For level-1 Chinese immersion student Mark Roose, our instructors’ personal investment in his success made all the difference. He went from never having studied Chinese, to being able to carry on full conversations by the end of the program.
A unique summer language course in Vermont opens the door to opera singing in Germany. At Vermont’s famed Middlebury Language Schools, opera singers perfect their German.
U.S. Marine Johnathan Vazquezcook, currently stationed in Okinawa Japan, can now hold a basic conversation in Japanese after attending our School of Japanese: Level 1. Our dedicated faculty and staff ensured he was never afraid to stumble and helped make every interaction feel meaningful.
Motoko Tabuse has been the Director of the School of Japanese since 2019. The School of Japanese includes our 8 week (12 credit) immersion program as well as two graduate programs: MAT with Teaching Licensure and Master of Arts in Japanese Language and Culture.
Our bilingual assistants are indispensable to the success of our programs. Each summer, they plan and execute co-curricular activities and support our students, faculty, and staff. In this article, three of our bilingual assistants share about what they love most about working at the School of Japanese.
PhD student Shahriar Akhavan Tafti’s summer at our German School “rewired his brain,” and “changed his very being.”
For Yale PhD student Michelle Keefe, who is typically very talkative, entering the German School at Level 1 was a daunting prospect. In the end, she was surprised to find that her impulse to communicate overrode her lack of language.
| by Marin Howell
Middlebury Union High School 2017 alum Meigan Clark is back in town this summer taking part in the inaugural class of a new Master of Arts in Teaching program offered through the Middlebury Language Schools. The program offers participants a secondary teaching license in modern languages valid for teaching 7-12 grades in public school systems around the country.
For Mike Finn, “a fervent disciple of the Middlebury method,” one summer at the Language Schools turned into three.
| by Colby Bittner
Colby Bittner reflects on her 8-week summer as an immersion student at our School of Japanese, concluding: “It wasn’t all fun and games, and it certainly wasn’t easy, but I might dare to say that I have not only grown as a person from my experience at the summer program; I have also gained an appreciation and love for learning languages that will last a lifetime.”
