Advancements in technology are shrinking the divides of national borders as the world becomes a global village. It means that mastering multiple languages and becoming familiar with various cultures other than one's own is advantageous.

The Foreign Languages Department of the School of Communication and Creative Arts (SCCA) at The College of The Bahamas (COB) recently staged its 10th Annual Foreign Languages Day festival, showcasing some of the cultures of the world, in a cultural show and international food fair.

It was a fascinating scene for twelfth grade, Queen's College student Kyla Basden.

"I learned that the world is evolving and is becoming more open and diverse and that in order to succeed and make the difference and the impact and the change that you want to make, you have to be able to converse with other people of different languages and embrace different cultures," she said while attending the festival on the park at the college's Oakes Field campus.

Kyla was among other school students who attended the event, one of the objectives fulfilled by organizers who are seeking to expose an increasing number of school students to the opportunities that learning new languages and cultures can bring. The School of Communication and Creative Arts has been hosting the festival for 10 years.

Spanish, Chinese, French and Creole cultures came alive in song, dance, movies and cuisine. Assistant Professor Pamela Collins, head of the Foreign Languages Department in SCCA, was pleased with the impact.

"The aim of Foreign Languages Day is to promote the various cultures and languages from all over the world, and also to motivate our students to want to study languages," she said. "We invited students from the high schools this time because we want to see how we can promote our programs. We now have a Bachelor's degree in Spanish, and we are working on a Bachelor's degree in French. So we are working on how we can recruit more students to study the different languages in our program."

At the cultural show and international food fair, COB faculty, students and high school students performed in song and dance in native dress. It made for an educationally festive and culturally rich display.

"The aim is to make people interested in coming and taking classes and to show them that the world is very small, but it's also very big. It's bigger than speaking English. One of the main things is to excite people about learning languages," said Dean of Liberal and Fine Arts Dr. Ian Bethel Bennett.

The foreign languages festival will remain a staple event on the college's spring calendar.

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