Feature

US Students at Bangla Summer Institute: My experience

Ms Farah Naz Sattar

What can be more wonderful in overcoming boundaries than an exposure onto the life, language, culture and history of another people? Well, that's what IUB is providing to US graduate and undergraduate students through the Bangla Summer Institute Programme of the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies (AIBS), USA. It's a great way of bringing two distinctly diverse cultures together during the nine weeks long programme at IUB.

Under this programme seventeen students from different US universities came to Bangladesh during their summer vacation to know about Bangladeshi culture, history, tradition and learn Bangla language intensively.

Getting to know things through real-time experiences is a great way to learn. That's the American way of learning! At BSI we got the best of students from different US universities because it is a competitive scholarship programme.

The maturity and self-containment of these twenty something year olds are striking. We Bengalis aren't used to seeing such levels of maturity even in the age group of 30s. Men and women in our country continue to remain in the shadow of their parents even after their 30's, even after they're married and have children.

These boys and girls are responsible- they take responsibility of their own actions. But they are fiercely independent young people. So it was a new experience for me.

I learned a lot from my young American students. Lesson one: their education system is student-centric, unlike ours, which is more teacher-centric. So, the students get to dedicate a lot in the US education system. At the BSI programme, I encouraged them to let me know things like how they'd like to learn, what worked well in the class and what sucked! For me that was a totally new experience and quite unnerving at times. But I guess that's what makes the US system so different.

We started with the Bangla bornomala i.e. letters. I was surprised at the way some of them picked up and produced the sounds so near to perfection. But I realized during the course just how uniquely beautiful Bangla really is!

If I don't mention some of my star pupils, I'll not be fair to them. Nolle Miller, a girl from sunny California, is a perfect description of the golden girl. She is the kind of student a teacher dreams to have. Hard working, sincere, cooperative and responsive, she was the favourite of all. Diana Hochner simply amazed me by her dedication to learning Bangla. Both she and Noelle learned two Rabindra Sangeet and performed at the student's talent show. Diana is interested in cultural and culinary traditions of Bangladesh. Thomas Neal or Tom to all is the most serious minded language student imaginable. He worked so diligently that he could overcome all barriers to learn the language. Because Bangla sounds are very difficult for foreigners to produce.

Twenty-two year old Megan Cohen joined the beginner's class and very soon elevated herself to the level of the second year group by her constant hard work. Her motivation and interest was stupendous. I really respect her ability to achieve so much in so little time.

We had a couple of students from Bangla speaking families. Naheed is a second generation Sylheti and Sabrina's parents migrated to the US from West Bengal. They knew no Bangla, like most other second generation children in the west. But I felt so proud of them when they left, with the highest grades in class. They have come back to their roots. It fills my heart with immense joys that I had been a small part of this.

But IUB is the platform from which all this is being achieved. In the process I have gathered a lot about my own language and culture. We are blessed to be born into such a rich language. The language which gave birth to Tagore, Nazrul, Modhusudan and many great poets and writers. Bangla is a complex language and the people who speak it are lucky to have such a beautiful and rich communicating tool.

(Head Instructor
Bangla Summer Institute)