The Dexter Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
One of a Kind
Uwe Kind promotes foreign language learning in Dexter
By Sean Dalton, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: February 7, 2008
Uwe Kind has come a long way from his roots as a Berliner, a child and student prior to Germany's separation into West and Communist East and his hometown's division with the erection of the Berlin Wall.
Advertisement
In the following years he has fused his love of music, teaching and language into an art form that is at the same time entertaining and educational.
Kind, whose name means "child" in his native tongue, visited Dexter last week to encourage language learning via his method of movement and participation.
The Dexter Education Foundation sponsored the performance, in which more than 100 Dexter High School and Mill Creek Middle School students participated along with DHS principal Kit Moran and Superintendent Evelynn Shirk.
Dexter was just one stop on an international circuit of concerts and events that took Kind to Kenya, Egypt, Israel and all over Europe and the Americas.
In Dexter his purpose was to teach colloquial German not usually found in textbooks, and do the same for other languages in his repertoire, including French, Spanish, Japanese, English as a Second Language and a little bit of Italian and Arabic.
"I remember in East Germany we had very bad teachers," Kind recalled, telling of his experiences before coming to the United States in 1970.
"I hated it because they didn't really enjoy teaching. I grew up learning Russian as a second language in those conditions and I didn't learn much."
To this day, Russian isn't one of Kind's strong suits.
Characterizing himself as a slow learner with a poor memory, Kind said he began what would evolve into the core of his language teaching concerts as a personal device to help him learn and memorize material.
"I used to make up little raps and songs, remembering grammar tables and chemical tables by putting them to rhythm. I still, to this day, have problems remember material without such a great mnemonic device."
Kind's method brought him great success and took him all the way to a teaching position at the New School for Social Research, which is now known as New School University. It is based in Greenwich Village within New York City.
Introducing the guitar into his classroom was a great success and stemmed from a chance encounter that Kind will never forget.
"I had a blind student from New Zealand, whom I would take to my classes after being asked to by his parents, since he had nothing to do," he said. "He learned German and in exchange he taught me how to play the guitar."
Kind started studying songs while at Harvard University, and even produced "Big Blue Marble," which was turned into a motion picture.
His passion has infused his teaching ever since, and brought him great luck and success.
A former student made him the subject of an NBC news broadcast, which in turn led to an invite to "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" in 1990.
From there Kind signed a publishing contract and wrote two books on German language instruction, and branched out into other projects, such as "Tune into Espanol." His career in teaching language through music has spanned three decades.
Collaborating with Mark Shuffle, a musician behind The Back Street Boys and Eminem, transformed Kind's style from simple guitar to a more contemporary musical style.
"People weren't just listening to my tunes to learn German, but to dance," Kind said. "We had a No. 4 title on the Danish Hit Parade called "Ich bin Cool," which is a rap song that teaches German."
Kind says that while there are many facets to what he does, the simple fact is that he is trying to de-mystify language learning for everyone by making it more accessible and bringing an element of dance and rap into it.
"It's become a cool thing where kids make their own videos on YouTube," he said. "It's fascinating to see so much enthusiasm for a school subject."
Kind promotes language learning around the world, but spoke specifically to American students.
"I think Americans think that the whole world speaks English," Kind said. "That's not true."
In his experience, speaking more than one language is a great advantage and opens up many doors and leads to opportunities.
It's also a great way to build relationships that might not be possible otherwise.
"People in other countries appreciate it, even if you just say a simple phrase," Kind said. "It shows them that you're trying and, in doing so, will widen your whole outlook and perspective."
Check it out
For some examples of Uwe Kind's work, visit www.lingotechtunes.com.
Not all stories are guaranteed to appear
online. The Web edition contains a reasonable
sampling of the print edition stories.
For the most complete news coverage, we invite you to
subscribe
to the print edition of the paper.
Expanded
Web
Coverage
TOP JOBS
