Villeage Voices: Living a New Life for Every Language You Speak

By Brian Jacobs

Brian Jacobs has been at The Lawrenceville School for nearly 16 years and is the Chair of the Language Department where he teaches French. Jacobs is also a Faculty Interviewer in the Admission Department and Faculty Advisor to Lawrenceville’s student Gender and Sexuality Alliance club. He is a past Head of the McPherson House. In this edition of Villeage Voices, Jacobs talks about how learning a second language can change your life in unexpected ways.

I’m going to be honest with you. I didn’t like French when I started studying it back in middle school.

Maybe it was because I couldn’t understand a word the teacher was saying. Or maybe it was all those difficult conjugations and rules that had so many exceptions. Or maybe it was just a certain… je ne sais quoi. I remember class being incredibly difficult and feeling like I would never get it, no matter how hard I tried.

All seemed hopeless until my junior year when I went on an exchange trip to Lyon, France, with my class and spent two weeks living with a host family. This experience not only changed my life, but it changed my outlook on studying languages. While on this exchange, I was exposed to a whole new culture with different customs, foods, music, TV, clothing, etc., and suddenly all the hard work I had put in to learn French was paying off. It was no longer a question of conjugating verbs but a matter of communicating, and I quickly realized that my French teacher had provided me with the tools I needed to speak with my host family, read a menu, take public transportation, etc. I’m not saying it was easy, and there were certainly many malentendus, but I was communicating.

When I started college a few years later, I planned to be a psychology major, but there was a French professor at Dartmouth, John Rassias, who truly sparked my passion for teaching. Following college, I spent two incredible years teaching English in Lyon before returning to the states for graduate school at Princeton where I completed my doctorate in French.

According to research compiled by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, there are many benefits to learning a language outside of learning about new cultures and being able to communicate with others. Studies have shown that there is a clear correlation between language learning and higher academic achievement, and language learners have increased linguistic awareness, hypothesize better in science, and even perform better on SATs and ACTs. There are also clear benefits when it comes to problem solving, cognitive abilities, and memory skills. For example, speaking more than one language allows me to take a multifaceted approach to coming up with creative solutions to problems.

Throughout the years, my passion for the French language and culture has continued to grow. French has become my second language, and France is now my second home. I married a Frenchman, we speak French at home, and chances are you’ll find me in Nice for any long break. I often dream in French, think in French, and the way I express myself is different in French. Certain words come more easily in my native language, English, while others seem more fitting in French. Even the timbre of my voice is different depending on which language I’m speaking.

There is an old Czech proverb that says, “You live a new life for every new language you speak.” I feel incredibly privileged to have the opportunity to see and explore the world from two very different perspectives, and I’m even more fortunate to be able to share this experience with my students.

For additional information, contact Lisa M. Gillard H'17, director of public relations, at lgillard@lawrenceville.org.