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Name:<\/strong> Stephen A. Long A brief personal bio:<\/strong><\/p>\n I received my undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Classical Studies from Virginia Tech and my MA in Classics (Greek Language and Literature) from the University of Virginia.\u00a0 Following several years of both teaching high-school and pursuing additional graduate studies, I came to Notre Dame for the Master of Theological Studies.\u00a0 I am now pursuing a PhD in Notre Dame\u2019s Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity program.<\/p>\n Why this summer language abroad opportunity is important to me:<\/strong><\/p>\n I hope to acquire proficiency in German primarily in order to interact with modern scholarship written in German and to participate in academic conferences conducted in German. My discipline\u2014Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity\u2014requires a thorough knowledge of several ancient languages in order to do research in the primary sources investigated by the field.\u00a0\u00a0 Equally necessary, however, is a mastery of German that is thorough enough to enable a swift and smooth reading of contemporary international (especially, German<\/em>) scholarship.\u00a0 Additionally, European scholars continue to host important academic colloquia in my field\u2014so an ability to speak German proficiently enough to participate in the conferences sponsored by German-speaking scholars will considerably widen the scope of my scholarly interactions.<\/p>\n What I hope to achieve as a result of this summer study abroad experience:<\/strong><\/p>\n I have already invested considerable effort toward acquiring the needed reading proficiency in German:\u00a0 as an undergraduate, I took a year of beginning German; and as a doctoral student, I have audited two semesters of intermediate German here at Notre Dame.\u00a0 Although this preparatory work with the German language provides a solid basis for the reading knowledge of the language that is one of my career goals sketched above, my ability to actively produce the spoken language and to communicate with ease lags some distance behind.\u00a0 I hope that this summer in Germany will occasion a large step forward in my speaking ability.<\/p>\n My specific learning goals for language and intercultural learning this summer:<\/strong><\/p>\n My plan for maximizing my international language learning experience:<\/strong><\/p>\n The city of Freiburg, where I will be studying, affords numerous opportunities for daily interaction in German in the surrounding university city.\u00a0 I plan to practice German and become better acquainted with German culture through visits to the city\u2019s numerous museums:\u00a0 the Augustiner Museum and its collection of medieval art and 19th<\/sup> century paintings; the Wentzinger House Museum of City History and its displays dedicated to the city\u2019s monasteries, university, and guilds; the Colombischl\u00f6ssle Archeological Museum with regional exhibits dedicated to antiquity and the middle ages; and the Museum of Modern Art.\u00a0 I hope to tour the city\u2019s architectural attractions: the city\u2019s gothic cathedral, the Old and New Town Halls, the City Gates (Schwabentor, Martinstor, and Breisacher Tor), and the campus of Albert-Ludwigs-Universit\u00e4t.\u00a0 I also plan to attend at least one of the organ concerts that are scheduled to be performed in the city cathedral each Tuesday\u2014and I also hope to attend a play performed in the Freiburg Theater.\u00a0 Additionally, the Goethe Institute of Freiburg regularly schedules cultural day-trips to nearby M\u00fcnstertal, Staufen, St. Peter (as well as to Heidelberg, Strassburg, Basel, and Z\u00fcrich)\u2014and I will participate in as many of these trips as possible.<\/p>\n Reflective Journal Entry 1:<\/strong><\/p>\n I arrived in Freiburg on Aug. 2, after flying into Z\u00fcrich, Switzerland. Getting here was a pleasant adventure: though I made the thoughtless mistake of getting cash out of an ATM in Z\u00fcrich\u2014only to remember too late that Switzerland isn\u2019t on the Euro\u2014I nevertheless made all my train connections without mishap and enjoyed my first-ever trip by rail. This part of Germany is green and mountainous, and reminds me very much of where I grew up in southwest Virginia. Since I couldn\u2019t check into my hotel until late on Saturday afternoon, I walked around Freiburg (luggage in tow) and finally sat down in a park to enjoy the weather and a book. That initial walk in the city\u2014and the further acquaintance I\u2019ve made with the city during the past week\u2014confirm that Freiburg is a lovely place to be. I\u2019ve walked around the old city quite a bit, viewed the old city gates, and\u2014my favorite site so far\u2014gone up into the tower of the city cathedral for a tour.