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.

Why Dora the Explorer Can Change Your Kids' Future... also known as: Economic Speculation on Bilingual Education

Mmm rainy days... good for soup (unavailable), sleep (too much coffee earlier), and nerdy reading (Google scholar, anyone!!!).

So, topic for today:  The economic benefits of bilingual education to both the majority and the minority.... condensed by yours truly and perhaps worth pondering.

KAAPOW...Bet you weren't expecting THAT, huh!!!

Original article found here, off the Social Science Research Network.

Here we go:

Imagine for a moment that our dear old Oklahoma is locked in deadly political combat over the latest controversial educational bill:  unilingual schools or bilingual schools.  And yes, you're right, it's between English and Spanish.

While no one really wants to admit it, there is a bit of a brouhaha attached to officializing Spanish, though of course the business advantage of speaking it is readily recognized.

So you have the die-hard English speakers on one side, many of whom feel legitimizing Spanish would legitimize a whole lot more than crossing language borders, and  the moderates are sagely in the middle... but where does the minority stand?  And where SHOULD the others stand?  Economically speaking, of course.

(Obviously, a bilingual campaign is financially impossible both for the state and for most individuals...  and yes, this is a major factor cited by the article... play along.)

All sides are aware, of course, that the numbers of the majority and minority languages are not important in influencing this decision.  For example, in the late 1700s a fragmented France voted unilingual to unify a country in which less that 5% of the population spoke actual French... and it worked.  However, both sides also know that Finland voted to go bilingual with Finish-Swedish in 1917, and even today Swedish has not diminished despite a demographic shift, a situation which gave rise to this article.

Nevertheless, it's the majority who will, in fact, decide this outcome (the majority's language is not a predictor of the outcome though).

Now then, to wade through a whole lot of symbols I don't pretend to understand, here's what happens:

1.  The majority - English speakers - go for the money.  As the majority, they are, at heart, most interested in their future prosperity.  We love our money.

2. They realize that, if they decide to continue with unilingual schools, they will continue to be ahead in the world.  Why?  They already speak the language, and they are also improving their own skills / productivity every day they go to school.

3.  HOWEVER.  The most entrepreneurial of them see even more opportunity on the other side.  When they graduate, they will enter a market comprised of... surprise!  Other English speakers!  And it will be a jolly good market at that.  But that's a bit limited, don't you think?  What if they could also communicate and do business with the minority - Spanish speakers?  Wouldn't that maximize your opportunity and therefore your profits?  Now then, what is the easiest way to begin that process?

"For language spread, schools have long since been the major formal (organized) mechanisms involved" 

(Fishman 1977, qtd. 2).

That's right.  By maximizing your communication abilities, you maximize your opportunity for productivity.  And we Americans value productivity above most other -ities.

So the wise majority holder will choose bilingual education.  


But what about the MINORITY?  It's a bit revolutionary to ask what do they want, isn't it?

1.  If they choose unilingual education, the article speculates, they, too, will go to school and learn both the language of the majority as well as the skills necessary to succeed.  What does this do for their economic opportunities?  It increases them.  Very smart, Charlie.  Even the unskilled worker has a larger fish tank.

2.  However, they will eventually lose most of their mother tongue, if not in the first generation, then in the second or the third.  Think for a moment, what does THIS do to their economic opportunities?  Decreases it.

(Side note:  occasionally the majority may favor this position, because the minorities inability to communicate effectively with their own people locks them into business with the majority instead.)

3.  So the obvious answer is, once again, bilingual education.  (Unless, of course, it is prohibitively expensive, in which case neither side would benefit much at all, and the minority is ambivalent.)

Now then, as a word of disclaimer:

First, I am no economist, and the deltas and thetas and derivatives I looked over this afternoon held me at the mercy of the narrating text.  If you would like to peruse the article and offer an alternative interpretation or nuance, please do so; I would welcome the intellectual stimulation.

Second, though largely up to the individual's choice to attend school (a detail I should have mentioned above), most of this is largely taken from a collective, utilitarian point of view.  Cool, but not always the best... hence the problems with public education in general.  Right.

Third, well, at this point I have no idea what three is... something about devil's advocate, no doubt.  If you think of it, let me know.  Thanks.

ONE FINAL THOUGHT...  maybe Dora the Explorer is not such a political travesty after all.  Economically speaking, she's probably the best thing that's happened to your child since Mr. Rogers.

 

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 : )

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.

Disclaimer

Foreign countries: new food, exciting adventures in mass transit, gregarious natives... and the communication skills of a four-year-old.

And I'm one of those annoying English people who constantly has words buzzing around in the brain.

This, as you can imagine, creates an problem. High verbal ability and no outlet.

So, dear friends, if you're reading this and it seems a little... shall we say, circuitous... that is why. To have a captive audience and endless space for expression is irresistible, and I find it difficult to limit myself to clear, concise writing.

Sorry.

If you want direct information, go buy a guidebook to Madrid :) Otherwise... you have been warned.