Ann Maslova Messerer

Ann died at the age of 59 in Sydney, Australia. A versatile and highly intellectual person, she was passionate about her work and was, at different times in her life, a practicing linguist, psychologist, primary school teacher, lecturer at the university, journalist, art lecturer, Russian community activist and – most importantly and persistently -- fighter for truth. Ann wrote a pioneering book in linguistics, "Functional Semantic Approach to Teaching Foreign Languages" and another book (just before she died), "Russian for Everyone," as well as more than 20 other scholarly publications. J. Morgan at Pilgrims, Canterbury, wrote about Ann's first book: "The paper is extraordinary, compelling, awe-inspiring in the dedication Ann has shown to her task. It took me weeks to digest." M. Rinvolucri at Pilgrims wrote: "It is the life's love-work that this paper is a very brief synopsis of."

Ann was born in Moscow in 1937 into a family (on her father's side) of well-known Russian scientists. Her grandfather Academician Pyotr Pavlovich Maslov had developed in 1905 a program of agrarian reform for Russia that won over the proposals of his then political opponent – no lesser figure than Vladimir Ilyich Lenin -- and thus made his mark on history. He was one of the initial idealistic and revolutionary thinkers who was imprisoned by the Tsar and later saved from Stalin's persecution by the involvement of Romen Rolan, a French left-wing intellectual and the darling of Communist zealots who wanted to appear enlightened to the West. Ann's father, Pavel Petrovich Maslov, was a Professor at the faculty of economics and author of many books. In 1930s he was in charge of the first real demographical census in Tuva (part of Mongolia) and the Far North, leading expeditions on horseback. Her brother, Academician Vitaly Pavlovich Maslov, is at present a prominent mathematician working at Moscow University.

Ann's mother, Marina Zvolinskaya, was an actress in Vakhangtov theatre and was friendly with many members of the Moscow's artistic and intellectual elite, among them, the playwright Mikhail Bulgakov.

As a girl Ann lived through the horrors of the World War II, escaping with her mother to the country. Only towards the end of the war her famous grandfather invited her and her mother to stay at the secret “retreat” created as a sort of "brain trust" for Russia. Some of the best-known scientists were evacuated to the mountains in the Alma-Ata region where Ann played with the children and grandchildren of the Soviet scientific Olympus in pleasant surroundings, away from the war zone.

When her parents divorced, Ann's childhood was that of a typical survivor in the communist post-war Moscow. She graduated with top marks from the First Moscow Pedagogical Institute. In the sixties Russia temporarily opened its doors to Western culture during Khrushchev's “thaw”. Many well-known actors, musicians, political figures from the West visited Russia for the first time. Ann, being one of the best students of the English language was offered interpreting jobs. She interpreted for many prominent artists and intellectuals, touring the country with them. Her favorite was Benjamin Britten and she became good friends with him (see below an inscription for Ann by Britten).

Once she toured for many months with the original troupe of the My Fair Lady and with great pleasure watched this play in front of many audiences throughout Russia, literally hundreds of times. At the end Katharine Hepburn who was playing a cameo role of a flower girl incognito presented Ann with the skirt she used when performing.

Like her relatives, Ann devoted her whole life to science and to writing. Ann taught English to some of Russia's top scientists at the Academy of Sciences. She became a personal friend of Nobel Prize winners including Nickolay Semyonov starting a life-long friendship with his family, and Lev Landau. When other scientists like Linus Pauling came visiting from the West, she interpreted for them during their tours and meetings with fellow-scientists.

Ann completed a postgraduate course of study at the University of Moscow, graduating in adult and child psychology and psycho-linguistics. Her first and primary interest in life was in teaching of pre-school children. She studied child psychology and worked on developing truly innovative methodologies for teaching. Her doctorate dissertation in the field of psychological sciences was titled "The formation of the fluent productive speech in senior preschool children (acquisition of foreign languages)." V. Zaporozhets, Director of the Institute, wrote that Ann "…developed an original method and conducted thorough psycholinguistic analysis. The significance of this work goes beyond the investigation of foreign speech; the material presented touches upon the genetic roots [of language]. It is of great importance for the development of methodology for teaching foreign languages."

In 1970, while working at the Scientific Research Institute of Preschool Education, Academy of Pedagogical Sciences education, she completed programs for kindergartens in the whole of USSR. She was convinced that 5 and 6-year olds must be taught in a completely different way, a way that "would make them think, compare objects and events, and create a hunger for knowledge…"

She taught post-graduate program courses at the Lenin's Moscow Pedagogical Institute. With her students she conducted pioneering research in kindergartens in all districts of Moscow. Her lectures dealt with psychological, linguistic and pedagogical issues and methods, leading to the acceleration of the process of the acquisition of foreign language. A. Sokhin, Head of the Languages Laboratory, said: "Up to this time nothing like this work has appeared in the field of psychology in relation to the acquisition of foreign languages…This work is important for the solution of psychological problems and the problems of general psychology; in this research the mechanisms of the origin of speech and mechanisms of the semantic development of the word are being investigated. The research is valuable, and the method can be also applied to the research of native language."

