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Archived
Monastery Happenings
August 2008
U-Mary student, Bernard Yego, with Sister Helen
Kilzer
Sister Helen Kilzer Honored at FLAND's 40th
Anniversary
The common language of gratitude was spoken at
FLAND's (Foreign Language Association of North Dakota) 40th anniversary
celebration in April. First president of FLAND in 2968, Sister Helen Kilzer was
invited to speak to the evolvement of foreign language teaching methodologies
since the launching of the Russian missile Sputnik in an address to the state's
language teachers.
A festive dinner opened the weekend's festivities
and became the occasion for the distribution of awards and honors merited by
language teachers from throughout the state, among them a special award to
Sister Helen.
Sister Helen's career as language teacher began in
1960 as French teacher at St. Mary's High School. Students will remember
her not only as Soeur Marmion (accent on the last syllable!) but also for her
dictum "Ici on ne parle que le francais!" (Here one speaks only French!) but
also for the French Camp she originated and conducted for all interested French
students of the state.
In 1969 she taught in the newly opened French
department of the University of Mary. In keeping with her philosophy "One
learns a foreign language by teaching it," she prepared her students by
traveling with them to France, living in French families, and appreciating their
history and culture through traveling. An entire semester spent in
Avignon, France expanded that philosophy.
Back at U-Mary her language teaching assignments
were enlarged to include Spanish and German - and enhanced by a year's
sabbatical in Germany which included travel and study in these latter countries.
Sister Helen also was able to test out a dream
long harbored but now ready to be implemented: foreign languages are best
learned in early childhood. She offered her services as German teacher to
St. Mary's Grade School, beginning in Grade 3. By adding a new class each
year while continuing the others, she was able to see her last 8th grade German
class continue their study in advanced German classes in high school.
Now at age 90 (yes, really!) she continues to
offer language classes on a tutoring basis to interested students such as
Bernard Yego, from Kenya. Their acquaintance began shortly after Bernard
came to the University of Mary. He asked Sister Helen if she would teach him
French. Bernard already speaks Swahili, as well as his tribal language
(one of five in Kenya). He learned English in school in Kenya where it is
a required language. Bernard hopes to start his own business in Kenya
someday. He knows he needs to be fluent in French in order to develop
business relationships with neighboring Europe.
"It's a privilege for me to have Sister Helen as a
teacher," says Yego. Sister Helen shares his enthusiasm, saying "He approached
me to teach him, that's when a teacher knows a student is self-motivated -
that's exciting and it shows in their progress!"
*Sister Helen's presentation to
FLAND can be viewed in its entirety below.
Sister Helen Kilzer's
Address to FLAND
It
is my singular honor to address this gathering on the occasion of the 40th
anniversary of the founding of FLAND, the Foreign Language Association of
North Dakota. The name, I recall, was proposed by Neil Souther, teacher of
both ancient and modern languages. And FLAND is has been ever since.
It
was I who dared to suggest that this anniversary meeting might be the right
occasion to review how the methodology of teaching Foreign Languages has
developed here in the State over the course of those four decades. Our
efforts have consistently remained meeting the exigencies of the time, even
as we consider the character and needs of today’s students. In making the
suggestion, I was brash enough to suggest that I, as veteran of the
organization, could give a measure of credibility that experience endows
upon those who are open to change.
Before Sputnik, the generally accepted method for teaching foreign languages
that was widely, if not universally used, was what could be called the
Translation Method. It was probably very much like that of teaching Latin
classes. Each new lesson usually began with a text to be translated. This
was always preceded by a column or two of the new vocabulary to be learned.
Students were expected to memorize this vocabulary list as homework. The
next day there would be a quiz on vocabulary. Students who were good
memorizers always got and “A”. They loved it! You probably noticed, I said
“They”. This vocabulary was then inserted into the text to be studied,
accompanied by explanation of new grammatical constructions. Students then
translated the passage, sentence by sentence, under vigilant guidance of the
instructor. Does that describe, to some extent, your experience of your
learning Latin?
Now
let us go back to that unforgettable day of the Cold War. Are there any
among us who still remember when the Russians launched Sputnik? Look back
to that infamous date, October 4, 1957, when an 84-lb. basketball-sized
satellite circled the atmosphere and forced us, as a country, to take
stock. How was it possible that such an event could have happened to us
from outside the United States? And moreover, how could it have come as a
complete surprise to the whole world?
The
inevitable blame-game followed. Our whole system of education was
critiqued. What was being taught and how came under close
scrutiny: science, mathematics, technology and engineering, and − foreign
languages. Now aggressive action was called for by the National Defense
Education Act of 1958 − all in the interest of making America secure.
There followed a veritable revolution in the subject matter taught and in
the methods by which it was taught, spurred on by national debate and
empowered by funding that reached dimensions unheard of before or since.
Teachers of foreign languages were encouraged to participate in summer
institutes or even in a full academic year, under instructions who spoke
only the foreign language under consideration. All was funded under the
National Defense Act of 1958 in the interest of forming teachers who would
then be expected to teach uniquely in the foreign language. For teachers
who had successfully survived this initial experience, a second level of
training was offered, this one lasting eight weeks and located in the
foreign country whose language was being taught. Can you even fathom the
eagerness of teachers to enhance their fluency in the language they were
teaching? In my experience this was in France: eight weeks of formal study
at the University of Tours with eighty other American teachers of French.
At the close of the session we participants were further treated to a week
of bus travel throughout France, again completely funded, before we returned
to our classrooms, now eager to share what we had learned.
