Inside Institute of Modern Language: Love for language, pursuit of new horizons

Farzana Rahman (not her real name), is a second-year student of French language in Dhaka University's Institute of Modern Language.

Her academic pursuit, however, isn't one driven by a romantic urge for the finer life of Paris or to walk the path of Emily Cooper. 

It's rather due to her poor performance in the admission test for DU.

"I wanted to study international relations or law or English," said Farzana.

"In the beginning, I found it of no interest, but later I got admitted only because I wanted to study at Dhaka University," Farzana explained. 

Many others, who do not secure seats in other departments, are offered the chance to stay with DU and learn a new language.

It's an academic move that can pay off too.

Farzana pointed to job opportunities abroad for French language students. 

The defence personnel from Bangladesh go to Peace Missions in different countries in Africa, where many speak French. Bangladeshi graduates can work in those countries as an interpreter.

"The French language is beautiful," she said.

Many others like Farzana have started to carve a new trajectory for their future in the halls of the language institute. 

Whether it is a love for linguistics or even securing a career in the road less travelled, the language institute offers the best guarantees for each.

Nafis Tehami, an honours 3rd-year student at the Institute of Modern Language, was given the Chinese language (Mandarin) based on his DU admission test performance. 

In the beginning, he did not quite know how studying Mandarin would come to use.

"But now we see that there are many facilities for learning the language," he said. "There are many scopes for jobs and we can be entrepreneurs – or set up a business or work as a copywriter." 

He added, "Although I took the decision [to enrol] without knowing it all, it was a good decision."

He said they have grown a community among themselves to speak in Chinese language. In their cultural course, they were shown four Chinese dramas.

Their teacher asked them to keep listening to the Chinese language and at one stage, they will be able to be fluent in Chinese.

"My goal is [ultimately] to do business because China is leading in trade. And if not business, I can still work as an interpreter in different multinational companies in the country," he said, pointing out that most of the larger development projects in Bangladesh are constructed by China. 

Till now, only one batch has completed a master's in Chinese language. 

Nafis draws motivation from his seniors – many of whom have already gone to China to do a second master's course and many others are working in different multinational companies in Bangladesh.

"Maximum students want to take the opportunity of getting a Chinese scholarship," said Nafis Tehan.

Fahmida Binte Faruque's DU admission performance or low merit list brought her to the Japanese graduate course. 

"I got admitted without having any knowledge of the course and job opportunities, but later I came to know there are possibilities," said Fahmida, who had a limited idea of Japan and its culture confined to Japanese anime cartoons like Doraemon.

In the beginning, the teacher lectured on Hirakana, Katakana, Kanji – the three scripts for writing and speaking in the Japanese language. "Kanji is the toughest of all three scripts," said Fahmida. "Hirakana is taught to write the native Japanese language and Katakana is taught to write the foreign words. Kanji is basically the Chinese language.

"China and Japan are working on large development projects in Bangladesh, there are scopes to get a job in those projects as an interpreter," Fahmida said.

Dr ABM Razaul Karim Faquire, the director of the Institute of Modern Languages, said there are a total of 16 language courses at the institute. Out of those, four language programmes: ESOL, French, Chinese and Japanese are graduate and post-graduate.

"We are thinking about opening graduate and postgraduate level programs for 10 languages including German, Hindi, Portuguese, Korean and Russian," said Dr ABM Razaul Karim Faquire.

In the institute are also the romantics, whose drive stems purely from experiencing a tryst with new words.

Meet Dr Kazi Shafayet Masum, a BCS health cadre official.

In the last 19 years, he has learned 14 languages including French, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. 

Aside from his work as a medical officer at the Central Drug Rehabilitation Centre under the Department of Narcotics Control, he religiously learns new languages as a hobby.

"This year, the Institute of Modern Language issued a circular for the Malay language, so I got admitted for it," said Masum.

In 2004, Masum embarked on his language journey. He learned Farsi at the Iranian Cultural Centre. Soon after, he found out about the Institute of Modern Language, where he went to learn Arabic.

From then on, every year, he always gets admitted to learn a new language. In 2016, he enrolled in a Hindi language course.

"I find learning a new language interesting," said 47-year-old Masum. 

In the non-graduate courses, there are four years of courses: elementary, pre-intermediate, diploma and higher diploma. Masum learned all the elementary courses in the 15 languages. But did not pursue the latter courses.

Dhaka University students from different departments also enrol at IML, mainly to add a new skill to their portfolio. 

"It is like opening an option for my career," said Ashaful, a master's student in the department of accounting at DU. "If I get an opportunity to go to Japan, I will go and can do good in my career."

He recently completed the junior-level course in Japanese and will pursue the next-level course soon. He plans to do a diploma course in the same subject.