The University and Foreign Languages
This article describes . This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: Williams, Thomas. "The University and Foreign Languages" ECU Report, Volume X, No. 1, 1976-1977.
University! One of the most exciting words in the English language -- or any other language.
Within the midst of our dynamic, energy-packed free enterprise America there exists a community of scholars and teachers whose job it is to provide the fund of special knowledge and skills which keep our country going.
East Carolina University is such a community.And close to its heart is the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, a group of international, multi-lingual teachers whose job is to help make our complex world more manageable, to facilitate the flow of ideas, people and even goods from culture to culture. The old barriers of time and space are forever gone. The Telstars and the 747's of the world on the one hand, and the ICBM's and their deadly brethren on the other make all of us in every hemisphere neighbors -- whether we like it or not.
The question is, what kind of neighbors will we be?In the Foreign Language Department we are working to see that the new neighborhood is a good one where people and governments work together for the common welfare.
How do we do that? Obviously we don't work alone. The sociologists, the political scientists, the physicists and all the others are doing their part, too.
But look at it this way. A power company and a light bulb are not much good without a power line to hook them up together. Keep them apart and nothing happens. Join them together and the result is light. The bulb glows and the darkness recedes.
In the same way, the Foreign Language department is in the business of bringing things together.All of our technology, all of our good-will, all of America's potential for world leadership can work only when we are in active communication with other peoples from other cultures.
An dthat is the keyword. Communication. It means far more than merely reading and writing and talking. Foreign language professors teach those things, of course. But that's just the beginning. It's not enough, we know, to talk at your international cohorts and competitors. You've got to talk with them. So foreign language study goes far beyond the elements of French, or Russian, or German or Spanish. It deals with people -- how they live, how they think, what their goals and aspirations are, the nature of their national identity.When we begin to grasp those things, real dialogue can begin. Without it we are often talking only to ourselves.
And so our activities are varied.Many of our students become teachers. When Johnny comes home and tells you about that lively Spanish class he's just gotten into, the livewire teacher he describes may very well be an ECU graduate. We know that the values of language learning come through best when study begins early. So we are dedicated to first class foreign language instruction in the public schools.
But that's only one side of the coin. Flip it over and you find many East Carolina University language students preparing for jobs in government, industry (German and French industrial development in the Carolinas is the wave of the future) and the professions. Through the Cooperative Education Program they are able to participate in fascinating workstudy "internships" in NASA and other first line government agencies while they are still undergraduates.
Our teachers are increasingly called on to solve problems for North Carolina manufacturers and businesses involved in the blossoming of international trade in our state.Recently, an Edgecombe County firm imported a farm harvesting machine whose body was made by the Italian firm of Fiat, whose motor was produced in England, and which was assembled in Poland! They were confronted with a variety of instruction manuals and parts lists in every imaginable language. They yelled for help and East Carolina University Language specialists rode to the rescue.
We have come to expect the unexpected. Not long ago a long distance call came through from Washington, D.C.It was the Embassy of Saudi Arabia on the line, a deep, richly accented voice informed us. Could we set up a special program designed to teach English as a Foreign Language to a group of Saudi adults?
We could, and we did. Under the leadership of Foreign Language Department personnel a course was quickly organized. Shortly after the original inquiry a contingent of men from an alien culture half way across the globe was busily working in our foreign language classrooms and laboratories mastering the intricacies of American English.
We are busy. We enjoy our work. We know it is important, to us, to our students -- and to you, too. A peaceful, more understanding world is always important.
