In order to fulfill a program requirement, Weinberg junior Callie Berthold started going to the Hebrew language table during her freshman year.
In Spring Quarter, Berthold said, the table featured a mock Israeli restaurant with a menu in Hebrew alongside games and Israeli cultural foods. The mock restaurant gave Berthold the opportunity to engage in conversation with peers of different levels of fluency, and she discovered that she enjoyed the cultural aspect of the table.
“I think one of the best ways to learn is to be immersed in something,” Berthold said. “And I think that it’s kind of like a mini immersion. They always say going to a new country is the best way to learn a language, so it’s kind of like replicating that experience.”
Throughout dining halls and classrooms, language tables offer an authentic experience for immersion in different cultures and foster a sense of community among language learners.
Language departments across NU offer tables where students have the opportunity to engage in activities and conversations with others learning the same language.
The Middle East and North African Languages Program is among those that offer a table in Kresge Hall. The activities vary by department and day, all there to encourage students to speak the language they’re learning in a conversational setting, Hebrew Prof. Hanna Tzuker Seltzer said.
“The beauty about this is that students can teach each other. Students can learn from each other,” Seltzer said. “There’s lots of interaction between the students.”
The Hebrew table meets biweekly, usually in the evenings. Other tables, like the French table, meet during lunch, and department faculty are currently adding additional times to better fit students’ schedules.
The tables are an informal setting for students to practice their target language outside of the classroom without worrying about making mistakes, French Prof. Margaret Dempster said.
“The best is when the students are the participants and are speaking naturally, and that’s what we want to foster,” Dempster said.
Dempster, who also serves as director of the French Language Program, said that from beginners to native speakers, students experience a plethora of different accents and speaking styles while talking about everyday subjects.
Those currently enrolled in French classes participate alongside those who may have taken a class in the past or are native speakers, she said.
Depending on students’ proficiency levels, the professors either provide a conversation starter or allow the students to talk without a prompt about what interests them. Their goal is to let the conversation flow and be there for support if the students need it, French Prof. Aude Raymond said.
These types of interactions create a meaningful community dedicated to language learning, said Seltzer.
“We are all in this together,” Seltzer said. “We have a shared purpose. We all come from very different places and backgrounds, but we all want to learn together, and we can all learn from each other.”
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