March 11, 2010
Asian language textbook creators find commonalities in department roundtable
Faculty members in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature not only teach 10 different languages, many also create textbooks for language instruction — and for multiple learning levels, at that. It’s important work, rich in detail, and no single approach fits all situations.
So it was enlightening when the department held its first-ever roundtable discussion on textbook development on Feb. 25. Seven department language teachers, from lecturers to tenured professors, discussed their work as well as trends and challenges in foreign language textbook development. And in doing so, they found a bit of common ground.
Present were Assistant Professor Klaus Brandl and lecturer Nandini Abedin, who create Bengali textbooks; Nyan-Ping Bi, a senior lecturer who works in Chinese; Emily Curtis and Soohee Kim, lecturers who work in Korean; Som Kesavatana-Dohrs, a lecturer who works in Thai; and Desiana Pauli Sandjaja, a lecturer who creates Indonesian textbooks. The event was co-organized by Amy Ohta, associate professor, and Richard Salomon, professor, and it was Heidi Pauwels, professor, who had the original idea. Ohta moderated.
Through the roundtable, the participants were reminded that despite nuances of language, culture and circumstance that make textbook creation different for every language, they also share many similar challenges and goals.
“I think it was a very useful session … in enhancing a sense of community among people in the enterprise,” said Michael Shapiro, department chairman. “And I also think it’s useful in making people aware that they face common problems, common issues.”
Shapiro said people don’t realize that language teachers often have to develop their own instructional materials, “and that can run from very informal materials — the stuff you use for your class — to very professional, high-level instructional materials that are used in programs around the world.”
Pauwels, co-organizer of the session, agreed. “What is unusual is that we have in this department several lecturers who teach lesser-taught languages for which there are no good textbooks in existence, and so they are involved in developing such textbooks. Usually, lecturers are seen as mainly teachers, but in our case … not only are they teachers, but they are pioneers in developing materials that are used nationwide (and beyond).”
Pauwels said she had long thought that the department should celebrate the accomplishments “of so many people who go well beyond the call of duty” and was glad the meeting finally took place. “It was good for everyone to see how others had similar challenges, but in different contexts.”
Co-organizer Ohta said, “It’s probably the first time that all these different textbook developers talked to each other about what they do — it was an opportunity to inspire others, and to bring together this pool of expertise.”
Some of the textbook authors are working under grants and some on their own. Some work from a foundational grammatical sequence while others strive for more story-based organization. Some must deal with multiple dialects that can be mutually unintelligible.
The two-person team creating textbooks in Bengali, or Bangla, is carrying on work begun by a colleague they lost. Faculty member Carol Salomon had a federal grant to develop a multimedia textbook for Bengali along with Abedin and Brandl. Salomon died after a bike accident last March, and her colleagues are completing the work. “It is awesome and cutting-edge in terms of making use of the latest technology,” said Pauwels. Shapiro added that Bengali is “probably the sixth or seventh most widely spoken language in the world, in terms of numbers of speakers. So this is a case of a language of enormous importance — hundreds of millions of speakers — in which there are no basic materials” that are written according to accepted professional standards.
Pauwels said the work of these textbook authors is “quite incredible and phenomenal, and ought to be known across campus” especially in this time of budget cuts.
Of such challenges, Shapiro said, “I will get on my soap box: We have one department whose jurisdiction of language is spoken by 40 percent of the world’s population, and with the kinds of cutbacks we are facing, it’s difficult, and of course the big risk is being overstretched.”
Such issues notwithstanding, the work continues for the language textbook authors in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature, and more roundtable meetings may be held, too. Clearly, this was just the start of an ongoing conversation.
Shapiro said, “I think there’s a lot to this business and the more you realize that we’re all in this together and face common issues, the better it works.”
