Languages
Grant Li
Tom Means
Grant Li (Chinese)
Nowadays, knowledge of Chinese is increasingly important for working in many fields in thehumanities, social sciences, business, technology and international relations. "Chinese is often tagged as a language hard to learn. My intention is to make it more accessible to students with activities conducive to developing their communicative skills", says Grant Li, who has been teaching Chinese in North America for a decade. Teaching with passion, Grant always tries to bring fun and joy to language learning.
Grant Li was born and grew up in the northeast of China, where standard Chinese is spoken. His enthusiasm for teaching Chinese stems from his research on Chinese linguistics. "My knowledge of linguistics greatly facilitates my teaching of Chinese. Understanding how language works helps deal with problems in language teaching." Grant believes that fundamentally all languages are the same. That languages differ on the surface is due to various interactions of a finite set of surprisingly simple grammatical principles that account for the entire range of sentence constructions. His research interests center on the interface of syntax and semantics. Focusing on how structure affects meaning, he works on problems of language difference in distributivity, quantification, focus, etc.
Tom Means (Italian and Applied Linguistics)
Italian
Italian is a beautiful language, mellifluous, fun to speak and important to decode: it is the language of many important poets, artists, and musicians. Understanding written (and spoken) Italian will also allow you to closely examine many original contributions across film, fashion, gastronomy, science and architecture.
To live in Italy, or at least travel through Italy, with the passport of la bella lingua is an experience you will not soon forget. Italians are proud of their language and culture, and encourage foreigners to learn it and live it.
Studying Italian at Marlboro will be a microcosm of being in Italy. Tom Means, Marlboro’s Italian professor, teaches with a method that prioritizes task-based involvement with the language. You will be challenged to accomplish concrete tasks in the language (through both oral and written language); after successfully communicating a message in italiano, the class will look at the grammar and mechanics that supported your meaningful use of the language.
The Italian classroom at Marlboro is a very interactive space. You will live the language as you learn it; you will develop fluency and accuracy. Tom’s interest in creating effective language programs carries over into his research career: He works in a branch of Second Language Acquisition that examines the efficacy of language-teaching methodologies. As he tweaks and tests competing methods, he looks closely at the variables of student input, output, interaction and feedback.
Applied Linguistics
Applied Linguistics is the study of how second languages are learned and used. The field is also referred to as Second Language Acquisition and it is a part of both the Humanities and the Social Sciences.
It is an interdisciplinary field in the broadest sense of the word and can be interpreted as the study of how humans learn or use a non-primary language in any setting. It overlaps with linguistics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, literary and cultural studies, and education (to name just a few of the bordering disciplines).
Students interested in Applied Linguistics should study broadly across the curriculum and take an introductory course; before proposing Plan work, students should decide whether they are interested in instructional second language acquisition (how languages are learned and taught in classroom settings) or naturalistic second language acquisition (how languages are learned and maintained outside of the classroom). At that point, a student should be ready to focus on one of the discipline’s many sub-fields, for example, Language Pedagogy—how foreign/second languages are taught; Sociolinguistics—how foreign/second languages are used in society; Language Transfer—what role the native language plays in one’s knowledge of a foreign language.
Studying or learning a second language is an endeavor that almost every human has experienced and, accordingly, has an opinion on; the field of Applied Linguistics is the scientific study of this endeavor and one of its aims is to separate the many myths from the facts about how languages are learned and proficiently used in the classroom and in society.
Research Area: Instructed Second Language Acquisition, Method Comparison
Secondary Areas of interest: Lexicon; Morphology
My own research looks at the effectiveness of language teaching methodologies, and the sub-field I work in is called method comparison research studies. I look at how competing language-teaching methodologies differentially influence the acquisition of fluency and accuracy in classroom settings.
Marlboro College offers basic language courses in Arabic, Chinese, Classical Greek, Italian, Latin, and Spanish.
Marlboro supports Arabic through its participation in the Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant program. Every year through this program a fellow from an Arabic-speaking country comes to Marlboro to offer introductory and intermediate courses in Arabic. Advanced work in tutorial can be done, see Amer Latif if you are interested in this. See semester course list for current courses.
Visiting Faculty (Spanish)
Over the course of the Academic year 2008-09 we will be conducting a tenure-track search for a Spanish professor. During this year the Spanish curriculum will be supported by a visiting faculty member and the following courses offered in the fall 2008 (see website for spring 2009 courses):
ELEMENTARY SPANISH I (HUM1346)
This is a language course for first-year students of Spanish and is designed to aid development of listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. It covers basic grammar along with a variety of vocabulary and cultural topics, and it prepares students for the second-semester Spanish course to be offered in Spring 2009. Prerequisite: None
ADVANCED SPANISH GRAMMAR AND COMPOSITION (HUM1345)
Advanced Spanish Grammar and Composition is a writing course designed for students with at least four semesters of college-level Spanish. The course will provide a review and continued development of Spanish language skills, develop compositional skills that are necessary for the kinds of writing that advanced students of Spanish and professionals are generally asked to perform, and encourage critical inquiry by engaging in active discussion of authentic cultural texts through class discussions and formal writing activities. The course content will acquaint the student with the rhetorical techniques and organizational strategies that will make his or her writing more effective. The course approaches writing as a process involving the formulation of ideas, evaluation of purpose, critique, clarification, revision, and production of finished written texts. Required of all students who would like to write a portion of their Plan in Spanish. Prerequisite: Four semesters of college-level Spanish or Spanish 2C
SURVEY OF TWENTIETH CENTURY SPANISH AMERICAN LITERATURE (HUM1341)
Latin America has an immensely rich literary tradition, and the twentieth century in particular has seen the region produce many of the world's finest writers. This course will begin with a look at key works of the colonial period and the nineteenth century, then focus on the fiction, poetry and essays of twnetieth century Spanish America. Classes will include discussions of both the writings themselves and the historical, social and political context in which the works were created. We will also look at important literary movements such as Modernismo, Magical Realism and the "Boom" of the 1960s, and more recent developments. Writers covered include Jose Marti, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, Rosario Castellanos, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Elena Poniatowska. Prerequisite: A good command of the language is needed as readings and discussion will be in Spanish