Abdul Aziz, a Public Service employee from Australia, is a lover of languages. He attended our 8-week Arabic immersion program where, thanks to caring colleagues and mentors, he was able to become comfortable conversing about a variety of topics.
“Middlebury didn’t just teach me Spanish. It gave me connection, courage, and a renewed sense of possibility. Learning has no age limits - and this journey became a gift to myself, my family, and my future grandson.”
Jeanne Engelkemeir, a French and English teacher in West Allis, Wisconsin, attended our 7-week French immersion program to further strengthen her language skills. Jeanne was so impressed with the richness and excellence of the program as well as its faculty and staff that she hopes to return to the School of French to earn her fourth master’s degree.
Throughout Emily Costello’s language learning journey, speaking was always her weakest skill. Middlebury’s Intensive Summer Program was exactly what she was looking for.
| by Ella Callahan
The college recently broke ground on Battell Park, a new outdoor space designed to add more communal areas to campus.
For Florida native Amalia Mahoney, the complete immersion environment that our program offered was key. After completing an immersion summer at Level 2, the support and reassurance of Italian School faculty and staff gave her the confidence to keep studying and take on the graduate program.
| by Patrick Culver
Incumbent Gold Ancient Mariner, Capt. Patrick Culver retired in 2023. His next adventure? Our 7-week School of Spanish.
Arianna Contreras, an alumnus of our Italian Immersion and MA programs, spent her second summer as a Bilingual Assistant at our Italian School in summer 2025.
| by Drew Philp
Drew Philp attended the Middlebury Language Schools Betty Ashbury Jones MA ’86 School of French in 2018 and 2019. In 2019 he received the Fellows for Peace fellowship, which covers tuition, housing, and food for a summer at the Language Schools. He is currently a journalist in Berlin, and writes here about Language Learning in the Age of AI.
Haley chose Middlebury because she knew she had a long way to go in the language, and she wanted the ability to focus solely on Arabic without any distractions. Though it was hard at first when she was forced to jump headfirst into the language, it only took a couple weeks for her to settle in and get used to communicating exclusively in Arabic.
