Prof. Dr. Davidescu Sp. Christina Victoria Martha, MA., “Teaching Foreign Language is Like Teaching Language to Babies”

[Unpad.ac.id, 12/12/2011] Prof. Dr. Davidescu Sp. Christina Victoria Martha, MA., the Rumanian-born Professor at Unpad Faculty of Letters, spent her time studying from kindergarten to master degree in her home country, Rumania, Eastern Europe. This lecturer, specifying in Russian Linguistics and Literature, focuses not only on performing research activities, but also on many things related to linguistics.

Prof. Dr. Davidescu Sp. Christina Victoria Martha, MA (Photo: Dadan T.) *

The graduate from Bucharest University, Rumania, is interested in language since her father, who was a lecturer of philosophy and Greek and Latin languages in said university, made her familiar with books on philosophy and language sciences. It was her father who played the important role in her career. Now, she has become a lecturer in the same discipline.

“Actually, I dreamed of becoming a doctor, not a teacher. Back then, I secretly studied in a faculty of medicine. However, God has made a different path for me. When my father passed away, my mother wanted me to follow his career as a teacher. So, my choice of becoming a lecturer was basically my mother’s personal request,” explained Prof. Christina when interviewed in Gedung 4, Unpad DIpati Ukur, on Monday (11/28).

Even though it was not what she really wanted, Prof. Christina was determined to give her best in teaching. She said that basically her career in teaching language sciences, particularly linguistics, was based on languages themselves, apart from her parents’ favor. She is interested in studying languages since that would enable her to communicate with other people who speak different languages.

“At first I was not too interested in linguistics. Instead, I enjoyed studying literature. Then again, for me, less interesting things must have more challenges than those much more interesting. Therefore, I chose to study linguistics. It appears that this field of science offers me something interesting. Also, basically if you know about linguistics, you must know literature, but if you know literature, it doesn’t mean you know linguistics. That’s the good part,” she stated.

In 1975, Prof. Christina came to Indonesia to live with her husband, an Indonesian citizen working as a doctor. In 1985, she became an Indonesian citizen and has studied in many universities ever since. It only took about two months for Prof. Christina to understand Indonesian language, and only seven months to learn Sundanese language.

Prior to serving as a lecturer in Unpad, Prof. Christina taught in Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Hukum Galunggung Tasikmalaya since her husband was working in Tasikmalaya. In Unpad, she gives her best despite the fact that teaching was not her aspiration. She admitted that she enjoyed it. This lecturer in Department of Russian who is proficient in more than six languages has always been teaching foreign languages, especially Russian, to her students through conversation practices.

“Teaching foreign languages is like teaching babies who don’t know the languages at all. If they hear the same things everyday, they will remember and soon enough they will try to imitate them, to speak, and then they will understand,” she stated.

Apart from her activities like teaching, doing research, and participating in international conferences, Prof. Christina is willing to author linguistics books in Indonesian. The limited number of linguistics books in Indonesian shows that there are problems, one of which is that we often believe in foreign authors too much.

Many people believe that if there are already books in English, why should we bother to have ones in Indonesian? Then again, why not? Foreign books do not necessarily mean inappropriate. Indeed, those books can support and help us learn foreign languages. However, looking through foreign people’s view, if we read books in our own language, we are likely to contribute to the science.

“That is why I would like to write a book about neurolinguistics, since such kinds of books have not yet been available in Indonesian. I expect that beside our students read books in our own language, our capabilities can be measured by other people,” she stated.*

Report by: Purnomo Sidik | eh* | translated by aad