During her years of work a whole network of private classes conducted “underground” was established in Moscow, operating from people's homes where diverse groups of children were being taught. None of the parents ever informed the authorities about the existence of these "underground schools".

Ann had created a general system of teaching children through the medium of games and play, developing an accelerated method for learning foreign languages. Her classes were so popular that pregnant women came to sign up their unborn children ahead of time; there was never shortage of students. "Her classes were not only educational but also a lot of fun", remembers Natasha Sinkov. Ann's teaching methods were original in many ways. She saw the role of a teacher in not leading the students, but in following them by giving them "the nourishment" to digest and to learn. The teacher gives exact, appropriately graded learning material to the students, closely following their process of language acquisition.

Ann devised a system of teaching through games which proved very successful. Visualisation was very important; by changing the visuals, she lead students to form their own methods of verbal and visual cognition. Ann created over 1,200 pictures for every single grammatical step. This systematic method is called "functional semantics". The method was soon recognised as innovative and pioneering.

"In terms of technique, I have been trying to bring two processes close together – the acquisition and the teaching. The teaching is based on the norms and the laws of generally acquiring a language. There are universal patterns of language development in native speakers and in the acquisition of foreign languages. If you look at the natural difficulties and problems, you can see inner mechanisms that make it difficult to learn languages. From this you can create a step by step learning process. Everything indicates there is a universal pattern that is very closely connected with cognitive processes. My methods approximate, make it easier, for a person to go naturally from one stage to the other," Ann explained.

Being strong-minded and high-spirited, Ann must have inherited her grandfather's qualities of a revolutionary. By the end of the 70's Ann was among the staunchest and bravest "refusniks" and dissidents in Moscow. For 3 1/2 years Ann lead the life of a political rebel ignoring the Party’s restrictions on meeting foreigners. Instead, she openly made friends among foreign diplomats and correspondents in Moscow. A KGB tail was on her trail every time she went to a gathering at an embassy; she was threatened many times. In 1981 Ann declared open war against the KGB by planning a political press conference to be broadcast via television to all Western countries, commenting in English on the major party meeting in Russia at that time. Her determination was taken so seriously by the Russian bureaucrats that they allowed Ann to emigrate to the West with her family. Her daughter Alice recalls: "Before our departure from the Soviet Union, we have created a huge bonfire in our yard, to destroy a number of suitcases, containing my mother's manuscripts".

In 1981 Ann immigrated to New York with her family where she worked as a teacher at a school for gifted children. Her colleague Marian Proietti observed Ann's methods of working with children at the school. "Ann's ideas are brilliantly innovative and practical. She is wise, resilient, consistent and creative. The children in her group live in a different environment. Because she is so honest and direct with her class, the children learn to respond in a similar way and they know what is going on. The hysteria and tears are gone. The complications and confusions are non-existent in her presence, and she obviously has an extra sense that is beyond the many distractions of life. She has a lot of experience and she gives the people around them both ‘higher’ things and the things that they need."

In New York Ann played an active role in the Russian Community and was one of the founders of the Russian/English magazine Slovo.

As a resident of Sydenham in Sydney, an area highly affected by the aircraft noise, Ann was an activist supporting the cause of building a second airport outside the city to reduce noise and pollution. As part of the campaign Ann organised and sponsored a champagne party for all the members involved described by Glebe newspaper as "Champagne toasts new year of fight". As George Sydney, the community Centre's president said, Ann had been an "intellect behind the cause, and that's the type we will miss here".

Ann was always interested in native cultures and traditions; she collected Aboriginal paintings and artifacts. In 1987 Ann spent 6 months living in India researching local customs. Just before her death Ann worked as a volunteer teacher with Aboriginal children in Barunga, 100 km from Katherine, in the Northern territory. As Ann observed, for children there "learning is part of life, not a separate thing". Ann wrote: "The nature here is fantastic – you cannot compare it to anything else. I like the people. I was fully able to observe their unusual talents that had allowed them to survive for so many years. They are the oldest people on earth… The problem is that they have different values and goals in their society. I watched people of all ages and tested children in different classes. I also taught at all age levels… My next book will be for them: how to teach reading through games; they have their problems because of the poor teaching methods. I will try to help them."

Unfortunately, time ran out for Ann and she was not able to bring her textbook to fruition.

Ann wrote in one of her poems:

My garland of red roses

Is blown away by the wind…

Droplets of tears on its petals

Reflect the sun's rays…

Then she asks a question of herself, probing her destiny: "Where will my garland land?"

