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More than 525 students from 27 Wisconsin high schools gathered recently at UW–Madison for Languages of the World Day, an event hosted by the UW Language Institute. Throughout the day, students attended presentations and interacted with different world languages and cultures. With more than 50 presenters representing various languages, the students had lots of opportunities to connect and learn in new ways.

“Our intended impact is really to be an outreach event,” says Lydia Odegard, a language directions specialist at the Language Institute and an organizer of the event.We're hoping that this event will expose high school students to different languages and cultures that they're not familiar with, and inspire further learning about those languages and cultures."

In the opening program for the event, students were welcomed by Susan Zaeske, Associate Dean for the Arts & Humanities for the College of Letters & Science. Zaeske encouraged students to embrace the day as a way to expand their knowledge of language and culture in order to become a better student, future employee and person overall.

“Learning languages helps you meet the challenges of today,” says Zaeske. “It exposes you to new worlds of thoughts and viewpoints, and it teaches you respect for people who are different from you.”

The day was broken up into four 40-minute sessions. Within each session, students had multiple presentations to choose from. While some students learned about the Italian language by exploring Italian cuisine, other students explored Ukrainian culture by learning “how to laugh in Ukrainian.” Forty-two presentations by UW–Madison faculty staff and students were offered during the day.

Tianlu Zhang, a Chinese Instructor from the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, led a presentation about Chinese New Year and Zodiac animals. Zhang taught students how to pronounce words important to the Chinese New Year such as noodles ("miàntiáo") and red ("hóngsè") as she read through a children’s book about the holiday. The interactive activity gives students a look into language instruction on a university level, while also exposing them to languages that may not be offered within their school.

“Chinese is a language that a lot of [high] schools don’t have,” Zhang said. “Even for the languages that they are learning in their school district…the way we teach language at the University is different from teaching in high school. Here, they can gather to learn different perspectives and have new interactions.”

Brodhead High School student Kayla Perry discovered that learning language through songs is more fun than memorizing it. Photo by Crystal Kim.

For Kayla Perry, a student at Brodhead High School, the presentations exposed her to languages in a new way. As a student of Spanish, the event provided her with interactive opportunities that were different from how she learned in the classroom and made her excited to learn about new languages and cultures. For her first session of the day, Perry explored the Dutch language in a presentation called “Dutch Language Through Song” with Charlotte Vanhecke, a graduate teaching assistant.

“Learning languages in class is about memorizing what you need to know. Today, we learned by singing songs, which is something that I really enjoy doing,” says Perry.

The biannual event has not occurred since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After months of planning, seeing the students together again was exciting for Odegard, and made her anticipate the next Languages of the World Day in 2025.

“Seeing the whole event come alive has been really worthwhile,” she says. “To have the students see the excitement of presenters sharing their languages and culture has been really rewarding.”