Local public schools that cannot afford to hire their own language teachers are still emersing their students in the world of French and Spanish with the help of Dartmouth drill instructors.
It is a program that is under the direction of French and Italian Professor John Rassias and was founded on the urging of a parent in the Plainfield, N.H. school district and later expanded to include a school in Wilder, Vt.
College language drill instructors are currently teaching French to seventh and eighth graders in the Plainfield school district and French and Spanish to fourth through eighth graders in the Wilder, Vt. school district.
"What we are doing at Dartmouth is a treasure that we should share with the whole community. It gives the community an immediate response to a problem, since their budget cannot afford a full-time person, and we can provide a solid answer," Rassias said.
Gail Malsin, enrichment coordinator at the Plainfield Elementary School, said budgetary problems prevented the hiring of a full-time language teacher. The program, in its third year at Plainfield, lets Dartmouth students teach during a free period during the day. The course is considered an extracurricular activity.
Malsin said there is a lot of enthusiasm for developing a school-wide language program as part of the formal curriculum, but that budgetary constraints remain an obstacle.
Before the program with Dartmouth started, neither school districts had a language curriculum, not even as an extracurricular activity.
"I would like to see an expansion of the operation and ultimately have it as an established part of their curriculum," Rassias said.
Patricia Herrera '96 is a third-year drill instructor at the College and a second-year teaching assistant at the Middlebury School in the Wilder district. Herrera said she spends an hour twice each week teaching Spanish to children in grades four through eight.
"I find that these younger students are having a good time learning the language. By teaching a language at such an early age it increases awareness of different cultures," Herrera said.
Herrera said she uses songs in her instruction and that she finds interacting and participating with other students to be a learning experience for her as well.
Rassias said he expects the program will provide the younger students with an introduction to different cultures and languages, which in turn could help them in other areas, like the language arts.
Rassias said he would also like to see the program expand to other schools nearby.
"We have very qualified students at Dartmouth who love to teach and love to relate especially to younger people," he said.
Drill instructors are paid about $15 an hour by the schools at which they teach.
