Esperanto-USA

The North American Summer Esperanto Course (NASK) is among the most well-known and prestigious Esperanto immersion programs. This year, NASK will be returning to the west coast, to the University of California-San Diego in La Jolla, CA, from July 9th to July 27th. For more information, you can visit http://esperanto.org/nask/index.html.Two levels of classes (intermediate and advanced) will be held Monday through Friday, and the academic program will be supplemented by a rich variety of evening and weekend programs. All Esperantists world-wide are encouraged to apply to participate in this incomparable experience.

If you don't know much about Esperanto, the International Language, have a look at Esperanto is.... We'll also be happy to send you more information about Esperanto, ELNA, and the NASK summer program if you fill out this brief information request.

NASK is the most intense immersion course offered for Esperanto speakers. There are other immersion programs in England, France, Australia, and the Far East, but none are three weeks long. Because of its prestige and because it's long enough to make an international flight worthwhile, NASK attracts a more international group than other courses. Nothing beats a UK or IJK for a true international experience, but NASK, for its focus and length, will do more for your Esperanto communication skills.

NASK was started by Cathy Schulze in 1970 primarily to encourage American Esperanto speakers, but it has a very international character. It was the first place I saw Esperanto really at work. At local club meetings, English was always a fall-back possibility, but at NASK I spoke with people for the first time in Esperanto that I could not have spoken with in English.

When I arrived in San Francisco in 2000 for my first NASK, I'd just barely finished Esperanto: Learning and Using the International Language. My copy of Gerda Malaperis! was still untouched. But within days of starting the program, I started to get a handle on the language. The teachers and my more experienced classmates helped me with unfailing patience and goodwill. Evening programs gave me a chance to see Esperanto used as a tool, not just a topic, for teaching origami, massage, painting, poetry, and presenting other cultures. Weekend excursions allowed all of us to use Esperanto in context – eating in a restaurant, reacting to an art exhibit, chattering during a hike through a state park – and stretched our vocabulary in ways that a textbook cannot. By the end of the program, I was able to converse with much less hesitation, and I was having dreams in Esperanto!

In 2001, 2002 and 2003 I returned to NASK as a student, this time in the more advanced courses. In 2005 I took on the role of assistant instructor, editing the daily bulletin, La NASKa Fasko, and coordinating the evening and weekend programs. I'll be reprising those duties again in 2007.

This year's NASK will feature two levels of instruction – intermediate and advanced. Lee MILLER, a long-time veteran of NASK's teaching rotation, will teach the intermediate class, and Paul GUBBINS, a three-time teacher at NASK and award-winning Esperanto writer and dramatist, will teach the advanced level, which will concentrate on the study of William Auld, one of Esperanto's most beloved writers, who died in 2006. These instructors bring a variety of perspectives, and they encourage lively participation. NASK is not a school for grammar, but a program to encourage expression and communication in Esperanto, to train better speakers more than better readers.

If you come to NASK 2007 in San Diego, you'll use Esperanto from morning until night:

• Greet people in the morning as you're off to brush your teeth
• Eat together and figure out the Esperanto words for the foods you might not even know in English
• Participate in a classroom setting with teacher-led instruction, small-group work, discussions
• Complete homework tasks to practice reading and writing skills
• Write something for the NASKa Fasko, the daily bulletin that showcases student work
• Attend evening programs (as a presenter or audience member), which can include origami, Go, recently translated Icelandic epics, skits, concerts and sing-a-longs, films, cultural presentations, and much more
• Take weekend excursions to parks, museums, interesting neighborhoods, maybe even across the border

One of the main advantages of NASK is that it broadens the use of Esperanto. The most frequently discussed thing in Esperanto is the language itself, and that's not true of English or any other major language. It's the easiest, because we're all interested in Esperanto. But Esperanto becomes more exciting to me when the differences between Esperantists become more apparent. Learning about another person's culture, ideas, talents, interests, concerns, and habits is invaluable, and NASK offers many, many opportunities for doing just that.

NASK reinforces the idea of a participatory Esperanto culture. I've studied Russian for just as long as Esperanto, but I doubt I will ever make a meaningful contribution to Russian culture. Even at UK it's difficult to feel like you're more than an audience member, unless you're a longtime veteran with interests in many different committees. But at NASK, you have the sense you're not only learning a language, you're contributing something important to the culture of that language. Whether it's through being part of the class discussion, or making your interests or talents or cultural background known in an evening program or article in the NASKa Fasko, you're a valuable part of the NASK and Esperanto experience, and that's why I keep going back, year after year.

For more information, including costs and how to apply, please visit http://esperanto.org/nask/index.html. To see more of what goes on at NASK, visit the websites of previous years, including 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2005.