Even brief or limited exposure to a new language changes how people conceive of the world and their place within it, expanding students’ sense of possibility.
Expectations may vary for college students who are learning a second language, but it’s important to remember that while nobody will sound like a native speaker after a couple semesters, they can pick up the foundations necessary to communicate strategically in a new language, as well as the capability to reflect on how different language systems make sense of the world in different ways, said Chantelle Warner, Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs and a Professor of German Studies.
“Adult learners are much better at some of the sociolinguistic and symbolic aspects of language, the ways in which the words we speak always say more than their direct meaning. They are also excellent at learning vocabulary and reflecting on the untranslatables in new languages,” she said.
Educators often talk about a new language as a tool or a skill, but that framework doesn’t apply to how people experience the languages they grow up with.
“If we think back to the children's books we were read as children, a time when someone called us a name that hurt us, or the feel of the lyrics to our favorite song when we sing along, we know that language makes us feel things—joy, pain, connection. Studying a language, even for a year or two, is a way to step outside one’s normal thought patterns and recognize that,” Warner said. “Ultimately this helps students to be more effective and also more thoughtful in how they communicate in general, whether in that newly learned language or the one they’ve always spoken.”
Suzanne Panferov Reese, Professor in the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching program and Director of the Critical Languages Program, said knowing even a few basic words in another language can open doors for travel, relationships or appreciating culture like art, music or film.
“Having a little bit of the language and being able to use it to connect with people is the absolute best,” Panferov Reese said. “It takes semesters of study to make a lot of gains in proficiency, but if you’re able to connect to people because you have a little bit of the language, that already opens doors that would not be open to you if you were a monolingual tourist with no connection.”
About 150 students each semester take classes through the Critical Languages Program, which focuses on “less commonly taught” languages. Current offerings include Cantonese, modern Greek, Hindi and Urdu, Igbo, advanced Korean, Kurdish, Norwegian, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.
“With Critical Languages, a lot of our students have a family connection or cultural connection with the language and this is their first opportunity to study the language. It’s often a generational gate that allows them to connect to a grandparent, or an older aunt or uncle, somebody who’s a generation above them who may not have come to the United States or doesn’t speak English,” Panferov Reese said. “That gives them really amazing opportunities.”
Teachers don’t have an expectation that all students in a 101 class will develop advanced proficiency, said Janice McGregor, Associate Professor of German Studies. But they make their classes accessible to everyone who’s curious and wants to learn.
“Taking a language class is a cornerstone of being a human,” McGregor said. “The goal doesn’t have to be high levels of proficiency. Everyone should try it out. It makes you better able to navigate different contexts and share knowledge with different people. You never know who you’ll come into contact with and you might end up bonding with someone over shared knowledge. These are all parts of who you are and make you interesting to other people.”
For anyone who shies away from trying a new language because they won’t become fluent, McGregor says her response is “Who cares?”
“Think about all your hobbies – are you trying to be a perfectionist? Or are you doing it for enjoyment? Maybe there’s a small percentage of things we hope to have a mastery of, but we wouldn’t say those other things we do for fun or skill development weren’t worth it or valuable or become a part of who we are,” McGregor said. “Everything you do matters for your overall well-being.”
Language is about communication and studying a language makes people better able to work together and find commonalities. McGregor tells her students it’s OK to sound like a kindergartener because language learning can be humbling.
“The best way to learn is to stumble though it. It can be frustrating, but it’s also very rewarding,” she said. “When you are aware of the words you use, and their historic trajectories, it just makes you a more careful reader because you have a better understanding of words and their meaning.”