Gildas Hamel –Teaching Statement 2003-04
Lecturer in Classical Languages

            It’s an honor to be nominated for the Excellence in Teaching Award.  I'm presently giving Latin courses at the beginning level, French courses at all levels, and classes in biblical literature and the history of Israel.  I would like to share some of my practical and philosophical reflections.

            In French, I prepare by thinking both of the students, with their individual strengths and acquired knowledge, and of the book we are using, so that students know exactly where we are and what is to be assimilated.  I usually plan four or five activities for each meeting, time them roughly, and use as varied an approach as possible in the classroom.  I consider speaking to be the basis of our work, so I create dialogues that are a little different from those in the book. I bring audio and visual materials, sing and ask the students to sing along, and I turn into an actor of sort sometimes.  The students too are asked to become actors, creating little dialogues with partners, presenting "news," or even putting together a small newspaper in which they write about themselves and recent events.

            I separate writing as much as I can from speaking and hearing, and make it likewise a creative activity.  For instance, I will ask French 1 students, after three or four weeks, to write a postcard in which they describe themselves and their situation to someone who can read French.  For students who don't know anyone who can read French, I might pull the Paris phonebook and distribute addresses at random, and they tell me afterwards they receive puzzled answers!  Or we might visit the Merrill garden, after preparing the vocabulary, before writing about nature.  I use the black board, transparencies that I hand-write before the class so as to use what they have been saying in the previous meeting, and the computer.  I maintain a web page for every class and students know they will find the homework there, links to radio/ TV (I ask that they listen to 5-10 minutes of radio per day from French 2 on), plus voice recordings of stories, poems, and conversations adapted from our daily work.  

            I have had the surprise recently of receiving an email in which an ex-student hoped I was still requiring my classes to learn poems by heart, because this helped her greatly in a difficult moment of her life, when normal language failed her and, in need of worry beads, she could fall back on French poems, the only ones she knew.  They gave her strength, she said, and she now understood that something I had said at the time, nineteen years ago, namely that you never know when a poem might come handy, was not so far-fetched after all.

            In Latin, I use the same basic principles of teaching as in French, minus the speaking, though I've been giving some thought to the notion of speaking Latin.  My method has been more deductive, in the spirit of the book we use.  Still, I like to ask students to generate their own sentences so that they understand the rules better.  We do a lot of sentences--including my own, which often take on a modern political tinge--read sentences and short texts adapted from ancient literature, sing songs and hymns, and use some of the great music that goes with Latin texts.

            This might sound slightly perverse, but I enjoy reading and marking the students' homework and papers.  I like to figure out why they say or write in a given way and make certain mistakes.  I keep notes of these mistakes as I correct, so that I can incorporate the right forms in the teaching, though without pointing out what was the occasion.

            The courses in biblical literature ("Prophets and Poets," and "Genesis" this Spring) are an introduction to many important literary, historical, redactional, and philosophical issues.   I find most rewarding and exhilarating the opportunity to examine important questions regarding our religious and philosophical heritage through the students' eyes, and especially to show that present-day questions are in a continuity with those of ancient commentators such as Philo or Rashi.  In these classes, I do a mixture of lecturing and discussion.  I prepare questions that I submit to students in advance on the readings.  I make web pages continually so that questions, homework, related readings, syllabus, links to religious studies sites, some lectures, time-lines, preparation for midterms and final exams, are readily available.  I expect students to contribute weekly to a discussion newsgroup, as part of their work.  I make myself available too in all my classes, and often create small groups who meet weekly with me, for instance to read Hebrew texts together, speak French, or check Latin homework.

            Teaching has given me occasion to marvel at two things.  The first is the students' desire to learn, which re-awakens in me a sense of mystery and responsibility.  In some students, this desire is highly visible, and I can only hope to do my best in meeting their demands at the highest possible level.  In others, it is not so easily perceived, but I assume it is there and my task is to awaken and foster it.  At whatever level I teach, I think of learning as entering into a magic world.  Pronunciation, learning to read a new language, learning to speak it with random class companions, memorizing the most banal expressions, I think of all these activities as occasions for discovery and thought, both for me and the students.

            The second source of wonderment is that the drama (including a strong feeling of "angst" before class) and joy of teaching can be miraculously renewed, day after day.  For this sense of joy and discovery, I am particularly thankful for the friendship and support of colleagues, whose interests and example provide hope and courage in a constant, generous and stimulating exchange. 

            In response to the students' sense of wonder, my desire is to create occasions or moments of grace, such as the film director Robert Bresson seemed to point to when he gave the secret of his film-making:  "Hide the ideas, but so that people find them.  The most important will be the most hidden."  To prepare a presentation on a text so well and in such a way that students might come to receive and appropriate the ideas without my imparting a ready-made knowledge, that is my ideal.  Their sense of wonderment awakens my own and I feel like a student among them, discovering the world of learning.