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Languages & Literatures

Higher Learning for Her Royal Highness

Graduate student teaches royalty second language.

Michael Foster’s current task is closer than most graduate students get to living a fairytale. He’s teaching a princess how to speak French.

That word “princess” gets tossed around a lot but this is the real thing. His student’s full name is Her Royal Highness (or HRH, in Internet speak) The Princess Reema bint Fahd bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, grand-niece of Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd, though the 15-year-old prefers to be called simply Reema Salman.

The Saudi royal family made a special arrangement with the French department for the girl, who lives in Saudi Arabia, to take an online version of French 101. Foster, a doctoral student with an interest in online education, was assigned the task and he’s found her to be careful and smart, yet far from the typical student.

For most matters Foster deals not with her but her academic advisor, who resides in Italy, or her personal secretary. They’ve requested understanding as the princess’s extensive travels in Europe or boating across the Indian Ocean have delayed a few homework assignments.

Foster says she’s done well so far, however, and she’s tentatively scheduled to finish the course this summer. It will conclude with an oral exam yet to be scheduled when Foster tests her French via Internet video connection.

“She’s been a typical student from the couple of interactions I’ve had with her,” Foster says. “She’s submitted her work on time and she seems like a very conscientious student from what I’ve gathered from her emails from her advisor and her secretary. She wants to be sure she did the work correctly.”

This isn’t a typical course. Foster and a computer technician designed a website where the princess can log on for reading, workbook assignments, tests, and sound files of Foster speaking French. He hopes it becomes a model for future use.

Foster laughs that a self-described “normal, regular guy” such as himself would have the opportunity to teach a princess, though he tries to treat her as he would any other student. He hasn’t bothered her with questions about herself—he hasn’t even asked why she chose the University of Illinois for her French lessons when she could have easily just traveled to France (the princess was unavailable to answer that question for this story). Foster assumes it’s because of the University’s outstanding reputation for its second language programs.

Regardless of the reasons, he has taken a memorable experience and turned it into a meaningful one.

“It’s been really interesting to take from it that I can create an online class,” Foster says. “Hopefully when she finishes the coursework this summer I can use this as an experiment for future programs like this with teaching.”

By Dave Evensen
September 2009