of Japanese in his current position, because of his second language skills, Jared was also able to get a paid internship at a tech company last summer. Jared points out that learning a second language can be very difficult and there is a huge difference between learning in the classroom and using it in the real world and he says that success in language learning depends on the determination and focus of each student. His best advice to for current and prospective students that want to learn a new language: explore the media you consume in your target language. For example, Jared read short articles from the Huffington Post and played Japanese video games.
Thank you to Jared for taking the time to answer a few questions about his post-graduation experience and best of luck from WLL! 
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