Tongues Wag at Pierce Event and Students Gain Fluency

“B onsoir, mesdames et messieurs . “ The host of a French version of “The Dating Game” welcomed bachelors and bachelorettes at Pierce College’s annual foreign language immersion retreat last weekend.

Retreat participants were performing in a variety show to showcase their improved fluency in French and Italian. A belle jeune demoiselle named Coco had the difficult task of choosing between celibataire numero un, deux ou trois.

Coco neatly crossed her legs, encased in black leotards and knee boots, and uncreased her prepared list of questions. The crowd squealed in French.

Ten minutes later she evaluated her possibilities. Would she sail off with a Casanova, “Luigi Baldassare Giovanni Lucaroni Fetuccine”? Or perhaps “le Baron Max von Weinerschnitzel,” who worked out at the gymnasium every day? No, Coco found true love with celibataire numero trois , “Tex Tumbleweed.”

Was it because of his initial brash hello? Je suis un Americain et fier de l’etre . (“I’m an American and damn proud of it.”) Or his endearing French accent with the Texas twang?

‘Home on the Range’

Coco said it was all of those. But her heart beat the fastest when Tex crooned “Home on the Range.”

Donnez-moi un lieu, avec une vache ou deux, ou les animaux sont tous mes freres. (“Oh give me a place with a cow or two where the animals are all my brothers.”)

The variety show was the culmination of a weekend at Cottontail Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains, 2 1/2 days during which students were asked to refrain from speaking English. In addition to performing in the variety show, Pierce students could attend language classes; play volleyball and lawn bowling games of bocce and petanque ; watch movies; sign up for cooking classes and nature hikes, and shop their way through marathon Monopoly tournaments. But instead of Park Place and Boardwalk, players coveted the high-end Champs Elysees and Rue de la Paix.

“We were here just to have fun and not to feel frustrated about the language,” said Fabiana Fernandez, 26, a participant in the Italian language program. “That’s the purpose of this, to lose the fear of talking. Now I don’t have that fear. Whatever comes out, comes out.

“It was just like being in Italy without being there.”

A hike through nearby Malibu Creek State Park was the highlight of the weekend, Fernandez said, because it exposed her to Italian words she never learned in the classroom.

“We laughed at everything and told jokes in Italian--spicy jokes,” she said. “I can’t recall any that can be printed.”

Ron Farrar, chairman of the foreign language department at Pierce, said the retreat provided the 85 students with an alternative to more traditional classroom instruction.

‘Value Only Within That Class’

“If you can eat in Italian, if you can walk in Italian, then you have gained a lot more than you would by staying in the classroom,” he said. “The value of a class is only within that class. There’s nothing to connect it to in your life.”

All participants, who paid $65 for the weekend and stayed in cabins Friday and Saturday night, could receive one unit of college credit. Little formal instruction was included, Farrar said, and students were not required to attend any event.

Mika Mendez, 22, in the French program, said his fluency improved dramatically after the 7-mile hike in Malibu Creek State Park. “They charge a nickel for every word of English we speak,” he said.

The retreat was “a lot cheaper than going to France,” Mendez said. “There were French movies to watch, French games to play, French dreams to have.”

Mendez hopes to use his bilingual skills to further a career as a lawyer. “French is spoken in half the world,” he said. “Wherever you go, there’s always someone speaking French.”

Farrar said he planned the first retreat three years ago because students routinely complained of their inability to retain a language even after years of instruction. He modeled the weekend after Pierce’s 8-year-old retreat for American Sign Language students.

At some colleges, including Pierce, the immersion approach to teaching language has replaced the “direct” or “oral” method that began in the early 1960s, Farrar said. The direct method “was the ‘hola Paco’ type stuff you got in high school. They memorized whole series of dialogues--both parts.” Students would later need an exact cue to provide appropriate responses to phrases.

Teachers at Pierce, which has 1,800 language students, now stress listening and comprehension over structure, Farrar said.

Language immersion was pioneered during the turn of the century by Middlebury Language School at Middlebury College in Vermont, which now instructs students in seven languages. “With immersion, you’re able to gain the maximum amount of knowledge in the minimum amount of time,” said Jon Strolle, dean of language studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and former Middlebury dean. “That’s the main reason why people choose it.”

“It’s not just a Berlitz course where we chat all day,” said Dominique Mancinelli, a French instructor at Pierce and one of four teachers at last weekend’s retreat. “There’s no escape to conjugating those verbs.”

One of the most well-attended events during the weekend was Mancinelli’s French slang class where students learned that s’eclipser means to “eclipse yourself,” or to leave--to split. If someone is a cote de ses pompes , Mancinelli said, they are literally alongside their shoes, or really out of it, confused.

“Common slang expressions are good for students this age,” Mancinelli said. “You don’t find it in your French textbook, but everybody speaks slang.”

Farrar, who taught a class on the history of the Italian language at the retreat, said he noticed an increase in comprehension and fluency in Italian during his Monday classes. The relationships developed during the weekend helped students overcome their fears.

“American students hate to make mistakes,” Farrar said. “During the weekend you get to know people, and you know they don’t care if you make mistakes. When you sit in a class, you’re in your own isolated little world.”