The Department of Languages, Cultures, and Religions (LCR) hosted its “2024 World Language Day—Just for Fun” recruitment event April 16 in the PSU Ballroom.

Over 400 high school students from across the Ozarks attended the event.

The organizers, Cristina Sepulveda-Hinojosa, Dr. Maria Alejandra Cerdas Cisneros and Jeff Loughary, along with LCR department head Dr. Stephen Berkwitz, started planning the event in October 2023.

“It took us almost six months to organize it,” said Sepulveda.

The purpose of the event is twofold, Sepulveda added. One goal is to encourage or motivate students to attend Missouri State University. The other is to encourage students to study languages.

“[We want to] motivate them to continue studying a foreign language and make them aware of the advantage they will have professionally by studying a foreign language,” she explained.

Interdisciplinary and community outreach key part of event

One of the early goals of the planning committee was to reach out in an interdisciplinary capacity to academic departments outside of its college home in the Reynolds College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (RCASH).

“We thought about which departments could gain from prospective students who can speak foreign languages and therefore invited them to join our event,” Sepulveda explained. “Now we realize that it was a success, and we are happy to have done it that way.”

“It has been an enriching experience working with international business, hospitality and education, because we have realized that by joining forces, we also increase resources and the possibility of success. We all benefit,” she added.

The committee also engaged the local business community by getting sponsorships and donations.

“Taco Bell donated $500, and Lesli Mexican Supermarket donated more than 300 light snacks for our event. We are grateful to these businesses,” Sepulveda said.

Because the event was so successful, the LCR department plans to hold “World Language Day—Just for Fun” every year as well as expand its interdisciplinary outreach efforts.

“I think that, after this positive experience, in next events we will continue to invite international business, hospitality and education. We will include other departments that can benefit from recruiting students who speak a foreign language,” she said.

Sepulveda said she was pleased with the overall success of the event and looks forward to next year.

“I really enjoyed the process. My colleagues gave me their unconditional support, for which I am very grateful, because I had the opportunity to put this project into practice and it was very satisfactory. But what I enjoyed the most was the event itself.”

Emphasizing learning, with a dash of fun

This is the first time the event has had the added phrase “Just for Fun” in its name.

“Based on experiences from our past [World Language Day] events, we thought it would be better to offer this time a more relaxed event, where students could enjoy languages without stress,” Sepulveda explained. “[This] is why we changed the name from World Language Day Showcase to World Language Day—Just for Fun.”

While having fun was an important goal, the organizers still wanted the event to be a learning experience. They brainstormed to develop activities that blended learning with a little fun.

“We did not want to leave out the learning and effort of the student,” Sepulveda said. “Among many other educational and recreational activities, we came up with the ‘Passport.’ Using the passport, the students had to visit the tables that presented different MSU academic programs, and after listening to their presentations, write responses about what they learned in the presentation.”

Students who responded correctly received a stamp. If they earned seven stamps, they could exchange them for prizes.

Another innovation for this year’s event was to include teachers in the fun.

“We included the teachers in the relay games, which were very successful,” Sepulveda said. “Each of the eight teams [was] required to have a teacher. It was so fun to see the teachers as excited as the students, racing to be first in the relays.”

“Witnessing the students having fun and at the same time learning, and even the teachers enjoying themselves, is priceless,” she added.

Learn more about World Language Day

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Photo credits: Aaron Collins.