(singing in foreign language) - There is no other place like this in the United States or really in the world to my knowledge.

(singing in foreign language) When I talk about the Concordia Language Villages, our mission is to inspire courageous global citizens where you could come into the wonderful Northwoods of Minnesota and experience these culturally authentic sites, this deep immersion learning.

(upbeat music) - No one day is alike another.

Currently, we have 14 languages for the youth programs in the summer.

The Scandinavian languages that are prevalent in this region, of course, German, French, and Spanish as primary languages for, taught in the schools.

We're the only program that offers a high school credit course in the four weeks in the summer, in the country in three different Asian languages, so Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

And then there's a number of other languages including Arabic and Russian, Spanish or Portuguese.

(upbeat music) - So what we're, what we're doing at the Villages, you know, and it's evolved in those 65 years, but it's essentially recreating a natural language learning environment.

So they're hearing the language spoken around them, whether or not they understand, whether or not they can reproduce that language, you know, immediately.

And they're having real opportunities to use the language, right?

So buying something at the store, right?

You're not gonna get the thing until you get your money out of the bank and you ask for the thing in the language.

And of course, all that usage is supported lovingly by staff.

If you want the butter that's on the far end of the 16 person dinner table, you're gonna ask to have the butter passed in the target language, be it German, be it Danish, be it Japanese.

- This is actually year 10 for me.

It's kind of like a like second home away from home.

It's somewhere that I have come back to for over half of my life every summer.

There's so many familiar faces that I see.

I'm going into senior year this year, but I've actually already been accepted to college, and I think this is likely what got me in.

So I'm gonna be going to Middlebury College in February.

I'll be finishing my last semester of high school and then going to college.

And it was pretty much (foreign language) and learning French and studying abroad that got me in.

So this has already changed my life.

- I really like to travel, and I know a lot of countries speak French, so learning French really helped me speak French to the other, in the other countries that I would like to visit.

So like France, of course, but also like there's a lot of African countries or countries in Europe too that speak French.

So you can travel a lot and know like the culture of those places.

So it's really nice.

What I like about the Concordia Language Villages is that it's immersive and so it's really easy to learn.

And how we sing songs, it's really easy to learn French and especially for if you know French already or if you're like a newcomer.

So if like you're learning a language for the first time or if you already have experience.

(upbeat music) - In addition to our youth camps in the summer, we have a whole series of events throughout the winter and fall, fall and spring, including family camps where multi-generational families come and really experience the same sort of thing, but with a family unit.

Or you can come to an adult only camp.

So you're learning German or French or Spanish with other adult learners, and they have a very similar experience.

The principles of outdoor, playful learning.

One of the challenges of staffing at the villages, we need language experts, people who are willing and able to speak the language at meals, with youth, in cabins with youth.

So our staffing includes lots of people who were villagers come back as counselors, college students who are learning language at the college level will come and serve as counselors, and then we also have a J1 exchange visa program.

So we are able to get native language speakers from some of the countries that are represented with the languages we offer.

- Well, Gerry Haukebo is an amazing visionary, right?

I mean in 1961 he'd worked with the College Board of Regents, the President Knutson at the time, Joe Knutson, and convinced him to try this language camp idea.

The camp idea of course, is a big tradition in the US and so that came to mind.

He had experience in Germany where he was a principal at an army dependent school.

For a while he was an education professor at Concordia as well, but he was in Germany.

Observed how kids, his own kids included, were able to learn a language through play essentially, through very unstructured but very natural interactions.

In 1966, there were 800 campers in five different languages.

In '62, they added French and then Spanish and Norwegian the following year, in '66, Russian.

So in '66, the college then purchased this property from a local family, the Batchalders.

They run still today, the Bemidji Woolen Mills.

And we send our families there and to contribute to the economy locally and thank them for being so supportive of the language villages.

They were very pleased when Concordia, of course, then decided to establish itself with the language villages here in Bemidji.

Gerry just had this incredible gift of creating kind of a vision for a program.

A lot of the elements of that first year still exist today in our program.

The name tags people wear when they get a name from the target culture.

Over time, of course, the program has evolved, and we became more aware of what those key elements were for a language village program.

And really a big part of it is the learning community, where everybody is in the same boat where, you know, we have start, people who start from scratch, but also are some people who are more advanced.

(foreign language) - There is an economic impact, right?

We're filling hotels and airplanes and you know, peripheral businesses with our kids coming and going for programs.

But we're also a pretty large employer in the Bemidji area.

We are known internationally for our work in language immersion.

There are certainly other rigorous and excellent language programs for young people in the United States.

I think we are unique in that we're doing that in the Northwoods of Minnesota in an outdoor camp setting and where we're really creating full immersion, rather than kind of modeling after a classroom.

- I mean, it's incredible.

We have alumni in all kinds of positions.

Obviously, some move away from the language study over time, right?

But it still impacts them in terms of having had that experience and having their eyes open to different parts of the world, different experiences, even if they don't continue with that or travel necessarily to that region.

I mean, to me, it's just the idea that the language will just have, and the program concept and the design allows for language learners of all ages and all needs to benefit from the program.

- I've learned so much French from being here, like being immersed in a village like this is like such an amazing opportunity and privilege for us to have here in Minnesota.

When I talk to people and tell 'em how I've learned French, they're like, "Oh, that's in Minnesota?

That's crazy."

And so it's such a lovely opportunity to be here.

- I actually was working with some villagers at one of our villages last week.

They were a little bit kind of down in the mouth, having a rough day.

So I went over and met with them and one of them said to me, "Well, why do you do this job?

Why do you stay?"

And I was like, "Well, I have got an answer to that question."

It is incredible work.

It makes you believe in the human capacity to share, to create, to create peace, to learn each other's languages and cultures, to find common ground.

That is incredibly satisfying.

- [Narrator] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008.

And by the members of Prairie Public.