Darby School District might boast more Spanish and Italian speakers after an exchange teacher bringing foreign language education to students during a five-year visa makes her mark.
Marion Erkinger, from Austria, is in Darby teaching a survey of foreign languages classes, as well as German, Italian and Spanish, for grades 5-12. She is in America on an exchange visa that will allow her to stay here for five years.
“To come here and teach here, I had to apply for a visa,” Erkinger said. “I couldn’t go directly to a school but found an American organization that would sponsor my visa. It is a J1 visa through International Teaching Exchange Services.”
Erkinger studied languages at the University of Vienna. She has degrees in educational studies for Italian and Spanish and a master’s degree in translation and interpretation in Italian, Spanish and German. She also speaks French but is not licensed to teach it.
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Erkinger said she is happy in Darby and hopes to remain here.
“It is very nice and very interesting,” she said. “It is a lot different, not because of the size, as I have been in a small town in Austria with a small school that was rural, with cows. What’s best is that it is a very new experience. [As a teacher] I’ve found what works well here, or what may work better at home. I can improve my English, which is great. I work with very different students and had to adapt a lot and change my strategies.”
Fifth- and sixth-grade students are a new “interesting and challenging” experience for her, she said. She's also never dealt with such a range in abilities in one class.
She chose to come to Montana because of her love of nature, open spaces and hiking.
“I thought Montana would be great and looked on the website of the Montana Office of Public Instruction to find where they needed foreign language teachers, then I applied,” she said. “Darby was the first one to say I could come. Second was Three Forks, but I decided it would be nicer here.”
Erkinger brought her daughter Florentina, 15, with her.
“For her, it is great because it is a lot, lot easier,” Erkinger said. “Montana is the greatest experience she’s ever had. For her, it is very relaxing.”
In Austria, Florentina was required to take 16 different classes each day and since the COVID pandemic started, all were taught online. Darby only requires seven classes per day. Students in Austria are also tracked from a young age and their career choice is decided in early grades. At age 10, students decide if they want to go to a grammar school, which is harder and attended by “more talented kids,” she said, and by age 14 they decide again to go to a technical school, project management, or tourism.
“In Austria, the schooling is focused on businesses already, it is not just a high school. Florentina’s school was focused on project management and her classes were computer, how to make a film, how to edit a video, how to do computer-animated drawing, project management presentation, accounting, German, English, Italian, geography, history, physics and all that. It was really very hard.”
Erkinger said that in Austria once a student finishes high school they can still choose to go to a university.
“You just have an additional profession you could work in after high school already,” she said. “But you could also say, ‘No, I want to study architecture even though I did tourism first.’ You can still decide later.”
Now that she has experienced American students, Erkinger’s advice to them is to be more open-minded toward different cultures and world experiences.
“I’m hoping I can help with that a little bit,” Erkinger said. “I very often encounter resistance. Students will say, ‘I don’t want to learn anything. I don’t want to learn a foreign language.’ They should be willing to learn. Often it is more difficult with the attitude you bring in. If you come in closed, you’re not going to learn anything.”
She advises trying a new language, even though it may be difficult at first.
“Some students are more talented in language, but every student can learn if he tries,” Erkinger said. “At least he could order food in a restaurant if he wants to. I tell them that everywhere you go people are happy that you try their language. If you go to Italy, you are treated completely differently if you just try even a few words.”
Erkinger has traveled the world and spent a great deal of time in other countries to improve her language skills.
“I’ve been to a lot of countries in Latin America, because I wanted to improve my Spanish, Europe and some countries in Africa,” she said.
Surprising to her is school sports because that was not something offered in Austria.
“We have two or three hours of PE a week and nothing more,” she said. “If they want to do more, they have to do it in their free time at a private club. Here the students are out of school by 4 p.m. and are finished with their work but in Austria, they came home at 6 p.m. and still had a lot of homework to do. There would not be time for school sports with all the subjects they have.”
Her daughter participated in cross country at Darby High School this past fall.
Counselor Kurt Kohn said school sports teach more than just the skills needed for that sport.
“They are learning healthy habits, teamwork, perseverance,” he said. “They are learning what it is like to lose, what it is like to win. The social connections and the opportunities to travel to different cities and eat in different restaurants.”
He said the teacher exchange of Marion Erkinger has been great for Darby School.
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