A Conversation with MMLA's Director

“In immersion learning, every moment is a teachable moment.”

Roberto d’Erizans is Director of the Middlebury-Monterey Language Academy. He holds a master’s degree in Spanish from Middlebury College, and a B.A., magna cum laude, from Wofford College. Before joining the MMLA staff, Roberto chaired the Modern Language Department at the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut , where he was also a dorm parent and tennis coach. For five recent summers, he held various leadership roles, including assistant dean of students and director of curriculum, with Exploration summer academic enrichment programs for middle and high school students.

The unique power of immersion learning

How does immersion study differ from classroom learning?

In MMLA’s month-long immersion program, students spend over 240 hours learning and using the language. That’s more than a year in a regular classroom setting. With the Language Pledge, we complement and reinforce classroom instruction by making the language part of every aspect of life. Students live the language they’re learning.

When you come to MMLA, everyone is there for language learning—and everybody stays in the language. There’s a will to learn, and we create an environment that supports and encourages this. We’re also introducing our students to life on a real college campus. This, too, reinforces the message that we are a community dedicated to real learning.

Isn’t study abroad the better option for learning a language?

When you study or travel abroad, there’s a strong temptation to stay within a “bubble” of speaking English. At the MMLA, the Language Pledge forces you out of that bubble. The combination of being involved in classes and projects and daily life with the language really gets you learning at a fast rate.

I think studying abroad is important; but foreign study is most effective when it’s preceded by a strong language immersion. That way, the student has both the skills and the motivation to really use the language once they’re abroad, rather than staying in the English-speaking bubble. This is why MMLA is great preparation for study abroad.

Our program builds on the 95-year expertise of Middlebury College, the U.S. leader in immersion education—and for many years, Middlebury’s summer Language Schools have been very successfully preparing undergraduates, graduate students, and adults for study, work, and travel abroad. So we’ve known for years that immersion learning works at the college and adult levels. With MMLA, we’re now finding that younger students can also succeed at meeting this challenge.

“We’re safe, supportive, and serious about language learning.”

How well can immersion learning work for teenagers?

High school and middle school students come to this with a freshness and determination that makes them ideal for an immersion program. Students in this age range are often more flexible in their learning, and more adaptable to new circumstances. With the safety and the support that we provide for them, middle and high schoolers are ideally suited to meeting this challenge.

How do you prepare beginners for the Language Pledge? How do you make it safe?
We start by providing a lot of transparency and clear information about what to expect when you arrive. Knowing what this is going to be like really does ease people’s minds. Second, we hire faculty members who are middle and high school teachers, who understand learners in this age range and know how to work with them. When students arrive, we make sure they feel comfortable and are having fun being engaged with this learning. We help them through the challenges by breaking those down into achievable tasks.

We also adapt the Language Pledge to students’ ages and skill levels. We provide some flexibility during the first week, then we gradually decrease that until the experience becomes a “24/7 language classroom.” We always make sure students are doing okay. We offer individual attention and time—and at any sign of distress, we act on that. 

The most important thing is, our students don’t feel alone. We’re all in this together! Students and faculty support each other through the whole process. It’s always a group effort—because it takes everyone to create an immersion program. As the month progresses, our whole community grows more and more motivated to learn, to meet these challenges together. We’re safe, supportive, and serious about language learning.

Combining an immersion program with a creative curriculum

What do you really mean by a “24/7 language classroom”?
In an immersion program, a great deal of the learning takes place outside the classroom. When you eat a meal, you’re speaking to your friends in the target language. The simulation of daily life, and the necessity of communicating your needs, really does enhance your learning.

It’s also very important that a lot of our curriculum is based on projects. Students are actively engaged in creating things—and they need to use the language to achieve these task. Doing something creative in a language makes a powerful, personal connection. So when you combine an immersion program with a creative curriculum, every moment is a teachable moment.

How does out-of-class learning fortify the immersion experience?
What you learn in the classroom enhances what you do during the day: it supplements it, and carries it forward. A lot of what we teach is driven by the necessities our students face during the day. A student may ask, “How do you say, ‘I need detergent for my laundry’?” This becomes a teachable moment.

Of course, we challenge our students at all levels. In our advanced classes, students are challenged to conduct research in the target language, to perfect their pronunciation, and to improve their writing, reading, and speaking skills. At the same time, all of our classes—at every level—equip our students to use the language in real life. This is very motivating, and very rewarding.

Rigor and results

How can a language program be rigorous if the classes only last for part of the day?
We don’t subscribe to a traditional curriculum, which gives us a lot more flexibility to teach advanced topics and to go beyond the textbook. Our students come to us with various skill levels, and we create a program in which every student is challenged, can advance, and will recognize the progress being made.

Our classroom topics are diverse and challenging, and our classes are small enough that teachers can push students at different paces while providing individual support. We can assess where a student needs the most work—which area of the language they need to work harder on—and we tailor classroom objectives to those needs.

How much progress can a student expect to make in an immersion setting with MMLA?
To an important degree, this always depends on individual effort and motivation. In the past, we’ve often had students skip one or two levels. If a student has a particular objective, we work with them to try to meet that in a realistic way. We create an opportunity for students to advance at the pace at which they want to advance. We cannot, however, provide individual tutoring to meet the particular curriculum requirements of a student’s regular school.

What is achievable in a four-week summer program? Testimonials have shown that students have come out of our program really surprised at how much they have advanced. We give students the tools, and we empower them to work on their goals.