Spring
2008

Key Languages News

We are getting ready to celebrate Key Languages 5th anniversary in May. These few years have brought stability, growth, fantastic people and learning experiences. Please save the date, May 15th, to be part of this celebration.

Cassia Silva will attend the TESOL Convention in April to know current trends in the field of language teaching and to bring new materials to Key Languages’ instructors and students. Language enthusiasts can visit us after April 7th to know the latest news.

CELPE-BRAS is a proficiency test in Brazilian Portuguese that students can take at FIU (Florida International University) to measure their knowledge of the language. Registration for the next CELPE-BRAS is opened until March 21st. Key Languages can provide information and preparation for the test, which is taking place in April.

Language in the news

Last Alaska language speaker dies. BBC News. January 2008. A woman from Alaska, believed to be the last native speaker of the Eyak language died at her home in Anchorage. She helped the University of Alaska to compile an Eyak dictionary hoping to have the language revived in the future. Around 20 other languages in Alaska might disappear.

New software minimizes language barriers. The Miami Herald. February 2008. IBM launched MASTOR, a software produced in Florida, that allows speakers of two different languages to communicate in real time. The person speaks into a PDA or laptop in English and the gadgets talk or write back the sentences in the other language.

Español erosion. The Miami Herald. March 2008. The second and third generations of Spanish speakers are not speaking Spanish so well anymore. Miami might not remain the bilingual city it has become. According to World City, the 20 largest multinationals in Miami employ 180,000 people locally and 600,000 abroad, largely in Latin America. Many employers say they need more bilingual employees. The Spanish their employees know is not enough to conduct business.

Minds of their own. Animals are smarter than you think. National Geographic. March 2008. Researchers have documented human skills in other species through experiments. Skills such as a grasp of grammar and symbols, imitating others and being creative, are considered key signs of higher mental abilities. A six-year-old collie named “Betsy” could put names to objects, and her vocabulary was at 340 words.

Lip reading in four languages. The Miami Herald. March 2008. Victoria Rivero Elliott came from Cuba speaking Spanish and started learning English at age 12. She also studied French, German and Mandarin. She learned the foreign languages by reading lips. She won the Silver Knight Award in Foreign Language in 1968 and she helped implement the nation’s first TTY service for the deaf for an airline in 1979.

English not in jeopardy – Spanish is. The Miami Herald. March 2008. Immigrant languages are lost due mostly to the defenders of English promotion of the language. There is fear that Spanish might overrun English, but studies have shown that English is predominant among third generation Hispanics. The decline of Spanish-language skills is threatening South Florida’s dominance as a center of Latin American business.