Polyglot Village - click to view slideshow
Polyglot Village is a collaboration between our department and the Washoe County School District. It is an outreach event for local high school and middle school foreign language students.
We create an indoor European village where the students are immersed in their language of study. The village includes shops such as a travel agency, pharmacy, bookstore, hotel, music store, and others. The students begin their journey by embarking on a virtual train ride through the European countryside. They disembark and go through customs. Once they have cleared customs they are free to stroll the avenues in the village. One rule is they cannot speak English while in the village. If they are caught speaking English they will be "arrested" and escorted to jail where they have to speak in their language of study to be "pardoned".
A multi-cultural lunch is offered for purchase and cultural entertainment is featured throughout the day.
Volunteering:
This event utilizes over 150 volunteers. If you have an interest in volunteering please contact Dawn Harris at harrisd [at] unr.edu.
We need foreign language speakers as well as non foreign language speakers. The languages involved are typically Spanish, French, German and Italian. The languages are determined by what languages are taught in the school district and whether or not we have enough volunteers.
Polyglot Village through the eyes of a volunteer... (click to read article)