Semester in Review: How to Talk to a Language Learner

Learning a language is humbling.  Some days are good, but on others, it feels as though my language ability has been reduced to that of a four-year-old.  

Teaching a language is equally humbling.  It becomes obvious that any skill with language that I might claim is largely due to the fact that I'm a native speaker.  When I have to sit down and think about what I say so that my students can understand, breaking it down into small bites, I realize how unconscious our usage is (and how convoluted English can be).  Even with great effort, I've created more than a few failures.  

What's so hard about it, you ask?  Yes, yes good question, I'm glad you asked.  Here are some major points to bear in mind:

1. Speak slowly, but naturally.  We can't distinguish words when they're rushed together, even if they are familiar vocabulary for us.  Plus, we're processing a million things a minute - retrieving vocabulary, categorizing verb tenses, re-directing direct objects, ordering events and information, capturing the overall main idea, and on top of it all, wondering how in the world we're going to respond... so give us time.
2. We're not deaf, so please don't yell.  It's embarrassing, and we're already self-conscious enough.  However, if you don't speak loudly enough for me to hear you with ease, I won't even try to understand, but you will be none the wiser. We're very good at noncommittal body language responses, you see.
3. It is never, EVER funny when you try to dance circles around us with your words, no matter how much you enjoy it.  We will shut down and stare at you blankly, and the joke will be lost, and you will look like a big fat arrogant gilipolla.
4. Your goal is to facilitate communication.  Think of it as marking a route on a map.  Highlight the most important places, and we'll eventually get there, even if it is by a less direct route.  What this means:  we rely heavily on inference, so especially enunciate question words and the subject; provide a definition (sandwiched within the sentence) after a less common word; and don't start your stories (or sentences) in the middle of the action and then backtrack.  Beginning-middle-end; subject-verb-object... at least at first.
5. Slurred slang is hard to decipher, much less understand.  For example, gonna, wanna, 'sta luo.
6. Be especially conscious of your time-order words.  Repeat and rephrase them to make sure we follow what you're saying.  And be sure to clarify when you're listening to us... verb tenses are one of the worst parts of learning languages.
7. Multiple pronouns and indirect objects are confusing, especially if they are of the same gender ('he said he didn't'... or 'Mark said Antonio didn't'...) or group size (they and they).  If you change the person/subject of your story, make sure we catch it.   
8. Don't assume we understood the first time, regardless of the fact that we're nodding.  Summarize every now and then, and we'll both be happier.
9. Eyebrows knitted together is a sure sign of problems.  
10. When you're listening to us talk, be a creative listener as you try to understand.  Remember, we haven't developed the rigid set of connotations you have, and we might cross my words a bit.  Think poetry :)
11. When we consistently make the same mistake, please, please, please correct it.  Several times.  It won't hurt our pride; we'll be grateful. I promise.  And also, when you respond, it's helpful if you restate part of what I said correctly, modeling proper usage for us.  We notice and learn.
12. Be curious about and interested in our lives.  Asking us questions about ourselves affirms our value and tells us that we're not defined by our lack of language skills.  
1. If you need somewhere to start, consider: family, food, entertainment, school and education, celebrities, music, significant others, other travels, best experiences so far, biggest surprises so far, native scenery, religion, politics, holidays and festivals, sports, history, cultural identity, cultural differences, time differences, future plans, legends and folk tales and why they came to be ...to name a few.  
2. Please note that you may have to provide us with some basic vocabulary if you ask a very technical, specific question.
3. Be careful when asking about homesickness.  It may put us in an awkward situation, depending on our experiences so far.
13. Finally - and this is possibly the most important of all - If you use an idiom while giving me important information (directions, etc), I will personally see to it that your children and grandchildren learn every curse word in three languages.  Thank you, and have a nice day.

English Class

I work with several sections of students, one of which is the bilingual section.  Most of these bilingual section students have had English class since primary school and now attend every class in English except for math and language.  In class, they speak English.  Occasionally during recess they speak English.  They still make mistakes, of course, but it's really quite impressive to watch these 12-year-olds in action.