<\/p>\n My first week at the Goethe Institut has been encouraging. Since I already have some knowledge of the language, our instructor moved me up to a higher level of German than the one in which they initially placed me. I appreciate the desire to use students\u2019 time here well, and I am glad to have moved up\u2014though I had just begun to feel comfortable with my fellow students in that initial class, and now I have to start over with getting to know people\u2026 I\u2019ve certainly learned some new grammar and new vocabulary through our classroom instruction, but I do find the linguistic challenge of (say) shopping in the grocery stores and the bakeries, of conversing with our tour guides on a train excursion to nearby Baden-Baden, and of attending Sunday liturgy in a local church, to be worth every bit as much as the time in the classroom.<\/p>\n Reflective <\/strong>Journal Entry 2:<\/strong><\/p>\n My new class has gone very well, and I\u2019m quite at home both with my fellow students and with the city of Freiburg. I\u2019ve been pleased that there are relatively few Americans around, forcing me not to rely on English. (I must say that the stereotypes that people have of Americans are rather sobering: people seem to expect us all to be arrogant, loud, and overweight.) My class is a good mix of Italians, Japanese, Norwegians and Romanians. I feel at ease visiting the cafes near the Goethe, and speaking is starting to feel much more comfortable. Two cultural excursions have been particularly noteworthy this week. On Thursday we visited the Augustiner Museum, with its impressive display of medieval art and sculptures from the city cathedral. Then on Sunday we visited Wasserf\u00e4lle Triberg, Germany\u2019s highest waterfall. The town of Triberg has a museum dedicated to the history of the Black Forest region, and I found this more interesting than the waterfall itself\u2014though the waterfall was lovely, of course.<\/p>\n I think my best discovery so far in regard learning aids for German has been\u2026the detective novel. Early in the week our class used a brief history of the German detective novel as the springboard for conversation, and afterwards I asked the teacher if she could recommend a recent German author or two. I\u2019ve picked up a Krimi by Rainer Gross\u2014and I\u2019ve been both surprised and very pleased at how my reading speed is really picking up! I think detective novels might be a fun way to pick up vocabulary in the future.<\/p>\n Reflective <\/strong>Journal Entry 3:<\/strong><\/p>\n I have discovered that Freiburg has some really excellent used bookstores, I have returned to one in particular several times already\u2026 It certainly does make one nervous to attempt purchases in a foreign language\u2014and this gives me great sympathy for internationals living in the US. German merchants have, so far, been very accommodating. I also get almost daily practice with shopping conversation by stopping at a bakery along my morning route to class. I probably won\u2019t be able to quite making this remark: Germany has some excellent(!) bakeries.<\/p>\n Reflective <\/strong>Journal Entry 4:<\/strong><\/p>\n The big excursion for the week was Saturday\u2019s trip across the border to Colmar, France. The old city there is very beautiful. I especially enjoyed the bakeries and markets with all the fresh produce. (I would say something similar for Freiburg, which has many good bakeries. However, the best bread I found in Freiburg was that sold in the Saturday morning farmer\u2019s market in a park near the Goethe Institut\u2019s guesthouse\u2014that bread was truly outstanding!) In Colmar I visited the Unterlinden Museum. The Unterlinden\u2019s general collection was not very strong\u2014however, the Isenheim Altarpiece was quite impressive, as was the historical information about the Antonine monks of the monastery and their care for the sick.<\/p>\n The Freiburg Goethe Institut arranged several tours to try local food and to talk with its producers. To anyone visiting the Black Forest, I recommend the Schwartzw\u00e4lder Kirschtorte! We also received a tour of one of Freiburg\u2019s oldest breweries and heard from the Master Brewer (in a somewhat difficult to decode south-German dialect!) the history and the fascinating details of beer production. On another evening, we enjoyed a wine tasting lead (in a somewhat slower and more pedagogically useful German) by a local gentleman whose family was active and prominent in the region\u2019s wine production and export. These excursions have been very useful for practice in listening to a variety of German speakers. Also, I have been listening regularly to German news reports on Deutsche Welle\u2014and this has helped my comprehension enormously.<\/p>\n Reflective <\/strong>Journal Entry 5:<\/strong><\/p>\n During my three weeks so far in Germany, I\u2019ve come to appreciate what my German instructors this past year at ND termed \u201cRedemittel\u201d\u2014that is, stock phrases that one can use whenever one (for example) expresses one\u2019s opinion, or makes a presentation, and so on. (I.e., they\u2019re all those phrases one uses without thinking such as: \u201cMy topic is\u2026\u201d, \u201cFirst, I will explain\u2026\u201d, \u201cThen I will talk about\u2026\u201d, and \u201cFinally, I will argue that\u2026\u201d, etc.) We have had assignments at the Goethe requiring us to work on various small presentations\u2014and these have really driven home for me the utility of having a good stock of these phrases committed to memory. I\u2019ve resolved that when I return from Germany I am going to work harder on memorizing more of them\u2014they\u2019re just so useful! I\u2019d also recommend this for anyone thinking about going abroad for language study\u2026<\/p>\n Reflective <\/strong>Journal Entry 6:<\/strong><\/p>\n My time here in Germany is nearly finished, and tomorrow (Aug. 29) I return to the USA in order to dive immediately into a new academic year. I think I\u2019ve made the most progress in my German over the last week or week-and-a-half\u2014i.e. now that I am really over my embarrassment in speaking. I think the Goethe has been very effective at getting me to speak, and I heartily recommend its program. My speech is far from smooth, but it is far (far!) better than it was before I came.