High School Students to Take Part in World Languages Day April 10
About 100 students and teachers from area high schools will celebrate World Languages Day at the University of Maine on Friday, April 10 with a culture bowl, food competition, campuswide scavenger hunt and traditional dance lessons.
The event runs from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and is an opportunity for local high school students in upper level French and Spanish classes to spend a day at UMaine emerged in their language of study while getting to know the campus and interacting with professors and students from the Department of Modern Languages and Classics.
For the new food competition, each school will bring a traditional dish from a French- or Spanish-speaking country that will be judged and enjoyed by the group.
During the culture bowl, school teams will compete to answer questions about geography, holidays, famous people, history and current events related to their language studies.
Throughout the day, students also will get the chance to learn traditional dances from Quebec and Latin America; recite a short poem in French or Spanish; and take part in a scavenger hunt and bag skit, an impromptu performance incorporating items drawn from a bag.
Students from Foxcroft Academy in Dover-Foxcroft; Bangor High School and John Bapst Memorial in Bangor; Hermon High School; and Messalonskee High School in Oakland will attend.
The Department of Modern Languages and Classics is hosting World Languages Day for the second year in a row. The event, which initially ended in 2009, was revived in 2014 by sponsorship from the Department of Modern Languages and Classics, The UMaine Humanities Center, The Canadian-American Center and the Foreign Language Association of Maine (FLAME). For more information or to request a disability accommodation, email Danielle Beaupre at danielle.beaupre@umit.maine.edu.