Languages of the World
Instructor: John Stenzel, University Writing Program, College of Letters and Science
Description: "Art appreciation" and "music appreciation" courses may be slightly old-fashioned, but this survey of languages would not only expose students to a variety of tongues spoken by roughly four billion people, it would also bring them to a more active participation in the process. Besides learning and memorizing a core group of twenty-odd sentences and phrases in each language, students would actively practice listening skills so that they could recognize each language by ear, and, most intriguingly, speak the core group of expressions with reasonable facility. This is in no way intended to be a substitute for rigorous courses offered in the Linguistics program: I hope to stimulate more students to study language, but above all I want them to appreciate differences and similarities within and across language families. After learning some basic linguistic terms students would increase their language awareness, but in the context of active practice and contact with a native speaker and observation of film in the target language. Simply trying to get one's mouth around new languages is both challenging and fun, as is tuning one's ear to recognize the music of different ways of expressing similar thoughts. More profoundly, there will be basic differences in the ways languages and cultures express the same ideas--or in some cases don't express the same idea at all. I do want students to emerge with increased verbal agility and some serious memorization, along with tools for thinking critically about what language family an unknown language might be, and why.
Format: In regular sessions IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) notation will be used for each of the target sentences and expressions, and I will introduce the guest speaker who will do some coaching and remark on cultural-linguistic differences of note; the class will also require two hours of "lab work" a week: an hour of film, and an hour of language-lab practice. I intend to have each set of sentences and expressions available in podcast form so that students can load up their iPods and work on their pronunciation / memorization anywhere. Ideally I'd like to coordinate with Mediaworks and the Language Learning Center people so that I could use facilities in Olson basement; details would have to be worked out. Likewise, I am working with Sakai developers to investigate how the new web portal could best facilitate each student's storing of short audio files (in .mp3 form), so that each student could develop an audio portfolio demonstrating their increasing command of the different languages. Grading: In addition to very short check-ins (5-minute quizzes) on a weekly basis, I envision each student preparing an audio portfolio showing their progress through the quarter. In the final class session, students will present another language of their choice, showing the rest of the class the same core group of expressions and leading them "show and tell"-style in the start of the cycle again. I want to reward effort and diligence over the whole quarter, not merely skill at mimicry (though that will, I hope, be a beneficial result for active participants), and I would just as soon grade pass-no-pass rather than trying to make grade distinctions.
About the Instructor: John Stenzel has been a lecturer with the University Writing Program and the English Department for more than 15 years. Besides teaching a broad range of courses in writing and literature, he has taught the History of the English Language, Linguistics for non-Linguists, and grammar courses for graduate students, as well as presenting workshops on interdisciplinary writing to departments all over campus. John sings in the Pacific Mozart Ensemble, a semi-professional chorus in the Bay Area, can get in trouble in four European languages, and is eager to learn and teach more about languages of the world.