March 2026 Recap
What a fun month March was!
Events
On March 2, students learned about potential paths in linguistics at the Exploring Careers in Linguistics workshop, hosted by the UTM Career Centre.
March is the Month of La Francophonie, and we celebrated with several events, beginning with Tricot-thé, which took place on March 3. During this matinée in French, students, staff, and faculty dropped by to learn knitting and crocheting, play board games, and practice conversations in French! Thank you to Prof. Rosa Hong and Prof. Meï-Lan Mamode for organizing this event and for patiently guiding all those wanting to learn how to knit and crochet.
On March 4, we celebrated la Semaine de la francophonie, an event held in collaboration with Alliance française and le Consulat de France, and organized by Prof. Jeffrey Steele. Participants competed in film dubbing, a quiz on the francophone world, and learned about opportunities in the field!
Our New Year celebrations also continued, and on March 5, we held the Traditional Chinese Handicraft Workshop to celebrate the Lantern Festival (also known as Yuanxiao Festival). Participants made lacquer fans, paper lanterns, and more, under the guidance of Dr. Jing Wang, Dr. Jing Li, and Dr. Xinliang Jiang.
We also held Soiree des talents, our annual French Talent Show on March 10 at the MiST theatre. We were so impressed by the talent of our students! You can watch clips of some of the acts on our Instagram post. Thank you to Sima Farsandaj for organizing this event and to Holy Mbongue for the wonderful emceeing, and to both for ensuring everything ran smoothly!
Guest Lecture
Students in ITA351H5S Creative Writing in Italian Studies welcomed award-winning Italian novelist Giulia Caminito on March 18. During an engaging Q & A session, Caminito reflected on her writing process, discussed different narrative styles, and offered valuable insights into the practice of creative writing. The conversation focused on her acclaimed novel, L’acqua del lago non è mai dolce (The Lake’s Water Is Never Sweet, 2021), which is set in the early 1990s and explores themes of social inequality, family dynamics, resilience, and belonging. A bestseller in Italy, the novel has since been translated into more than twenty languages. Students enjoyed the unique opportunity to engage directly with one of the most significant voices in contemporary Italian literature.
In the Community
We have the honour of hosting the Canadian Language Museum's Chinese Languages in Canada exhibit until the end of April. Please drop by the 4th floor of Maanjiwe nendamowinan to take a look at the exhibit, have a listen to a poem that highlights the range of different tones used in Chinese languages, and learn more about these languages!
This year's March Open House took place on Sunday, March 29. Staff, faculty, and student volunteers greeted prospective students and their families to share about our program offerings, opportunities, and more. Students in LIN452H5 Communicating English Language Linguistics course also attended the event to apply what they've been learning in class. The gachapon machine they prepared was also a huge hit! Visitors lined up for a chance to take home a capsule filled with facts about language, advice for students, and even an early print of stickers submitted to our DLS Sticker Design Contest!
