{"id":44520,"date":"2017-04-18T14:00:50","date_gmt":"2017-04-18T18:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=44520"},"modified":"2017-04-18T19:18:39","modified_gmt":"2017-04-18T23:18:39","slug":"german-student-creates-spanish-conversation-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2017\/04\/german-student-creates-spanish-conversation-club\/","title":{"rendered":"German student creates Spanish conversation club"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>Life as an international student does not come without its challenges.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It means navigating a new country and culture, often learning a new language and manoeuvring a different school system \u2014 all which some people may find overwhelming.<\/span><\/p>\n

After his own experience traversing the globe for education, Brock Master of Arts in Studies in Comparative Literatures and Arts student Pascal Michelberger decided he wanted to lend fellow international students a helping hand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Michelberger, who travelled from Germany to study at Brock, has spent the past year working as a graduate teaching assistant in an introductory Spanish course. <\/span><\/p>\n

While he enjoys the formal assistance he\u2019s able to offer in the classroom, he hoped to take that support one step forward by developing a Spanish conversation circle called Parlanch\u00edn.<\/span><\/p>\n

The student club is meant to help other international students with their transition to life at Brock using the power of conversation, while also encouraging new friendships. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn my Spanish for beginners class, I often had students coming up to me asking about opportunities to practise their Spanish outside of the classroom,\u201d Michelberger said. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI decided to form a Spanish conversation circle for both international students and students studying the Spanish language. Through this group, we are able to connect as equals. We continue to support each other despite our differences.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Michelberger has also been responsible for organizing cooking sessions and movie screenings on campus, inviting students to try authentic Spanish cuisine while taking in a film.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPascal has demonstrated an outstanding sense of academic professionalism paired with an incredible dedication to promoting a globalized and international perspective to student involvement and participation,\u201d said Professor Cristina Santos, Michelberger\u2019s supervisor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe serves not only as a role model for our own Canadian students, but also as an ambassador for future international students.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Born in Germany, Michelberger studied Spanish and business while attending the University of Mannheim.<\/span><\/p>\n

During his time with the institution, he roomed with an international student who had previously studied at Brock.<\/span><\/p>\n

As their friendship grew, Michelberger learned more about Brock and the opportunities available to international students.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSince joining Brock University I have been welcomed with open arms. I have met people of all different backgrounds and have made many new friendships,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBeing an international student isn\u2019t a barrier. Everyone in my program is eager to help. They encourage me and my colleagues to think critically and to speak up when we have a question or idea that we would like to pursue.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Michelberger hopes to encourage other international students to step outside of their comfort zone and to connect with other people on campus and in the community.<\/span><\/p>\n

His advice to incoming international students\u00a0is simple: Take advantage of as many opportunities available on campus as possible. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be afraid of approaching people \u2013 ask questions and explore. You will be surprised how easy it is to make connections with faculty and fellow students.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pascal Michelberger, a Brock Master of Arts in Studies in Comparative Literatures and Arts student, has spent the past year working to develop additional supports for fellow international students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[188,55,1,4],"tags":[159,3610,5202,5201,5200,5203],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44520"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}