Kate McCarter is ecstatic as she describes the organization she and her brother, Jack, have launched. She apologizes for her passionate, rapid-fire speech, but her excitement is understandable; she and Jack worked hard to establish a new method of language learning for Northwestern students.
The club, Campus Language Connection, is the McCarter’s second foray into creating a language organization. This new group joins native speakers of a language with those who hope to learn that language. CLC aims to help students not only become competent in a foreign language, but to build a unique community of students that appreciate cultures in a way that cannot normal classes cannot teach.
Kate, the founder of CLC and a senior Linguistics major, and …show more content…
Instead, they complete a profile indicating their desired language to learn, as well as their majors and hobbies. The McCarters match the students themselves, and each pair includes a native speaker of the language the other wants to learn.
Ideally, this new method of pairing students will form more compatible matches. Of course, even this system isn’t infallible, but the McCarters have prepared to address complications in real time, collecting online feedback from students after each meet-up.
The McCarters believe that this increased compatibility has added to the potential success of this new incarnation of CLC, so students will finally have the chance to study language with far more benefits than they could find in the classroom. Studying in a conversational setting can help students learn contemporary expressions in a language.
Kate encourages students to study language in this way to for the practical fluency desired by employers.
“Put it on your resume. Distinguish yourself,” she said.
Students in CLC can build friendships as well as fluency, as this version of CLC is more inclusive than its predecessor. The community of CLC is diverse; not only are undergraduates participating, but graduate students, Ph.D candidates and spouses of the NU community have joined …show more content…
For one, they’ve chosen to accept applications on a rolling basis, so not every student may match with a partner immediately. They’re also looking to for more native speakers of romance speakers and people who want to learn Korean and Mandarin, so matching students has been a bit of a challenge.
Luckily, a number of multilingual students have signed up, so they can be matched with multiple students.. Also, many international students already are fluent in English, so they have the option of matching with students who would like to learn their native tongue, while they themselves focus on gaining cultural knowledge rather than language learning.
Of course, the McCarters are wary of relying on students to diligently meet up and practice their languages together. They’re looking to establish quarterly events to encourage pairs to come together and practice, but students still carry the bulk of the responsibility to coordinate their meet-ups.
The McCarters must have learned a lot from shortcomings of their previous organization in designing this new group, because already, the Northwestern community seems excited to see what CLC has to
The club, Campus Language Connection, is the McCarter’s second foray into creating a language organization. This new group joins native speakers of a language with those who hope to learn that language. CLC aims to help students not only become competent in a foreign language, but to build a unique community of students that appreciate cultures in a way that cannot normal classes cannot teach.
Kate, the founder of CLC and a senior Linguistics major, and …show more content…
Instead, they complete a profile indicating their desired language to learn, as well as their majors and hobbies. The McCarters match the students themselves, and each pair includes a native speaker of the language the other wants to learn.
Ideally, this new method of pairing students will form more compatible matches. Of course, even this system isn’t infallible, but the McCarters have prepared to address complications in real time, collecting online feedback from students after each meet-up.
The McCarters believe that this increased compatibility has added to the potential success of this new incarnation of CLC, so students will finally have the chance to study language with far more benefits than they could find in the classroom. Studying in a conversational setting can help students learn contemporary expressions in a language.
Kate encourages students to study language in this way to for the practical fluency desired by employers.
“Put it on your resume. Distinguish yourself,” she said.
Students in CLC can build friendships as well as fluency, as this version of CLC is more inclusive than its predecessor. The community of CLC is diverse; not only are undergraduates participating, but graduate students, Ph.D candidates and spouses of the NU community have joined …show more content…
For one, they’ve chosen to accept applications on a rolling basis, so not every student may match with a partner immediately. They’re also looking to for more native speakers of romance speakers and people who want to learn Korean and Mandarin, so matching students has been a bit of a challenge.
Luckily, a number of multilingual students have signed up, so they can be matched with multiple students.. Also, many international students already are fluent in English, so they have the option of matching with students who would like to learn their native tongue, while they themselves focus on gaining cultural knowledge rather than language learning.
Of course, the McCarters are wary of relying on students to diligently meet up and practice their languages together. They’re looking to establish quarterly events to encourage pairs to come together and practice, but students still carry the bulk of the responsibility to coordinate their meet-ups.
The McCarters must have learned a lot from shortcomings of their previous organization in designing this new group, because already, the Northwestern community seems excited to see what CLC has to