"Intensive" Is the Word for It
To prepare for one term of study abroad, under the College's new foreign language program, students take a rigorous one-term course and make remarkable progress
THE College's foreign language program is on its toes these days. And that should be taken in the most literal sense, because vibrancy, vitality, movement, and excitement are all essentials in a new teaching method where the instructor's first commandment is "Thou shalt not sit down."
Approximately 300 undergraduates will be going out from Dartmouth classrooms next year for varying terms of study abroad and all of them will be proficient in the languages of their chosen countries. None of them will be taking as excess baggage the traditional litany of subjunctives; they will travel equipped to communicate with the culture in which they will be living.
The keyed-up classroom spirit is part of a new and flexible program allowing students to meet the foreign language requirement by taking a one-credit, one-term course in Intensive Language Training to be followed by one term abroad. After their return to campus, they may decide to go abroad again for one or two terms under the broader Foreign Studies Program, which has been in operation since 1958.
In 1968-69 Dartmouth will be involved in a total of 17 programs abroad, and increased faculty participation will place a faculty member and a senior adviser at each Dartmouth study center. This year about 100 students will have completed one term at a foreign university, generally the fall term following the summer abroad.
Next year's three-fold increase in foreign study participants can be explained by the success of the program to date and the excitement generated by the new Intensive Language Training, which began in the fall term in French and in the winter term in modern Greek. Next year, intensive training will be extended to Spanish and Italian.
The versatility of the established Foreign Studies Program, which seeks to get students out of the libraries and into independent field research, is indicated by a small sampling of some recent projects: in France, a study of the Communist government in Sete, French relations with developing countries in Africa, experimental music; or, in Spain, the gypsies as an ethnic group, administration of mental hospitals, the steel industry.
Intensive Language Training, concentrating only on language and culture, will prepare students capable of researching even more varied subjects, and at an earlier stage of their college careers. To this end, language study centers are being organized in San Jose, Costa Rica and Bourges, France, where the first products of Intensive Language will study in the fall, winter or spring term next year. In these two centers, as differentiated from the Foreign Study Program centers, students will take courses in language and culture and literature.
Of the Dartmouth centers abroad, France has the most. In a program which continues to be administered by George Diller, Professor Emeritus of French, there will be centers at Lyons, Caen, Montpellier, Pau, Toulouse, and Strasbourg, as well as the language center at Bourges.
Increased activity in the German language program is being considered, with the possibility of study in cooperation with the University of Mainz being added to the established center at the University of Freiburg.
Students of Spanish will be polishing their linguistic skills for the tenth year at the University of Salamanca. Guardian angel to Dartmouth men there since the program began in 1958 is Senorita Teresa Guilarte, daughter of a university professor and a vice consul of the French Republic. These two identifications help to explain how, in a city of only 120,000, she always manages to find new families to house students. New families each year are a "must" in the Foreign Studies Program, lest too much exposure to Americans weaken the impact of native family living.
Additional centers are or will be located in Florence, Italy; Lima Peru; Taiwan; and Senegal, West Africa. Prof. Matthew I. Wiencke of the Classics Department will lead a group of classics students on an Athens-based Greek study program this spring, and, as in previous years, students of Russian will take part in a summer program in the Soviet Union.
Communication is the prime goal of the new Intensive Language Training. In it John A. Rassias, Associate Professor of Romance Languages and chairman of the Foreign Studies Program, is applying the same dynamic methods he has used in past summers to train Peace Corps volunteers at the College. And he sees to it these methods are applied with elan. A student is too self-conscious to respond to a question in French? B-r-r-ing! There will be a telephone call for him in the classroom and he will find himself rehearsing for the time when that phone will be ringing in Toulouse, Caen, or Montpellier and the questioning voice on the other end may be coming from the gendarmerie instead of a professor's office.
And what about the young man preparing for a term at Spain's University of Salamanca? Right in the middle of a verb drill, the instructor may accuse him in rapid, violent Spanish of a "stupid" traffic violation.
Such shock methods accustom the student to express himself in the circumstances of stress which he quite likely will experience in a foreign country. Far from resenting such unorthodox treatment, intensive language students have embraced it enthusiastically, both on the academic and social levels. It is really difficult to separate the two, since students give parties for instructors and vice versa, and "in" jokes give rise to corridor capers appreciated by everyone but the outsider. It may be a cliche to speak of "one happy family" but that is the impression the Romance Language Department gives in its present ebullient state.
One keystone in the overall intensified program is the use of qualified juniors and seniors as apprentice teachers who lead intensive drill periods, always, of course, on their toes as prescribed. In the fall term 22 upperclassmen were so employed, each for 15 hours weekly. This term, ten of them are at work in various language sections. With additional personnel, drill sections can be reduced to ten students, and it is hoped that soon that number will be only six. Teacher apprentices will be trained in workshop sessions, similar to the one conducted on campus prior to the opening of the fall term. Where possible, foreign students at Dartmouth will be apprentice teachers in their native tongues.
Concentration will move into student housing as well with the establishment of a language dormitory, although exactly which one is yet to be decided. Students would be segregated by language for at least one term before going abroad and for one term after their return, and although this may be a short-term violation of the College's democratic tradition of "mixing," the advantages are obvious. Expert advice from those who have "been there" can cut down on orientation sessions, where the rallying cry is "no more than two showers a week and don't forget to turn off the lights."
