PCC instructor chosen to sit on language
advisory board
Arizona Daily Star
07.15.2007
By Carmen Duarte
Tucson, Arizona | Published:
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/191850
PCC faculty member Dolores
Durán-Cerda was selected to a language board committee on higher education
that provides programs to more than 5,000 schools, colleges and universities
in the nation.
Durán-Cerda begins serving
a three-year term in September on the College Board World Languages Academic
Advisory Committee.
She is the first instructor
from Pima Community College and the state to have been appointed to a
committee of the college board, according to records.
The committee is made up of
eight members who advise the board in areas including language academic
preparation and curriculum, language assessment strategies, and professional
development for language teachers.
The college board is a
nonprofit membership association that also provides services in college
admissions, guidance, assessment, financial aid and enrollment, according to
a PCC news release.
"It was a wonderful
surprise," Durán-Cerda said of her appointment. "At the end of May, I
received an e-mail that I had been nominated by President Marty Abbott of
the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages."
Durán-Cerda joined PCC in
1995 as an adjunct faculty member who taught beginning Spanish. Currently,
she is a full-time World Languages faculty member and teaches Spanish and
French, Spanish for heritage speakers, Hispanic literature, and Mexican and
Mexican-American civilization.
She also teaches
Mexican-American literature and Spanish advanced grammar at the University
of Arizona South Campus.
Durán-Cerda is
president-elect of the Arizona Language Association and a member of the
American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and the Arizona
Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.
LANGUAGES SPOKEN IN ARIZONA
There
are 1.2 million people in Arizona who speak another language in addition to
English, according to the 2000 Census. For more information, go to the
Modern Language Association Web Site at mla.org and click on the MLA
Language Map.
The
following are languages spoken in Arizona and the number of people who speak
each language.
Language Number
Spanish
927,395
Navajo
89,951
Other
American Indian languages 30,109
German
25,103
Chinese
17,111
French
15,663
Italian
8,992
Arabic
7,622
African
languages 3,452
● A version of this story
appeared Friday in La Estrella de Tucsón, the Star's Spanish-language
weekly. Contact reporter Carmen Duarte at 573-4104 or cduarte@azstarnet.com.