Introduction

Beginning

On an early summer's day in 201x, I was driving down a country road in northern New England. All I could see from my car windows were barns, cows, fields and farmhouses. I was beginning to worry whether I was heading in the right direction. I had been driving on this country road for a while, so I looked at my clock. I wanted to arrive there before sunset. I wished that I had invested in a GPS. For a graduate student heading off on her first field trip for her dissertation study, however, a GPS just wasn't in my budget. I looked at my printout of the directions. I should be getting very close to Middlebury by now. Comfortingly, a road sign appeared and informed me that Middlebury was a few miles away. Feeling relieved, I laughed cynically at myself. This was not my first time driving to Middlebury. I had taken this road trip – a two-day journey from Iowa City to Middlebury – several times over the past summers to teach at Middlebury College. This summer, as a novice researcher, I would be conducting an ethnographic study for a period of nine weeks. With my teacher's lens replaced by my researcher's lens, I was more nervous and scared than excited and happy to return to my old teaching post.

What is Middlebury?

Middlebury is a small town in northern New England with a population of approximately 6588 according to the 2010 US census. Like many other places in New England it is known as a summer vacation destination. I was sometimes asked by a stranger at a random place, such as a bookstore or grocery store in Iowa City, if I had been to Middlebury when that person saw me wearing Middlebury T-shirts. When I answered 'yes', the response was almost always, 'It's a beautiful place!' with an emphasis on the word 'beautiful.' Yes, indeed, Middlebury is a beautiful place. If I mentioned that I had taught Japanese at one of the summer language schools there, the response was almost always, 'Lucky you! It's a great school!'.

Middlebury means different things to different people. To those who spend their vacations in northern New England, Middlebury is one among many small, yet beautiful, historic towns. Otter Creek, the longest river in the state, divides the downtown into east and west. From the Main Street Bridge which connects the two sides of downtown, you can look over Otter Creek. Along the creek are restaurants where you can dine outside with a view of the flowing river. A little further down the hill you will find a suspension bridge, where you can look over the Otter Creek waterfall as it splashes down right in front of you.

If you continue across that suspension bridge you enter a district called Mable Works. At first glance it looks like an old warehouse, which is not far off the mark. The building was originally constructed as a gasworks in the first half of the 19th century, according to the local museum. Mable Works now houses restaurants, shops and offices. On Saturday mornings the parking lot is taken over by the Farmers' Market. Fresh vegetables, fruit, bread, pastries, cookies, cheese, honey, maple syrup, soaps, crafts, pottery, flowers and other local goods are sold there.

To those who know someone who attended a private liberal arts college in New England, Middlebury is known for its college, one among many great schools in New England. It is a small liberal arts institution founded in the early 19th century, initially as a school to train young men for the ministry, like many other colleges and universities started during that era. In the late 19th century the college became coeducational and in the early 20th century it continued to grow student enrollment, facility size, faculty number, curriculum breadth and endowment value. Middlebury College is now known as one of the leading liberal arts colleges in New England.

For someone like me, who is in the field of foreign language teaching and learning, Middlebury is known for its summer intensive immersion foreign language programs, which are grouped under the general name of the Middlebury Summer Language Schools. Every summer since 1915 the college has hosted its Summer Language Schools in various foreign languages. In the summer of 201x, when I obtained permission to conduct an ethnographic study in the Japanese School, the college offered Summer Language Schools in 10 languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

The Middlebury magic

I pulled my car over in front of the Campus Security Office and walked inside. 'Can I help you?', a woman said in a businesslike tone. Five minutes later, I walked out the office with a parking sticker, my dorm room key and reactivated college ID card in my hand. Middlebury, here I come! My summer at Middlebury had officially begun. I returned to my car and took a deep breath before I started the engine.

The campus was quiet – almost too quiet. I looked for people driving along College Street, heading to Hepburn Hall where the Japanese School was housed that summer. The Language School students would arrive on Friday. I arrived early because I wanted to attend the Japanese School faculty/staff meeting the next morning. The campus would soon revive when the students arrived to participate in the language school. Every summer, approximately 1300 students come from all over the United States and some travel from outside the United States. They gather at Middlebury to study a foreign language for a period of seven or nine weeks depending on the length of their programs.

It was the year after I received my Master's degree when I first taught in the Japanese School at Middlebury College. I was a fresh, young, ambitious and also naïve second language (L2) teacher. Working with many experienced Japanese language instructors I soon felt overwhelmed and incompetent. In those days, in the hallways, on the way to the cafeteria and in informal gatherings I overheard other instructors mention the 'Middlebury magic', referring to the students' language development while they are studying at Middlebury. It is so remarkable that instructors like to joke that it is the work of magic – a magic that exists at Middlebury.

At that time I was preoccupied with my immediate tasks and teaching and did not give any more thought to it, but the idea of 'Middlebury magic' stayed in the back of my memory. Then later, when I was given the opportunity to return to Middlebury to teach, I started to wonder again what the magic was really about. Does such an idea really exist in the context of foreign language teaching and learning? What is the essence of the magic that the instructors were referring to? What is the magic that can only be observed at Middlebury? What was really happening inside the Middlebury Language Schools? These lingering questions led me to pursue my research interest in ethnographic study at...