From September 30 to October 7, celebrate all the languages of the Smith community at the “Turn Up the Languages Festival.” Whether you are staff, faculty, or student, join the campus-wide, multilingual conversation!
For seven days, you can participate, whether you are multilingual or not, by wearing a badge that tells others which language you can speak or which you can understand - a little, a lot, it doesn’t matter! Festival activities across the campus will provide opportunities to celebrate as we speak and learn.
What do you need to do? This festival’s success depends on everyone’s participation - and it requires only a few minutes to prepare! We’ll give you a badge with a mouth/hands and an ear/eye, and a space underneath each where you’ll write down your language(s).
- The mouth/hands mean: “I can speak or sign to you in ……… [language or languages]
- The ear/eye means: “Please speak or sign to me in ……………[language or languages you understand at any level], even if I respond in English.”
What if you don’t speak/understand anything but English? You can still join the fun! Just write “Any” underneath your ear and take a wild guess when someone speaks to you, or laugh, play, use your hands, or learn how to say or sign “hello” in different languages.
Would you like to help out? We need participants and participant-trainers. Participant-trainers teach others about the festival. You would commit to attending a one-hour training session during the first week of September and hold two half-hour sessions during the first three weeks of September in student houses (students) or your offices (faculty/staff).
Who is organizing this festival? A group of faculty, staff, and students from across campus came together to plan a week filled with connection, laughter, languages, and dialogue in celebration of our diverse community.
Join us and bring your friends along too! You can sign up anytime (but the sooner the better) by using this form. We will send you the festival schedule and more information about where and when to pick up your badge.
You can also contact one of the coordinators: Christophe Golé, Reyes Lázaro, Abril Navarro.
