Fulbright Update:
Connecting with English students at USM
The best interactions I’ve had with Moldova State University (USM) students during my year-long Fulbright Scholarship have actually come in the last several weeks when I’ve visited with students studying English.

First, I was instructor, judge, and awards program emcee for a video essay contest sponsored by the Faculty of Letters, which teaches foreign languages at USM. The contest theme was “Fake News in the age of Social Media.” Students were asked to create 2-3 minute videos introducing the problem and discussing possible solutions. This is a vitally important topic for Moldova, which is in the crosshairs of a tsunami of anti-Ukraine, anti-EU Russian propaganda and disinformation. 

We discussed how to produce the videos during a session in Professor Lia Butucel's English for law students class. My presentation discussing shooting, scripting, and editing was like a truncated Video Production 101. After the instructional session, we viewed their completed videos during an awards presentation April 18th at America House, which hosts English-language programs here in Chisinau. The videos were really quite clever and flowed well. There were a few hiccups, like mispronounced words, but overall the other two judges and myself were quite pleased with the final products.

Daniela Munca-Aftenev at the April 19 conference

Then, many of the same students attended a conference for English teachers and learners April 19th titled, ““New Trends in Teaching Market-Oriented Foreign Languages for Specific Purposes in Education.” The morning plenary session included my presentation on disinformation and media literacy, and an enlightening discussion about artificial intelligence and critical thinking by Daniela Munca-Aftenev, Deputy Head of Directorate-General for Education, Youth and Sport. An engaging presenter, Munca-Aftenev gave an overview of AI, and drew a link between critical thinking skills and the prompts that one types into AI generators. It was interesting to see how changing just a word or two affected the results, including  the AI-produced images that she discussed.

Then the afternoon of April 19, I gave a second presentation at America House for Prof. Butucel’s students, introducing peace journalism. One student asked an interesting question about my opinion about Tucker Carlson’s “interview” of Vladimir Putin. The quote marks around ”interview” should clue you in to my response. I believe interviewing Putin is fine, I said, if it is an actual interview. But Carlson’s fawning propaganda show, devoid of any tough questioning, was the opposite of a real interview by a real journalist. During my response, I used a mild obscenity to describe the part of Putin's anatomy I thought Carlson was kissing during this "interview." Oops.

America House session on peace journalism

At my peace journalism session, at the conference, at the video awards ceremony, and in my two visits to Prof. Butucel’s classroom, I was impressed with the USM students studying law and English who have managed to stay off their cellphones long enough to remain engaged and asked pointed, probing questions. I know they’ll make great lawyers.