When Carla Damiano, a former professional basketball player, was recruited as the only American to play on the German team, she knew she wanted to be a German teacher. She didn't want to be an outsider, so she learned the language to get a better understanding of that culture.
And now Damiano, an assistant professor of foreign languages and bilingual studies, helps her students gain an understanding of another culture by acquiring proficiency in a foreign language.
"If you know the language, you learn how to think at least with the same tools the native speakers think with," she said. "It's a door that opens and you walk through it. And you see that culture from the inside rather than as an outsider looking in."
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LANGUAGE LEADER: Carla Damiano, an
assistant professor of foreign languages
and bilingual studies, believes taking a
foreign language opens doors to other
cultures for EMU students. For her
teaching efforts, Damiano was recently
awarded the Ronald W. Collins Award
Distinguished Faculty Teaching I Award.
The award goes to faculty with less than
five years of teaching experience at EMU.
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Damiano, who specializes in contemporary German literature of the post-1945 period, is the recent recipient of the Ronald W. Collins Distinguished Faculty Teaching I Award, given to faculty with less than five years of teaching at EMU. She received a plaque and a $3,500 honorarium.
"It's a great honor," Damiano said about the award. "And I feel very humbled by it because I know there are many colleagues out there who deserve it, and I feel very fortunate. The award serves as a reminder that we, as teachers, should always be striving to do our best and to continue learning so that we can always improve just as we expect our students to improve."
In a classroom, Damiano helps students to express themselves in a foreign language through group and partner activities, and makes learning as authentic as possible. She sets up situations where students have to make a telephone call, write a postcard or talk about their feelings. She makes her students use the language in a simulated function in class so they will be able to use this knowledge later, when the real event occurs.
"I think it is really important that students have a chance to use the language when they are in class," Damiano said. "So, my most basic philosophy is that the students do more talking than I do."
Of the three undergraduate courses she currently teaches, Damiano finds the German literature course most challenging. But she said all of her language courses are fun to teach, especially the beginning course.
"There is no general University-wide requirement for foreign languages," she said. "Most of our students are here because they choose to be here. So when you get the beginning students, most of them are very excited to learn. You're watching them learn their first words. It's like watching the babies take their first steps. That's where you see the most improvement."
Damiano said the most important thing about teaching is to be conscious of time. She tries to end each lesson on time, stick to a schedule and accomplish daily goals. After years of teaching, she has adjusted her demands and has learned to do more with less. But she still wants her students to get the most out of her classes.
"In general, students will give you what you expect of them or what you demand from them. If you demand little, they'll give you little; if you demand a lot, they'll give you a lot," Damiano said.
"I know from class observations and German section meetings that she is a strict and, yet, congenial teacher who always pushes and helps students to do better, learn more and strive for excellence," said Elizabeth Morgan, head of the department of foreign languages and bilingual studies.
Damiano received her doctorate in German language and literature from the University of Oregon, her master's degree from Portland State University and her bachelor's degree in English/secondary education from Boise State University.
She serves as a member of the Grade Grievance Committee and the College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Symposium Committee. Damiano has mentored honors projects and theses, and co-founded the on-campus Undergraduate Fulbright Exchange Scholarship Committee. She has served as faculty adviser to the German language abroad program in Graz, Austria, in 2002, and will do so again this summer.
Damiano thinks of herself as a facilitator more than a motivator and stresses to her students that it is important to build on what they've previously learned. But, at the same time, she helps them to become aware of another culture.
"I think we mature as human beings when we learn another language because we are posed to look outside of ourselves, and we learn to see ourselves as others see us," she said.