Generally, my job is to go over the speaking and listening exercises in their textbooks, helping them with pronunciation and providing them with a native accent to emulate.  Occasionally I teach an actual grammar lesson, but the teacher is much better at it, so I usually defer to her so I can watch and learn.

Today, however, she was called out of class and asked me to teach Reported Speech.  What Speech, you say?  Yes, that's what I said last week.

Take a moment to note the differences between these two dialogues:
- "Are you happy?" she asked him.
- She asked him if he was happy.

The second is an example of reported speech.  It probably seems like a no-brainer to flip the two, doesn't it?  But I would like to point out that the verb tense of the question changes, as well as the word order... and it is no longer a question.  And you use a different order for a question such as, "Where are you going?"  Additionally, 'may' changes to 'might,' 'can' changes to 'could,' etc.  Complicated stuff.

Luckily, I had introduced the concept with an activity on Tuesday, so I was familiar with the nuances.  Taking a deep breath, I started in.  It actually went quite well, and the students quickly picked up on the differences between reporting statements and questions, etc.  By the time we got to reporting orders and commands, the teacher was back and I handed it over.  She is really fantastic about asking students to apply the information immediately with verbal question-and-response, and after teaching about reporting commands, she began to go around the room, practicing.

The results were comical.

She began with Raul, who was looking at the examples in the book.  "Raul," she said evenly.  "Don't look at me like that!"

Raul's head snapped up and he looked around in utter confusion.  "But I..."

"No, begin, 'Pilar told me....'" Pilar corrected.

Slowly, understanding began to brighten his face as he realized what was going on.  "Ah!  Pilar told me not to look at her like that!"

A murmur arose from the class, who had been equally confused.  They seemed relieved.

Pilar moved on to Javi, a round, sweet boy in the back who is enthusiastic to learn and content to be himself.

"Javi," she asked.  "Will you marry me?"

The class erupted, and Javi's face instantly changed colors.  It was clear he was trying to construct a diplomatic response and having enormous difficulty; meanwhile, the whole class was urging him to say yes.  "Dude, Javi, she wants to marry you!!"

Pilar, not anticipating this response, finally stopped laughing herself.  "Pilar asked..." she crowed.

Relief swept over Javi's face as he burst into giggles.  "Oh!  Pilar asked if I will marry her."

"Would marry, Javi.  Would marry, not will."

"Pilar asked if I would marry her," Javi repeated.

Several students repeated this under their breaths, trying it out.  Angel, a brilliant bundle of constant energy and disruption, rattled off a few jokes in Spanish at Javi's expense.  Pilar silenced him with a look and continued practicing the language with other students.  Despite seeing their classmates' repeated confusion, thinking Pilar was really asking them questions, most of the class mistook the exercise and tried to respond to her statements rather than reporting them, and then they bashfully corrected themselves.  And as it characteristic, Angel's silence didn't last long, and he was soon back to joking.

"Angel," Pilar cried severely. "Shut up!"

He paused in his conversation, thought for half a moment, and flashed a quick smile.  "Pilar said... no, Pilar told me that I must shut up!" he replied, triumphant.

Again caught off guard, Pilar recovered quickly and laughed in spite of herself.  "Pilar told me to shut up," she corrected.  "You must use the infinitive, remember. But this is real life.  Be quiet."

"Pilar said that this was real life," Angel reported dutifully.

Alberto was listening attentively.  "Angel said that Pilar said that this wss real life," he muttered, half to himself.

Jose heard it and grinned.  "Alberto said that Angel said that Pilar said that this was real life," he called out.

Rafa picked it up.  "Jose said that..."

And it was downhill from there.

Now then, after all this, I am happy to report that the 1D students can successfully report what happened today.

Mission accomplished.

English Is a Tricky Language...

So... English is fraught with tricks and giggles, and the non-native learner has a tough job trying to sort all of them out.  Inevitably, something comes out just a little wrong.  Working with twelve-year-olds, it makes for some entertaining days.  I regret that I haven't written down the funniest moments, but I thought I'd share some classic yet highly representative student mistakes from others (I'll accumulate my own soon enough!):

Double letters:  Should I have a coma in the middle of this sentence?

Idioms:  We have hated each other for so long.  I want to borrow the hatchet.