<\/p>\n In addition to the classroom practice at conversation, my German has been helped by watching several films over the course of my four weeks here at the Goethe. Films of varying difficulty were selected for us: we\u2019ve watched an adaptation of a work of literature (e.g. an adaptation of Schiller\u2019s \u201cKabale und Liebe\u201d\u2014without German subtitles and definitely too difficult for me really to understand), a romantic comedy (\u201cMaria, ihm schmeckt\u2019s nicht\u201d\u2014pretty funny!), and several things in between. And in addition to reading my German detective novel, I\u2019ve also listened to two somewhat simplified audio-book detective stories. Finally, in this last week I\u2019ve had opportunity to ask about issues that are on the German people\u2019s minds, and to listen to the responses: worries about whether racism is still an issue in Germany, worries about immigration, worries about nuclear energy and resource extraction (especially, fracking), and worries about the contents of trade agreements with North America. I\u2019ve really enjoyed this time in Freiburg, and it\u2019s been very helpful for me! Again, I\u2019d unreservedly recommend the Goethe Institut in Freiburg.<\/p>\n Reflection on my language learning and intercultural gains:<\/strong><\/p>\n I found the chance to study abroad in Germany tremendously rewarding. Even though I had worked some on German before going over, I still found that I had a great deal of embarrassment and (mental) awkwardness to get over before the pace of language learning really took off. Fortunately, being in Germany at the Goethe provided many opportunities to get over the embarrassment and just enjoy being with native speakers and fellow students of German. I found no great difficulty in adapting to and enjoying German culture. I also think that the goals of my language learning were met to a very large extent: my vocabulary and ability to express myself regarding travel, grocery shopping, cooking, etc. improved immensely. In regard to the more overtly academic goals\u2014communication regarding hermeneutics and \u201csacrifice\u201d\u2014I did make progress there, but it was an indirect progress. I took an academic article by Walter Burkert with me on my trip, and did read some of it. However, since it was slightly heavy going, I decided to try reading something a little lighter instead (i.e. a mystery novel), and I really think this was a good choice: the increased proficiency with ordinary prose syntax makes me much more confident to approach dense academic prose again.<\/p>\n Reflection on my summer language abroad experience overall:<\/strong><\/p>\n I appreciate the orderliness of Germany: the train systems were efficient, the city layout and transportation were effective, and the grocery stores and recycling programs were sensible. I come back with a huge respect for city planning and urban living that make room for foot traffic and bicycles. I also appreciate the German pride in things that are produced locally and skillfully. I would encourage those considering applying for an SLA grant to get even more involved in local life than I had time to do: attend church services more often (I only got to go twice), engage the people at farmer\u2019s markets about their products more (they really care about what they produce)…and don\u2019t forget to buy a cloth grocery bag as soon as you get to Germany.<\/p>\n How I plan to use my language and intercultural competences in the future:<\/strong><\/p>\n I am enrolled for another German course here at ND this Fall. I hope to further perfect my German by continuing onward in the German department. I also hope to read more German novels, watch more German films, and listen to more news reports in German. It\u2019s a great and (actually!) beautiful language. I hope to live there for a year at some point in my career, if possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Name: Stephen A. Long E-mail: Stephen.A.Long.74@nd.edu Location of Study: Freiburg, Germany Program of Study: Goethe Institute Sponsors: Mark Moyer, Patrick and Lindy Salvi, Cathy Stock A brief personal bio: I received my undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Classical Studies from … Continue reading
\nE-mail: <\/strong>Stephen.A.Long.74@nd.edu
\nLocation of Study: <\/strong>Freiburg, Germany
\nProgram of Study: <\/strong>Goethe Institute
\nSponsors: <\/strong>Mark Moyer, Patrick and Lindy Salvi, Cathy Stock<\/p>\n![\"Pre-Departure-Profile-Graphic\"](\"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2014\/files\/2014\/04\/Pre-Departure-Profile-Graphic.jpg\")
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