This week the Global Ambassadors are excited and proud to share with you all the initiatives of DU’s Director of Graduate Student Affairs Debbie Gaylinn: The Language Café.
The Language Café happens every Thursday from 12-1:30 PM at Korbel. In this event, everyone at DU (Students and Staff) are welcome to join and speak any language they want. There are separate tables with signs indicating the language spoken in that group and prompts to instigate conversation and topics.
The Global Ambassadors had the pleasure of going to The Language Café for the past weeks and it was such a wonderful experience! People from all over DU (and the world) get together to make new friends and practice languages. We observed conversations switching from English to Spanish to Portuguese to Russian to French to Arabic. All while sharing about trips and cultural aspects that people have experienced in different countries. It was mind-blowing!
To complete the cultural experience, and help support small international business owners, every Thursday there is a different food truck outside Korbel with cuisine from around the world. The dishes were from Colombia, Ethiopia, Latin fusion, and West African; the upcoming weeks will be from Puerto Rico and Lebanon.
Interviewing Debbie, we discovered The Language Café idea started because graduate students wanted to attend undergraduate language classes, which was common at Korbel before Covid. That way, to continue to engage graduate students in continuing their language education, Debbie had the idea of creating a recurring event to practice languages with peers. She wanted the international students and the students returning from Peace Corp to continue practicing the languages and build a community based on them.
Join us on Thursdays from 12-1:30 at Korbel for the Language Café!
THE WORLD ON ONE CAMPUS 