Language Learning and Lifelong Learners: A Call to Humility, Curiosity and Empathy

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2020-04-28

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Language acquisition offers an opportunity for humility, new perspectives, and empathy. Language learning builds compassion for non-native speakers, and provides a sense of how adult students may approach their education. Adult learners have often been leaders in their communities, fields, and families, but pursuing a degree requires taking a path of humility to actualize one’s potential. With reflections on a decade of studying German, Turkish, and Hungarian, including a connection to works of Hungarian literature, this presentation will highlight the lessons language learners share with lifelong learners at Purdue Global. Language can connect one to a mindset. “There is a term in Hungarian, the ‘kiskapu’, which translated directly means ‘small gate’; figuratively it means the side entrance...the way round. It’s a concept dear to Hungarians that you can talk your way out, or talk your way in (Fischer, Loc. 180-182).” The path to self-discovery often means finding a way around one’s initial expectations. This presentation features a call for faculty to new empathy with students. It will offer ideas on how to come to the classroom with delight for curiosity and appreciation for the unknown.

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