Lourdes Morales Gudmundsson
1996 . chair
Vol. 1, No. 2
page
the thesis of the book is that Christian foreign language teachers are biblically- mandated not only to teach students linguistic skills, but also to give them a moral and ethical purpose for communicating with the people and culture of the foreign language they are learning. How many times have we heard American students say: Why do I have to take a foreign language? We're hearing it less because it's becoming increasingly evident that if we don't learn foreign languages, we will be at a disadvantage on many fronts, including business and even national security. But the authors ask if advantages in travel, business, social finesse, and international relations are the only reasons Christians should have for studying a foreign language.
their answer is interesting. Christians should study a foreign language because 1 ) linguistic diversity was always in God's plan, notwithstanding misinterpretations of what happened at Babel, 2) God's followers were always expected to relate and communicate across diverse cultural and linguistic settings, and 3) the Christian's relationship to the Other is modelled on the role of the "stranger" to whom compassion must be shown.
what the authors are saying is that the ultimate purpose of learning a foreign language is not just to do better business or have a good vacation or even to enrich oneself intellectually or culturally, but rather to experience the tribulations and joys of the "stranger," whether one is the stranger in another land or whether one is dealing with strangers in our own land.
hospitality becomes a metaphor for Christian foreign language teaching and learning. We are invited to get beyond the touristic "looking" and move to the respectful "seeing" of a brother or sister; we are called to move past "listening" to really "hearing" what the Other is saying. Taking the stranger "in" is more than offering a foreigner a meal; Far from taking on a "going native" attitude, the Christian genuinely sees the Other as equal though different in every aspect of life.
having an open mind and receptive spirit are important elements in the teaching and learning of a foreign language in order to achieve this respectful communication. But in order to truly see and hear the Other, students also need cultural and lingual "tools" or codes that will help them break through the barriers of the assumptions they bring to people and cultures who are different from theirs and help them hear and see more truthfully.
here at LSU, the foreign language student is exposed to these concepts early on and throughout their experience. In keeping with our University motto, "From diversity, unity", we help them see how there can be no unity until we respectfully acknowledge and honour what is different in others. For example, in Spanish the direct object pronoun goes in front of the verb rather than after it, as in English. Invariably a student will ask why? I give them an answer I learned from my college Spanish teacher: "Why does the sun rise in the East and set in the West?" In other words, I try to help the student abandon the habit of imposing the English grid on Spanish and insisting that Spanish fit the English mold--one can see how easily this habit can carry over into personal and professional relationships. I help them move away from passing a right/wrong judgment on how Spanish-speakers express themselves to an insistence on their accepting that there are many ways of expressing the same thing: The Spanish way is as valid as the English way. This mind-expanding capacity of foreign language learning has, as one can easily see, a moral dimension that must be addressed as often as possible along with the grammatical or cultural dimensions.
studying languages this way is an exciting and challenging journey that we hope will contribute to a generation of Christian professionals whose foreign language experience in a Christian setting will make them nobler people, at home, at church, and at the workplace.
departamental update
over the past decade, our University has gone through a long and challenging transition until last Spring (2001) when enrolments suddenly went up and continue to increase. The impact of the enrolment boom on the language program was immediate: We are now offering three sections of beginning Spanish every quarter with classes of some 30 students each. We have had to turn students away in order to preserve a manageable class size. Challenging, but exciting! Our French classes that never got past 12 students are bulging with 30 plus students, and the Korean program, thanks to Dr.Wonil Kim's self-sacrificing efforts, has an average of 12 students each quarter.
the Language Resource Center has proved to be a blessing as we move increasingly more toward practical oral skills in language acquisition. Along with written exams, students are required to take an accompanying oral exam at the LRC under the supervision of our lab assistants. But with only five computers, we are facing a continuing problem as our student population continues to grow. And, of course, we are urgently in need of a part or full-time person to direct our LRC. Despite our limited resources, we are forging ahead.
by this time next year when our next issue comes out, we will have added an Italian minor to our program. Like our French and German minors, the Italian minor will be offered through Adventist Colleges Abroad. Students will take Intermediate to Advanced Italian grammar, conversation and composition, in addition to Italian culture, history and history of art classes. The students who have returned from Villa Aurora give glowing reports about the program there.
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