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Barnard
Students Advance German Language Skills Through Filmmaking
 Professor
Irene Motyl is leading her advanced German language students
toward a closer understanding of the German media and world
view today by developing their skills as fillmmakers—sending
them out with digital video cameras to interview German-born
artists, writers and scholars in New York City in their native
language.
With its rich offering of European cultural events and its
international population, New York City is a perfect stage
for Motyl’s innovative approach to language instruction.
The result is an extraordinary lesson in the nuances of another
culture and a deeper understanding of language as it is used
by the media, according to Professor Motyl. Her students are
learning how to use their advanced German language skills
professionally and at the same time, they are learning the
basic skills of filmmaking and journalism, including interviewing
techniques and film editing.
Motyl’s students begin the course, "New and Views:
Reception, Reporting and Video Production," by studying
the elements of various types of German media—news broadcasts,
documentaries, newspapers, and the Internet.
"Media language is a different language in itself,"
Motyl says. "But it’s important because news broadcasts
say a lot about a country. If you are unable to understand
the news, you are not one of the people."
Stressing the four language-learning skills—listening,
speaking, writing and reading—she has her students write
three-minute news flashes on a topic of their choosing. And,
after a few introductory lessons with digital cameras and
iMovie, the Macintosh film editing software, the students
film and edit the pieces. Reviewing the videos later allows
students to critique their style, grammar, story structure
and, of course, pronunciation.
"Learning how to put a news program together was not
only interesting but quite thoughtful, and made me really
think about how news is put to us and how news should be viewed,"
says Allison Kissel, a recent Barnard graduate, who took Motyl’s
course.
"Teaching is an art form," says the Austrian-born
Motyl, who is the former president of the Metropolitan New
York chapter of the American Association of Teachers of German.
"When I can be creative in my teaching and see how students
perceive that so they can learn better, that really excites
me."
The study of German has been steadily declining throughout
the United States, which makes classroom innovators like Motyl
all the more notable. "For those who do take it, we want
to offer them more than just the language," she says
of German students.
After thorough critiquing their initial film sessions, students
develop final projects, contacting potential subjects, conducting
the interviews, and editing the actual video pieces. Motyl
is always picking up brochures and information on current
happenings around the city to provide students with leads
and ideas for the project. Her students have interviewed Mathias
Koeppel, an artist exhibiting at the German consulate, journalists
Daniela Martin and Lorenz Wolffers (editor in chief) from
Aufbau, a New York-based German Jewish newspaper, and
Hildrud Schultz, from Icestorm International, an expert on
East German film
Motyl has directed Intercultural Teaching Practicums for graduate
students from the United States at the Universities of Berlin,
Bielefeld, and Munich and has conducted numerous teacher training
and faculty development seminars in New York City, Boston,
Atlanta, Montreal, and other cities.
Her forthcoming book, Lernszenarios Mittelstufe, a
textbook for intermedia German study, will be published by
Houghton Mifflin next year. The book, which she has already
started using to teach her second year German students, teaches
in cultural rather than grammatical units.
—Elissa Matsueda
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