Over the last decade, UMF has intermittently offered Chinese and Japanese World Language and Culture courses. Under an Undergraduate International Studies & Foreign Language (UISFL) grant from the US Department of Education, UMF created a World Language and Culture Program to ensure more consistent and broadly offered WLC courses that include online components and co-curricular activities open to the public.
Each semester, WLC fellows offer two courses to encourage the study of world languages and cultures as well as participation in study abroad opportunities. Courses in Japanese Language and Culture are offered by an ALLEX fellow, while courses in Chinese Language and Culture are offered by a professor from Northeast Normal University, UMF’s new international partner in Changchun, China.
To encourage the study of Japanese and Chinese on other UMS campuses and among interested community members, the WLC fellows offer online versions of their language courses. In addition, the Office of Experiential & Global Education collaborates with the WLC fellows to organize a series of co-curricular cultural events that are open to the public. For example, at UMF’s annual celebration of Asian New Years in February, students in Professor Ruifang Han’s Chinese Culture & Society course led a dragon dance through the student dining hall, joined by UMF President Joseph McDonnell! Japanese Sensi Yukiko Usui, UMF’s 2023-2024 ALLEX fellow from Hiroshima, put together a wide variety of Japanese cultural programs, ranging from a tea ceremony to the screening of popular anime films.
UMF Students Working on Calligraphy (Spring 2024)
Astumi Shibata
Thanks to funding from a new UISFL grant from the US Department of Education grant, a new ALLEX fellow has joined us this fall from Tokyo, Astumi Shibata.
She taught Introduction to Japanese Language (JPN177 Sections 1-4) and Japanese Culture and Society (JPN177 Section 5) in the fall and will be teaching Elementary Japanese I and II.
She has led the following cross-cultural events:
Forest Bathing/Shinri-Yoku
Anime Film Showing: Princess Mononoke
Japanese Tea Ceremony
Japanese Calligraphy
There are still seats available for both of her spring courses:
Elementary Japanese I: M/W/F 9:30-10:20am, either in person (JPN 177 Sec 1) or online (JPN 177 Sec 2)
Elementary Japanese II: M/W/F 2:00-2:50pm, either in person (JPN 177 Sec 3) or online (JPN 177 Sec 4)
Prof. Ruifang Han
Prof. Ruifang Han also returned Fall 2024 to teach Elementary Chinese I and Chinese Culture & Society.
She has also led the following cross-cultural events:
Chinese Tea Ceremony
Chinese Calligraphy
Chinese Painting
Chinese Paper Cutting
She is teaching courses again this spring, both of which still have some availability:
Introduction to Chinese Language: M/W/F 11:00-11:50am, either in person (CHI 177 Sec. 1) or online (CHI 177 Sec. 2)
Chinese Culture & Society: M/W/F 2:00-3:15 (CHI 177 Sec 3)
Beyond encouraging the study of World Languages & Cultures like these Chinese and Japanese courses, the purpose of UMF’s new WLC program is to increase student interest in international and global studies. UMF offers a wide variety of courses on campus, including Virtual Global Experiences in which students collaborate with international counterparts at other universities around the world. UMF also has wide-ranging study abroad opportunities, including Global Seminars with both virtual and short-term travel components. Like the WLC program, the VGE and Global Seminar programs were developed under the UISFL grant with the goal of improving students’ global competency skills that will serve them well in their future careers.
This coming spring, Prof. Han will also be teaching a Virtual Global Exchange.
For more information about enrolling in any of the above World Language & Culture courses or to learn more about upcoming programming, please email UMFGlobalEd@maine.edu.