Lilian Hutchinson draws a response from a Spanish student.
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working in a marketing job for six months — all overseas. The combination of language and cultural immersion and an experiential learning internship are part of Northeastern’s international business major program. After college, she hopes to work in marketing communications and public relations internationally.
Latin teacher Michael Anderson
“With the strong written and oral language foundation I built in high school at Loomis Chaffee and the skills I am gaining in college, I can really see myself developing a true bilingual lifestyle that will be essential in my day-to-day work environment,” she says. Language learning opens doors to broader fields of study and a whole range of careers, she notes. “Language has always been a part of school that I enjoyed, and this heavily influenced my decision to study international business, both as a major and at Northeastern University specifically.” Tyler, Katie, and many other alumni illustrate some of the most tangible benefits of pursuing a different language as a complete cultural experience, not a mere exercise in translation. Back at Loomis, their teachers love to hear their stories, outcomes of the “communicative approach” that the department takes to teaching languages. Rachel Nisselson, head of Loomis’ Modern and Classical Languages Department, explains that the communicative approach emphasizes interaction in learning to speak and write in the target language. A typical lesson, for instance, would start with an overview: “Today we are going to talk about what we did last weekend.” Next, the teacher would instruct students in the use of the past tense. The students then would practice using the past tense, at first in structured exercises and then in less controlled exercises. Finally, the students would communicate with each other about what they did last weekend using the newly learned past tense.
Sophomore Derek Pang, sophomore Jason Li, freshman Elizabeth Herman, and sophomore Adora Nwokike react to a lesson in Michael Anderson's Latin class.
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Loomis language students use the language learning lab extensively, practicing speaking in the target
language, listening to recordings of native speakers, and recording their speech for evaluation. By allowing students to practice their skills simultaneously in the lab, each student engages in more repetition and more use of their skills, essential strategies for mastering another language. The department this winter added a remote capability for the language learning lab with a program called SansSpace, allowing cloud-based, mobile access to the learning lab’s tools. Students in Sabine Giannamore’s French 3 classes are involved in a virtual exchange with students in Cugnaux, France, this year. Like pen pals of old, the Loomis students are paired with French counterparts who are learning English. Communicating through blog postings, letters, emails, and Skype chats, the students on both sides of the Atlantic are practicing communicating in their target language and learning about the lives and cultures of their new friends. Language classes also watch movies in the target language and respond to the films’ themes and imagery, much as they do with written literature. Rachel says she often uses music videos with her French and Spanish students as well as interviews with movie directors and other audio and video materials to expose them to the spoken language. The website zacharyjones.com plays Spanish songs, and students fill out worksheets that ask about aspects of what they have heard. With interaction at its core, the communicative approach trains students to put the language to use in ways that a translation app never could replicate. As a result, students learn to communicate authentically in another language, which means, when they travel to other countries, they can have richer experiences with the people they encounter, Rachel says. A Loomis convocation speaker earlier this year talked about his travels in Marco Polo’s footsteps, through many lands previously unfamiliar to him. Rachel says she loved hearing him mention how much people he