In
the U.S., book companies were also furnishing materials that would implement
the objectives of the so-newly-trained teachers. I recall being especially
entranced by an audio-lingual-visual method, because of its origin the city
of St. Cloud in France. Audiotapes and filmstrips formed the basis of the
audio-lingual-visual method, for beginning through advanced study of
French. What I found particularly impressive was that the company making
the materials available not only sold materials but also instructed teachers
in the effective use of those materials by offering teachers a free
training course. Chilton Books of Philadelphia made this generous offer to
teachers using the method. A trip to Philadelphia during Christmas vacation
afforded me the basics in the use of the materials. Parenthetically, I was
saddened to learn recently that the Chilton Book Co. of Philadelphia no
longer exists. They had served me well.
By
the 1980s I had become so imbued with the quality of the St. Cloud materials
and methodology that I hesitated to adopt any new system until I was assured
that these others would equal, if not surpass the St. Cloud materials.
Time
changes opinions
of
students, if not always of teachers and the times seemed to favor the use of
videos, not unlike the films the students were flocking to, in lieu of the
still frames, film strips, of materials of the St. Cloud method. Result:
when the cinema-like course, the Capretz method, put out by Yale University,
appeared in the early 90s, I agreed to the transition from Voix et Visages
de France to French in Action. However, the method of teaching the video
materials remained quite similar in essence and effectiveness to those used
in the former filmstrip-based materials and could be applied to the Spanish
series Destinos as well. Effective language teaching still required
a logical 1)Presentation of the lesson in whole or in part, 2) Explication,
where the difficulties of content will be clarified, 3) Repetition, where
pronunciation of content would be repeated and drilled, in groups and
individually, 4) Transposition, where the contents of the entire lesson will
be reviewed in terms of students’ own lives. Summarized, that spells
“pert”, P-E-R-T. These seem to me the essential ingredients of every new
lesson and are basic to audio-visual methodology on all levels. I have
found that if even one of these four elements is neglected or sketchily
carried out, learning is diminished and student interest begins to lag.
A
final methodology I would like to mention, although most of you may already
be acquainted
with, is called the Total Physical Response or the TPR method. James J.
Asher has developed this method, making it available to foreign language
teachers in his book Learning Another Language Through Actions: The
Complete Teacher’s Guidebook. Other authors have since extended this
method to other languages. Of course, mothers have known and practiced it
as EFL, English as the first language, for eons with children two years old
and under. It’s a “Come here. Go there. Do this. Do that” approach that
involves the whole person and has value in the teaching of any foreign
language. Moreover, it makes available to teachers a variety of props and
kits that minimize, if not do away with, the furious hunt for realia, deemed
essential for tomorrow’s lesson.
In
reviewing these various methodologies, I would be remiss if I didn’t credit
the significant contribution made by language camps in forwarding the
learning of foreign languages─and
this in a milieu of fun and games that are really essential in language
learning. They provide an environment par excellence, with teachers
and facilities geared to making language learning a joyful and fun-filled
experience. They are sites wherein language learning at its best can take
place. Their setting in nature’s classroom with everything and everyone
geared to overcoming the inhibitions that a classroom setting often
imposes. In fact, I was literally so enthralled when I became aware of what
was happening at Concordia Language Camps in Minnesota that I decided to
make a similar camp available to high-school students of North Dakota, under
the auspices of the then Mary College, in two-week sessions of French Camp,
to be held every August at the State Park facilities on the shores of
beautiful Lake Metigoshe. Finding French-speaking teachers and counselors
to assist proved much less worrisome than I had feared and gave it an
authenticity essential to a French Camp. Compared to, (or should I say “in
contrast with”), the Concordia Camps, it was a modest effort surely, but
fruitful, if judged by the many campers who returned summer after summer, to
prove their ability to speak French for two whole weeks and then return
home, wearing a genuine French beret as witness to their prowess. Many
continued to study more French in the classroom after camp. Some eventually
continued their study of French in college, with several of them even
becoming French professors. One of them is presently chair of Modern
Languages in his University.
Having walked briefly through the long history of methodologies as developed
in the years following the wake-up call of Sputnik, and despite the success
of individual schools, basic problems still continued to plague small
schools. It took a Sam Lacher to confront that problem. As the State
Department’s consultant for foreign languages, he assembled administrators
and foreign language teachers in a special meeting, and reviewed with them
the problem of finding and keeping qualified foreign language teachers in
smaller schools. He them explained what he believed to be a viable
solution: “distance learning” he called it, whereby the language classes of
larger schools would simultaneously become available to language classes in
smaller schools─with
the help of modern technology.
Thus
was planted the seed that is today’s interactive television, furnishing
foreign language classes to children and students from kindergarten through
grade 12 ever since 1992, with funding from the North Dakota Interactive
Video Network. Val Babb, Sue Brynjolfson and Bob Cordova were the trail
blazers in western North Dakota in that historic endeavor. Their success
and enthusiasm soon brought others aboard to lengthen and strengthen the
foreign language offerings to all schools regardless of size. Today’s
roster includes more than 50 schools statewide, sending their foreign
language classes to smaller schools. These include up to four levels of
Spanish, with somewhat lesser interest in German and Latin. Regretfully I
am not aware of any French classes being offered. Lo siento mucho!
But to end on a more positive note: the 2001 State Legislature extended
funding on the Information Technology Division, or ITD, to all North Dakota
schools.
Looking back, we are now forced to realize that Sputnik, by its very threat,
presented the nation’s foreign language teachers the challenge of change.
Today we are once again faced with an entirely new set of challenges. For
many of us it may well be the students who will teach us, perhaps with
entirely NEW methods of learning foreign languages. Just listen to them on
their cell phones or smart phones: their talk about interactive satellite
communication, of blogs, I-Pods and Podcasts, or chat rooms and text
messaging, of wiki collaborative web-sites and web cams.
Are
you beginning to detect a bit of gleefulness on the part of this speaker,
who at this stage, and at my age, can now simply bow out with a “Thanks for
your kind attention?”
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