"This remarkable woman encountered many tears, and roses, and thorns, during her life. Her garland of roses touched many shores. The work to which she devoted her whole life was indeed like the rays of the sun, bringing warmth and light for so many people. She even touched the hearts of the little Aboriginal children who will for a long time remember with gratitude the roses of knowledge given to them by this wise and kind soul," wrote Z. I. Lebedeva and N. A. Melnikova in the Russian language journal Australiada. M. Reitman, a close friend wrote: "Ann truly touched our lives and was a great inspiration".

Additional Obituaires

The Sydney Morning Herald

Ann Messerer

Ann Messerer, whose life’s work encompassed lecturing in English at the Moscow Academy of Sciences in Moscow, teaching Russian a the Workers’ Educational Association in Sydney and a stint at an Aboriginal settlement, died on May 29. She was 59.

Dr. Messerer was the author of some 20 studies on the “Acquisition of Language” and presented a popular WEA illustrated course, Russia’s Cultural History.

Shortly before her death in Sydney, she completed a major work, Russian for Everyone. This project, aimed at both teachers and students, incorporates “visualisation” as an innovative contribution to language instruction. It has 1,200 illustrations covering every grammatical step. It is hoped that publication of the textbook will still proceed.

Dr. Messerer’s work with Aborigines comprised two months of volunteer service at the local school at Barunga, 100 kilometres from Katherine in the Northern Territory. The children there, she said, possessed strong observation skills, quick reactions and deep concentration once their interest had been aroused: “For them learning is a part of life not a separate thing.”

Born in Russia, Dr. Messerer first sought to leave the Soviet Union in the 1970s, but more than three years elapsed before permission was granted. Her first stop was the United States, where she taught at a New York school for gifted children. She came to Australia six years ago.

Her approach to language teaching was somewhat unorthodox. She employed “function semantics” – games, verse and jokes – as part of her courses. Her methods were widely praised by British, American and Russian authorities; “extraordinarily effective” was the verdict of one American academic.

Dr. Messerer began her WEA teaching career in 1993 and was subsequently appointed a member of the association’s council.

“She was a passionately enthusiastic teacher,” said Mr. Michael Newton, a WEA lecturer. “She made a great contribution.”

Dr. Messerer is survived by a son and a daughter.

Friday, Jun 14, 1996

The Glebe & Inner City News

Sydenham mourns for a fallen fighter

SYDENHAM has lost one of its staunch aircraft noise campaigners and community figures, with the death of resident Ann Messerer.

Ms. Messerer died last month, from lung cancer, aged 59.

The Russian born child psychologist, teacher and writer was a member of the Resident Airport Action Committee.

She spent two months late last year working as a volunteer teacher with remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. On her return, Ms. Messerer said her time at Barunga, 100km from Katherine, had been a "terrific experience", giving her a valuable opportunity to observe Aboriginal culture and education.

Neighbourhood Center president George Sydney yesterday said Ms. Messerer had been a good fighter for the airport cause.

"There're very few and far between - lose one is very hard," he said. He said rather than being on the frontline, Ms. Messerer had been an "intellect, and that's the type we miss more".

He said Ms. Messerer had finished writing a book just before her death.

Neighbourhood Centre committee member Jennifer Killen said Ms. Messerer had always thought of other people, and recalled Ms. Messerer throwing a neighbourhood party in January "Champagne toasts new year of fight" (see. Glebe Jan. issue) because she felt people were getting depressed with life under the flight path. As Ms. Messerer herself observed: "the atmosphere of the meeting had been peaceful and productive. There were people from all walks of life, party affiliations and interests involved."

"She was always helping out, without putting herself forward," she said.

"We very much appreciated her contribution to the area, to Sydenham in particular, and the welfare of the area in general."

The Glebe & Inner City News

Cultural Mix in Remote Schools

Ann Messerer visited the bush settlement of Barunga - 100km from Katherine as a volunteer teacher from the Sisters of Charity's VISE outreach education program with a new perspective of Aboriginal culture and education.

The settlement's education centre has about 150 students from preschool to year 12, with 10 to 15 teachers and assistants.

Ms. Messerer, a Russian child psychologist and teacher, said she had worked with all age groups but considered her time with the senior students most important.

"Professionally and personally, it was a terrific experience," she said. "I had the opportunity to probe, test their abilities.

"I was very curious about their culture which has survived so many years and interested in how they transferred that to their learning material."

And while the education system was based on aboriginal culture, computers were proving very popular.

Ms. Messerer said the children had strong observation skills, quick reactions and a deep concentration once their interest was captured. However, she said teachers had to overcome the kids' lack of motivation and the lower value placed on formal schooling.

For them, learning is a part of life, not a separate thing," she said.

The Sisters of Charity run the VISE program (tel. 3326430) to provide volunteer teachers and assistants to bush and outback schools.

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