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Lauren Hansen Awarded Fulbright |
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Lauren Hansen (2008, B.A. German, B.S. Marketing) has received one of only 140 Fulbright Scholarships. Lauren will leave in early September to teach English at Sebastian Münster Gymnasium in Ingelheim the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz. This is not the first time that Lauren has visited Germany. In the summer of 2007, she interned at a company in Worms, Germany, gaining valuable work experience and a desire to return to Germany after graduation. Lauren is truly an NIU success story. At NIU, she started in FLGE 202 and now is completely fluent in German. She is looking forward to working with students in Germany. She has already been accepted by the Department of German at the University of Illinois Chicago and was awarded the Max Kade Fellowship there. She will defer her admission.
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Melissa Shalter and Trista Wagner, German teacher certification students, and Carolyn Scheele (B.A., German Education, 2009) were selected to take part in an education seminar in Leipzig, Germany, from June 13 to July 11, 2009. This year 20 participants were chosen from all over the US. The seminar included all program costs and materials, as well as room and breakfast for the duration of the four-week program. Also covered were excursions and cultural events, a city tour, and transportation costs in Leipzig. This program was funded by the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) with generous support by the German government’s Transatlantic Program, through funds from the European Recovery Plan (ERP) program of the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Technologie. The program is in its second year and will be offered again in 2010.
This four-week seminar, conducted in German, focused on: the theoretical basics of the acquisition of communicative competence, methods of performance measurement and the evaluation of oral skills as well as methodology for teaching German as a foreign language. During their stay, the participants also became aware of their own acquisition of oral skills with the help of conversation units, thereby improving their language skills. Intercultural interaction and knowledge of daily life in Germany were other important components of the seminar.
The students improved their spoken German. German was not only spoken inside the classroom but also outside. All students were hosted by German families. In addition, they visited many places close to Leipzig: Wittenberg, where they had the chance to attend a service in the church where Martin Luther posted his 95 theses; Quedlinburg, a UNESCO world heritage site; the picturesque Harz mountains; Dresden, the city of the Zwinger and the reconstructed Frauenkirche; and – last but not least – the German capital Berlin. The program was a great experience for all of them as nothing can give a better insight into a culture than living it.
 From left to right: Trista, Melissa and Carolyn in Wittenberg |
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Fluency in a foreign language may be advantage in job search |
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September 2, 2008
They live more than 5,000 miles apart, one at the edge of Illinois cornfields and the other at the foot of the Andes. And their cultures are about as different as the tango and the twist. But in some ways, Mirta Pagnucci and Corina Murcia speak exactly the same language.
They’re both leaving home with the same goal in mind – to experience cultural immersions that will enrich their own teaching skills.
Pagnucci is an instructor in the NIU Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. She will head soon to the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, located in the city of Mendoza, Argentina, where she will teach English literature and composition in a collaborative course with five Argentinean professors.
Meanwhile, Murcia is an English professor at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Early last month, she arrived on the NIU campus, where she will teach several sections of Spanish this semester.
The two are each recipients of the prestigious Fulbright Teacher Exchange grant, awarded on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential. This will be NIU’s second exchange with Universidad Nacional de Cuyo in three years.
Pagnucci lives in DeKalb with her husband, NIU Law Professor David Gaebler. She is one of about 450 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad through the Fulbright Teacher Exchange during this school year. A 5-year veteran of NIU, Pagnucci teaches Italian, French and Spanish language courses and also works with the teacher certification program. She previously taught at Oak Park and River Forest High School, where she was the department chair of foreign languages for two decades.
“Spanish is my fourth language, and I started with Spanish later in life,” she says. “This is a wonderful opportunity to live and function in a totally Spanish-speaking environment while getting to know the Argentinean culture.”
Pagnucci will be living in Argentina with Professor Amparo Argerich, who came to DeKalb on a 2006 exchange with NIU Spanish instructor Kerry Chermel.
Pagnucci’s counterpart, Murcia, is already getting to know the NIU campus, as well as the City of Chicago and a diverse cross-section of NIU students. She is living in International House – a wing of Douglas Hall that houses the Foreign Language Residence Program, the political science/public service floor and a wide array of international students and domestic students with international interests.
“We are thrilled to have Corina with us this semester,” says Anne Birberick, chair of Foreign Languages and Literatures.
“Being able to have a Fulbright exchange teacher in the classroom enriches the cultural experience for our students,” she says. “They not only get a first-hand introduction to Argentina, but they also experience a different style of teaching. Our first exchange was a terrific experience and this one promises to be the same. We’re also excited because, by having a second exchange, the department and NIU can work toward establishing a more permanent relationship with the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo.”
For Murcia, the flatlands of Illinois are quite different from her mountainous homeland in Mendoza, although the rolling fields remind her of the Argentine province of Buenos Aires. This is Murcia’s second exchange. She spent a school year in 2001-2002 at Webster University in St. Louis as a teaching assistant.
“I knew this would be a good opportunity to revisit that experience, which was so interesting and enlightening for me,” she says. “People have been very welcoming.”
The Fulbright Program, America’s flagship international educational exchange, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The program operates in more than 150 countries worldwide. by Tom Parisi
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Mirta Pagnucci
Corina Murcia
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