Ambiguous consonants: The police were attacked by a large group of angry mops.

Similar words:  Me and my brother share a small womb in the basement.

Tough vowels:  My relationship with my ax girlfriend was so painful.

More vowels:  We live on the sex floor. Our apartment is small but we have a nice view.

Gerunds: Do you like this food?  I made it from scratching!

Participles:  Do you like your coffee cremated?

Syllables:  You eat soup in a bowel.

Phrasal verbs: You can’t sleep with me because it is too crowded. But you can probably sleep with my sister. That’s what most of my friends do when they visit.

False advertising: 

I want my face to have the buttocks treatment.  The what?  The buttocks treatment. It makes your wrinkles go away. It’s very famous in Hollywood.  Oh. It’s pronounced “bo tox”.  That’s it. The buttocks treatment. Maybe you need it too a little.

And oh, prepositions... Yesterday, I ate my friends.

Disclaimer / Disclosure: I publish these with a bit of a smirk as I myself am a language learner and have had my own moments of... modification.  It's a beautiful thing : )

Spanish, Modified

Given the content of that last post and my mood today, I think I should probably clarify the limits of my language. Today, I'm tired of Spanish, I'm tired of the animation, I'm tired of... you get it, I'm sure.

Living between two languages is exhausting. Literally exhausting. Last night I listened to a whole bunch of presentations by ex-Fulbrighters from Spain, who had studied in the United States. The presentations were long and in (unreasonably) rapid Spanish. Fascinating as it was, at a certain point, the will to live becomes... optional... not to mention the will to pay attention and make sense of the torrent of verbal whatever-you-call-it raining down on you.

If only it had been a conversation instead! You see, in most conversations, it is possible to interact effectively by relying on inferences. The animation I mentioned above? It's a blessed thing. I can usually guess what my compadre is talking about and how s/he feels about it, or what a word means, and respond accordingly. And when that fails, context! (Dear Students, if you happen to be reading this, may I recommend polishing these two techniques for life? They will take you far... especially on, say, EOI TESTS.... relevance and real-world application, right here).

But then there are days like today. (Again, if you're one of my students, ignore the fact that that sentence began with 'but.' You are NOT allowed to do that until you have a high school diploma!) Days like today render my best efforts nearly futile. I rarely shake my head and declare, "No entiendo," because I can usually ask about a word instead and figure the rest out, but that was a lost cause today. But, bless those Spaniards, they started all over again for me and explained the basic ideas again, and we were off and rolling... mostly. But mostly it was just sloughing through and wondering vaguely which idiot Babylonian decided it was a good idea to build a skyscraper, and then realizing I had lost the conversation again. Alas, the best of intentions... foiled.

As They Say

A strange thing happened this evening.

It had been a somewhat tedious day, and I was curled up on the couch, entirely absorbed in a novel, Little Bee, which I picked up on a whim at Washington Dulles. (It's quite good, by the way - haven't finished but I'm pretty sure I'd recommend it.) As an English major, I overdosed on reading, and it has only recently returned to be the escape I used to know. So there I sat, oblivious to the world around me.

Suddenly, a shriek from Encarna (mother) broke into my reverie, and startled, I paused to listen in. Apparently, the Italian prime minister got busted for some philandering. I shook my head, vowed to figure out a formula for predicting such outbursts (for example, volume = drama + age x number of bystanders), and went back to my book.

And then it hit me. I had just crossed seamlessly from English to Spanish and back again without even noticing the difference. Somewhere along the way, I had departed from my customary three-step translation tango (cumbersome and inefficient at best), and was now co-existing in a strange world somewhere in between my sweet, beloved English and my new, amorous Spanish (which, if you care to know, I equate with a big bad biker man). Husband and lover, perhaps?

It is a strange place to be, that is certain, and it is treacherous to be sure, for I'm finding that words dessert me at random -- in both languages. As in bad football, lots of fumbles. The analogies are endless... and patience is limited. Besides, it isn't that impressive, just strange. Most of my students at home cross these lines hundreds of times a day. But it's a new one for me and presents a question with no answer as of yet: what in the world do you do with so many words (temperamental words, at that!)? That is my question.