Words in Action: Language and Education in the Armenian Diaspora

A Conversation About the Urgency of Language Education

GLENDALE — Language and education in the Diaspora are frequent topics of conversation. A public program on Thursday, January 11, 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm sponsored by The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Armenian Communities Department, together with the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, the UCLA Narekatsi Chair, and The National Heritage Language Resource Center at UCLA, will examine how to transform those words to action.

Gulbenkian Armenian Communities Department Executive Director Razmik Panossian will speak about Gulbenkian’s general commitment to education over the last decades, and to Armenian language education specifically, especially in the Diaspora. This will be Dr. Panossian’s first opportunity to address the Southern California community about Gulbenkian’s mission and activities. Following his presentation, Dr. Panossian will be interviewed by Salpi Ghazarian, director of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies. The two will tackle some of the structural, institutional and other challenges to ensuring language vitality.

In the program’s second half, short fun videos will be screened demonstrating Gulbenkian’s programmatic support to language learning throughout the diaspora. To talk about this and other ways of making language real for children and adults, Salpi Ghazarian will invite long-time educator Ani Garmiryan who is Gulbenkian’s Senior Program Officer, as well as UCLA professors Shushan Karapetian and Hagop Gulludjian to join Dr. Panossian in an examination of what is possible and what is proven – how words can indeed be transformed to action to make language learning fun and relevant.

The program is free and open to the public. Glendale Central Library is located at 222 E. Harvard Street, Glendale, CA 91205. Library visitors receive three hours free parking across the street at The Market Place parking structure with validation at the service desk.