Chih-Yi Wu stood in a room packed with high school students at the University of Scranton.
She introduced Mandarin words for “head, shoulder, knees and toes.”
Wu, the Mandarin instructor through a program with the Taiwanese government, turned on music, and the students laughed as they tried to say the words and do the motions of the popular preschool song.
More than 100 students from six high schools attended World Languages Day at the University of Scranton on Tuesday. In rapid, 15-minute sessions, students received exposure to Italian, Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese, German, French, Arabic and American Sign languages.
“I think there's a lot of people who recognize that languages can be really critical for career opportunities,” said Amy Kuiken, coordinator of the university’s Language Learning Center. “But I think from the point of view of being uniquely human, being able to use language well is an opportunity to make our world better.”
This is the second year the university has hosted World Languages Day, allowing students to learn about cultures through interactive sessions with Fulbright visiting scholars and university students and faculty.
“I just love languages,” said Elisa Cremona, a senior from Wallenpaupack Area High School whose first language is Italian. “I think it’s so interesting to learn new things.”
Nationwide, the number of people enrolled in formal language programs has declined in recent years, Kuiken said. But the use of free language apps has skyrocketed, she said.
"So whether people are enrolled in a program or doing apps online, I think it's important to keep the flame alive," she said. "There are certain things that we can't outsource to technology. We need humans making decisions about how to communicate with one another."
Between the rapid-fire language sessions, students visited tables, traveling with passports and gathering information. During the Spanish session, students introduced themselves to others sitting nearby.
“They're communicating with their neighbors right now in different languages they never thought they'd be speaking this morning when they woke up,” Kuiken said.
Tyler Santarsiero, a freshman at Scranton High School, said he appreciated learning some Italian, since he can trace part of his family back to Italy.
“With how the world is now, there's a lot of different people speaking different languages throughout the country. If you try to find some new friends, you want to be able to understand what they're saying. You want to be able to talk to them,” he said. “So it's important to learn some things about them, learn some things about the language, so you can actually get to know them.”
After Wu’s lesson, she shared more about her culture and the Mandarin language.
“So for me, language teaching is not only language teaching, but also sharing my culture, my country,” she said. “So Taiwan is on the other side of the world, and it's so far from people's daily life here. So I would like to maybe… have more interest in my country, my culture.”
