Mary Curran, Rutgers University

Inspire Your Students to Become Global Citizens through United Nations Resources

Today’s students need preparation to become global citizens.  There is no better class in which this can happen than the language classroom. In this presentation, Dr. Curran will define what it means to be a global citizen, and how language classes can foster global competence. She will also share resources produced by the United Nations that make perfect pedagogical tools for language instructors, and she will discuss how to use these tools as instrument to promote global citizenship.

Bio:
Mary Elizabeth Curran is Associate Dean of Local-Global Partnerships and Coordinator of Language Education Programs at the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She holds a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Curriculum and Instruction. She teaches courses on second language acquisition, the relationship between language and culture, and teacher education. Her scholarship focuses on the topics of globalization and education, service learning, and language teacher education. She has published in journals such as The Journal of Teacher Education, TESOL Quarterly, Theory into Practice, and Learning Languages.  She directs the award-winning Conversation Tree: Community-Based Language Partnership Program, and she has received STARTALK grants for Chinese language teacher preparation programs for the past eight years.  Dr. Curran has frequently collaborated with colleagues at the United Nations. In 2010, the Committee on Teaching about the United Nations was hosted at Rutgers under Dr. Curran's guidance.  Together with colleagues, she has worked on the Rutgers United Nations Curriculum Development Project.  For three years, she served as Rutgers faculty liaison to the United Nations.  On several occasions she has taken her students on visits to the United Nations and has collaborated with UN staff and world language teachers on projects related to language education.