A New Year for schools in St. Louis

This week’s guest blogger is Paula Hanssen, Professor of German at Webster University and coordinator of the German School Project Group.

The German school group will meet in early October again to see what we can do to help this project of immersion language instruction succeed for the St. Louis community. This issue is important to me as a German instructor at Webster University, where I see the difference language learning makes in the lives of young college students. I actually started very late in the game with language, not until 7th grade did I dip into the waters of learning Spanish, and then gave up languages completely until a language requirement in college forced the issue. From that first year of language learning, and that first trip to Austria, I was hooked.

The world is open to those who learn other languages, and we all know that research has shown that young learners learn more quickly, with less fear and trepidation, than older learners. If we can start a school in which children learn that it’s fun and important to learn other languages, we can change lives and give those pupils opportunities for travel, scholarship, and work that they might not have otherwise.

I often take students to Europe for short trips, and always get the same evaluation of language education in the States: that we don’t start soon enough, and don’t require enough of our young people to learn at least a bit of conversational foreign language. Most students are shocked at how many people speak English fluently, and wish they could understand more of the world around them in a foreign country. It’s an honor to help with this important endeavor, one I’ll be rooting for and talking about to anyone who will listen. As Wittgenstein, the philosopher/architect from Vienna said: “The borders of my language are the borders of my world.”

Paula Hanssen

Assistant Professor

Webster University