MORE LANGUAGE OFFERINGS
The World Languages Dept. is living up to its name by offering more options in our program.

Students can fulfill their language requirement now by taking Arabic (Prof. Husam Shahroor), Chinese (Prof. Sylvia Zhang), Japanese (Prof. David Fukuda), and Korean (Prof. Eun-Ah Shin) in addition to French (Prof. Alain Mathey) and Spanish (Profs. Victoria Bresee, David Fuentes, Myrtha Pizarro, and Lizbeth Sánchez). We are also working on study abroad programs through ACA in Korea and through LSU in Japan and China.

Although Spanish continues to be the only major we offer, we are  hoping to attract more students to these other languages so that we can begin to offer majors in specific or multiple languages.

INTRODUCTORY PRESENTATION ON THE NATURAL LANGUAGE METHOD
In November, 2007, Dr. Eric W. Anderson and his team presented an introductory training session on the Natural Language Method which emphasizes speaking and listening skills in the early stages of language acquisition and reading and writing in the later stages. Participants included the World Languages Dept faculty and academy and high school foreign language instructors. Participants were given the opportunity to teach a group of volunteer students using the new performance-based system of language acquisition. Using the target language as well as English, students are asked to deduct the new language structure from visual and auditory sources.

Students move very quickly to a useable oral/aural level of the target language so that the reading and writing skills come more easily. Our department is seeking outside funding to train our instructors and implement this methodology in most or all our language classes.

DEPARTMENT CHAIR RELEASES NEW BOOK
Pacific Press Publishing Association released Dr. Lourdes Morales-Gudmundsson's book, I Forgive You, But..." in English and Spanish in May 2007. Based on over 25 years of researching and writing on this topic, Dr. Morales wrote this book for the general public (college-level reading).

She has been presenting her seminar by the same title since the late 1980s in 14 continental states,  Hawaii, Panama and Guatemala, Brazil, Iceland, and, most recently, in Australia and Tahiti at Adventist churches and spiritual retreats. In the fall of 2006 she was the featured speaker on this topic at the Annual Council with Shepherdess International. Her book carries endorsements from such noted forgiveness scholars as Dr. Everett Worthington, Jr. (Virginia Commonwealth University) , Dr. Frederic Luskin (Stanford Forgiveness Project, Stanford University), and Dr. Daniel Smith-Christopher (Loyola-Marymount University) in addition to Adventist theologians, Dr. George Knight and Dr. Lawrence Geraty.

An interview with Dr. Morales will appear in the upcoming issue of Shabbat Shalom (edited by Dr. Jacques Doukhan, Andrews University) and she will be recording a series on forgiveness for Three Angels Broadcasting Network this summer.

She has applied her study of forgiveness to the literature of 20th-century Latin America, particularly in the works of Isabel Allende and Gabriel García Márquez.