chronicle

[J. Douglas Clayton]

Dear SEELANGERs,

Michael Katz's message is a reminder of the danger of describing what we do as simply promoting the acquisition of active language skills. These can frequently be acquired more easily in other ways (e.g., total immersion in the country where the language is spoken, or enrollment in a Berlitz school).

I tell my students they are there to s-t-u-d-y the language as well as learn it. That is to say, it is the philological element of study, as well as the familiarization with a totally different culture that goes along with language study, that is a valid and even, I would argue, essential element in a liberal arts programme. The same argument can, and should, be made for Latin and Greek.

I sense that my students, even if they have had only one semester of Russian and are not able to converse freely in the language, still have had a valuable educative experience. Surely that is what we as educators should be telling our deans and administrators.
---
J. Douglas CLAYTON
_________________________________________
Professor
Modern Languages & Literatures
University of Ottawa
Box 450 Stn A
Ottawa ON K1N 6N5
Canada                   http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/daglas/

      "Life is far too tragic to be taken seriously."












On Wed, 7 Mar 2001 05:46:34    Katz, Michael wrote:
>Dear colleagues:
>
>I hope everyone has seen the article on Drake University in the Chronicle of
>Higher Education where the new President, David Maxwell, former Russian
>professor (!) at Tufts and former Director of the NFLC (!!), has decided to
>close all the language departments at his institution because they are so
>ineffective at teaching language.
>
>Tol'ko etogo ne khvatalo!
>
>Michael Katz
>Middlebury College
>
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