Apprentice teachers will also apply some of their time to laboratory supervision, and round-the-clock laboratory hours are foreseen, as with Peace Corps trainees. Actually, by means of telephone connection, the laboratory will be brought right into the dormitory so that even in the middle of the night a student can gratify his sudden desire to improve on "Wo ist der Bahnhof?"
On this side of the ocean, then, the intensive training consists of five hours a week in small sections under the faculty teacher, five hours per week of intensive drill under apprentice teachers, and eight half-hour supervised lab sessions, plus the boon of no homework.
Overseas, the intensive language student will study for five days a week. There will be four hours of language each morning. With the exception of Wednesday, when he presumably will put to use some of his growing language skill, he will devote one hour each afternoon to local culture and civilization and one hour to literature of the country. Here, alas, homework is indicated.
Even the mid-day hours will be utilized for intensified learning. Program advisers insist that the student spend every moment of the traditional two-hour European lunch hour at the table with his host family. They see this as one of the best possible exposures to language and culture and are apparently unconcerned that the campus could be flooded with fluent but overweight returnees.
Before any Intensive Language Training students in the present program get to the two-hour lunch, however, they must return to Dartmouth in late August for a further month of work. Once again the instructor will be hounding them for descriptions of "What am I doing now? And now?" Dialogues will be demanded, embarrassing situations created. The success of these gyrations, which often result in enough noise to evoke janitorial protests, the students will be able to judge for themselves in late September when they reach their foreign destinations.
This extra month of Intensive Language Training has been designed to bridge "the summer vacation gap and to bring fall term students into classes immediately before their departures abroad. Those who have registered for winter and spring terms abroad will be trained in the regular intensive language courses immediately preceding their departures.
Just how well Intensive Language Training and its shock treatment has succeeded so far can be gauged by some midterm evaluations. One hundred language students in French 2 had increased their CEEB reading scores over those at the beginning of the year by an average of 75 points. And 85 students in French 1 made a similar jump. Put another way, already by mid-year, one third of the French 2 group had attained the score of 600 or better considered sufficient for admission into French 3.
Although completion of the Intensive Language Training Course and the one term of foreign study will complete a student's language requirement, that does not necessarily mean he will no longer encounter the intensification of method, as he will see the advanced language courses such as French and Spanish 21. Nor does the term abroad mean that a student cannot return there for further study, perhaps in a second country and language, as a participant in the Foreign Studies Program.
As in previous years, the cost of the term abroad is reckoned at about $200 above the cost of a term at the College, certainly a good cut below the tourist rate for a similar period in foreign lands. And certainly what the Dartmouth student brings back in terms of experience and knowledge is well worth the bargain price.
Moreover, the policy of the Foreign Study Program continues to be that no qualified student shall miss a chance for a term abroad because of financial difficulties; these are overcome by means of loans and scholarships.
Strong friendships with the families with whom they have lived has been the almost universal experience of participants, and very few complaints of misbehavior are in the Foreign Study Program files.
On the contrary, quotes like these from foreign educators are easy to find. From Toulouse: "I appreciated the assiduity, attention and participation of your young people (16) this fall (1967). We had contacts which were not lacking in life. They are parfaitement sympathiques."
From Lyons: "We were very satisfied with the behavior, attitudes and activity of these students."
And from Montpellier: "I was very satisfied with the work of this group and the excellent spirit they demonstrated."
And, once again from Montpellier, a real tribute from a professor who normally would have had free time: "To work with Dartmouth students is a real pleasure even during vacation period."
Of course the real benefits coming back to the College with the students cannot be measured in any easy way, but perhaps a few can be named. Experience. Sophistication. Understanding. A wider horizon. Linguistic skills which can give the next Foreign Study Program participants a boost up the language steps, which, from the way the present program is going, will get higher every year.
No place to hide from intensified stride: Apprentice teacher Warren Cooke '68 demands immediate response from any one of these students in Intensive French.
Full speed ahead is the direction indicated by Dr. John A. Rassias, director of theForeign Study Program, for the Intensive Language Training Courses inauguratedthis year to prepare sophomores for further language training abroad.
George Diller, Professor of French Emeritus enjoys both the garden of his homein Monthelie on the Cote d'Or and aposition from which he expedites Dartmouth's Foreign Study Programs.
Map showing the 17 foreign study centers to which Dartmouth students will be heading in the new program.
A partially motorized Dartmouth pyramid awaits host families and the beginning of aterm of foreign study at the University of Lyons. (Back row, l to r) Paul Kruger 68,Group Leader Warren Cooke '68, Dave Burwell '69, Jack Bolger '69, George Roussos'70. (Front, l to r) Henry Urion '69, Steve Macintosh '69, Mark Sheetz '69, HoraceShaw '69, Nathaniel Mason '69, Eric Derrickson '70, Steve Zien '69.
Whirling through some after-class cultural activities during a term abroad in Toulouseare (l to r) Gordon Ellis '70, Richard Gerry '69, and Clark Doran '69.
