Students celebrate the dead during Dia de los Muertos

October 31, 2014  While some UCF students prepare for Halloween festivities, UCF Spanish professors conjured up their own version of a traditional Mexican celebration usually honored after the spooky holiday. The Dìa de los Muertos festival returned to Colbourn Hall for its second year Wednesday, Oct. 29, and was sponsored by the UCF...

Kourova Awarded Grant by U.S. Department of State

October 06, 2014  Alla Kourova recently received a grant from the U.S. Department of State. The award, worth nearly $100,000, is part of the US-Russia Peer-to-Peer Dialogue Program. Kourova’s project is called “Getting Closer: A Cross-Cultural U.S.-Russian Project Focusing on Teaching Foreign Languages to U.S. Students and Blind/Visually Impaired Students in Russia.” The...

Folse Delivers Plenary Talk in Guatemala

August 25, 2014  On August 1, 2014, Keith Folse delivered the Opening Plenary at the 9th Annual Summer Teachers’ Conference in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. He also led a workshop on teaching English as a foreign language. Folse’s trip was sponsored by the Instituto Guatemalteco Americano with support from the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala.

Kourova Lectures at Prestigious Institutions in Russia and U.S.

August 19, 2014  Alla Kourova was invited to speak at a number of prestigious institutions in Russia and the U.S. this summer. She conducted a workshop at Moscow State University based on her current monograph. She also led a seminar at Russia’s largest publishing house and was keynote speaker during a roundtable discussion...

"Traces of History" Receives $1.1mil from Research Council of Norway

April 21, 2014  “Traces of History”, a project involving Francisco J. Fernández-Rubiera, received a $1.1 million grant from the Research Council of Norway. The project, led by Christine Meklenborg Salvesen of the University of Oslo, will investigate why certain traits in a language remain unchanged for centuries while others disappear. The researchers will...

Kourova Wins Multiple Faculty Awards

April 16, 2014  Alla Kourova is the winner of multiple faculty awards this spring. Most recently, she was honored for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at both the college and university level. Kourova received the 2014 University Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award. Previously, she was one of four college-level winners from the Arts &...

Giordano invited to conference in Italy

March 12, 2014  Paolo Giordano, Neil E. Euliano Distinguished Professor of Italian and Italian American Studies, was invited to a conference/workshop at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center titled “Transcending Borders, Bridging Gaps: Italian Americana, Diasporic Studies, and the University Curriculum.” Eighteen professors of different disciplines, nine from the United States and nine from...

UCF Students Send Holiday Greetings in Spanish to U.S. Troops

February 11, 2014  During the fall semester, students in Yilaisa Seijas’s Spanish 1120 and 1121 courses created holiday cards in Spanish to send to women and men serving abroad. Custom greeting cards were mailed to Iraq, Afghanistan and other locations. Seijas’s students were recognized by the president and co-founder of For the Troops,...

Modern Languages Faculty and Alum Present at International Conference

January 07, 2014  In December, Keith Folse and Melanie Gonzalez presented papers at the Vocab@Vic Conference on Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition at the University of Victoria in New Zealand. In 2013, Folse was an invited plenary speaker at international conferences in Germany, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Oman, and Japan, as well as several...

Russian Language Journal Publishes Article by Modern Languages Professor

November 20, 2013  UCF Modern Languages Professor Alla Kouova recently had her article Connecting Classrooms: Russian Language Teaching Project at UCF published by the Russian Language Journal. The journal is a bilingual scholarly review of research, resources, symposia, and publications pertinent to the study and teaching of Russian language and culture, as well...

López Cruz Lectures in Panama City

October 03, 2013  Humberto López Cruz was invited by Panamanian historian and critic, Professor Ricardo Ríos Torres to speak at the University of Santa María la Antigua and Exedra Books in Panama City, Republic of Panama. López Cruz presented lectures on impressions of Panamanian culture from Central Florida and on the last ten...

Modern Language and Literatures Professor Published in Russian University

August 30, 2013  Modern Languages and Literatures assistant professor Alla Kourova’s monograph was recently published. It is titled “Using Cross-Cultural Projects in Teaching Foreign Languages: A research- based approach to design and implementation” and was published in Russia in July in the Smolensk University press. The monograph presents a detailed coverage of theory...

Spanish M.A. Student Wins McNair Fellowship

August 23, 2013  Natalia Sepúlveda has been awarded a McNair Fellowship to conduct research with Dr. Martha García, who is her mentor and the director of her undergraduate thesis. Her thesis, “The Importance of Education from a Global Perspective: Teaching Don Quixote in the 21ST Century,” has led her to continue her studies...

Dr. Paolo Giordano Lectures at University of Parma

May 31, 2013  Dr. Paolo Giordano, Neil R. Euliano Professor and Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, delivered two lectures on the history and literature of Italian emigration to America at the University of Parma, Italy on Friday May 10 and Friday May 24.

García Appointed Visiting Scholar at Madrid Institution

May 07, 2013  Martha García recently conducted intensive research at the University of Alcalá de Henares in Madrid, Spain, where she was appointed Visiting Scholar at the Instituto Franklin de Investigación en Estudios Norteamericanos. García worked at the institution during a sabbatical in spring 2013. She has visited the university several times in...

TESOL Student Wins at Statewide Graduate Symposium

May 06, 2013  Leah DeLorenzo, graduate student in UCF’s TESOL program, won the Arts and Humanities Award for her presentation at the very first statewide Graduate Student Research Symposium. Leah (pictured far right), presented a poster titled, “Parental Beliefs and Attitudes on Enrollment in a Dual Language Program at an Elementary School.” Graduate...

UCF Student Wins National Post-Secondary Russian Essay Contest

April 24, 2013  Congratulations to the UCF student Irina Pidberejna who received an award in the Heritage Learners, Level 1 category of the Fourteenth Annual American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR) National Post-Secondary Russian Essay Contest. In this year’s contest, there were 946 essays submitted from 57 universities, colleges, and institutions across...

Humberto López Recognized Among Top Hispanic Professors in Florida

April 19, 2013  Humberto López Cruz was recently named one of the top “20 Fabulous Hispanic Professors in Florida” by Online Schools Florida. Online Schools Florida is dedicated to providing information and resources about online learning and other opportunities beyond the tradtional classroom. See the full list

Martha García Awarded a Conference Grant

April 18, 2013  Martha García organized and was awarded a conference grant by the Cervantes Society of America for the Seventh Florida Cervantes Symposium which took place for the second year in a row at UCF on April 6th and 7th of 2013. The College of Arts & Humanities Dean’s Office, the Estate of Janis Lorraine Academic Excellence Endowment, and...

Graduate Teaching Assistant is Selected as a Finalist

April 17, 2013  Michelle Quiñones, M.A. Candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant in the Department of Modern Languages, was selected as a finalist for her poetic work, Delirios de un par de noches sin sueño. The prize was awarded by the Centro Cultural Español y Ediciones Baquiana and the Centro Cultural Español de Cooperación...