CULTURAL FROGS

As a language teacher, I am often asked what is the “best” method of learning a foreign language and, as someone who went through 23 years of changes in the accepted view in the British state school system, I have to say that there is no one failsafe method: you have to combine several , keep an open mind and be able to make connections between different languages.

What will not work, in my opinion , are these so-called “this is how to train your memory” methods that are pedalled so often: you know the sort of thing? “Bicyclette is French for bicycle. So picture a great big B in a child’s drawing book, then a great big C and then think of your children begging you to ‘Let me ride it, mummy!' ” What an extraordinary process and how doomed to failure it is! Why not just focus on “bi” indicating two of something and the similarities between English and French? With this sort of approach, whatever is going to happen to you when it comes to grammar?!

And you need grammar – yes, you do! All right, we can teach you to book into the ubiquitous imaginary campsite [as ubiquitous and irrelevant in GCSE oral exams as bulls in French fields were in the written exams of my youth] in as many languages as you like, but it won’t help you if and when things go wrong! Modern foreign languages teachers were not helped, during the reforming 70s and 80s, by English departments that refused to teach grammar [though this was partially put to rights by the National Curriculum in Britain] . “Verbs”, said my own first teacher of French , “are the backbone of the language.” You also need what I like to call grammar patterns, by which I mean that you should acquire the ability to adapt the language you know.

I repeat: ADAPT THE LANGUAGE YOU KNOW. Do not, especially in an exam, try to use unpractised vocabulary or structures, because you risk using them wrongly. In fact, try to use new vocabulary or grammar in sentences as you learn and then let your teacher advise you on appropriate usage.

This brings me to another point: Which is best? In situ or in the classroom? I have to say that you need a mixture of both. Of course you can “pick up” language quickly if you are in the country where it is spoken, but you may be picking up inappropriate registers [using the wrong kind of language for a given situation, an easy example being the minefield of “you” forms in the Romance languages and others] or end up using slang [which I would advise a foreign learner never to do, as it dates so quickly]. Wherever you are, there is always a place for time with a good tutor and some formal instruction.

Never forget, when learning another language, to use a skill which we automatically employ with regard to our own and that is your PREDICTION SKILL. When we listen to someone speaking our mother tongue, we “switch off” our auditory programme and think about something else far more often than we imagine, simply because we are confident and we can guess what filled the gaps. In the learned foreign language, we can’t afford to switch off, but we can put our prediction skills to good use by simply asking ourselves, “What is he / she likely to be saying?” After all, if you walk down the street, meet your best friend and remark, “Lovely weather, isn’t it?”, he / she is hardly going to reply, “I’m worried about the NASDAQ”!

Let go, also, of the idea that you have to understand everything whilst reading or listening: you don’t. Usually it is enough to get the gist and be able to reply in some way. Again, this is largely what we do in our own language.

Do realise that no one is perfect, even in their mother tongue: if they were, and if everyone knew every word, crossword compilers and language game show hosts would not have their jobs, would they? So accept that language is a living thing; it will never stop changing and you will never stop learning. That’s what makes it exciting!

Accept that THINGS ARE EXPRESSED IN A DIFFERENT WAY BUT MEAN THE SAME and you are half-way there. Otherwise you risk speaking the language in a non-idiomatic manner. [This, by the way, is the problem with those online translator things.] And accept that sometimes, just as in English, there is no explanation for the way in which something is expressed: it just is!

Last but certainly not least, try to be a CULTURAL FROG: Recently, during oral exam practice [the exercise was from an actual past paper] , I asked a student of mine what companies could do to relieve employee stress. “Nothing”, he replied. “There is no stress in Sicily.” Now, whether that is true or not is another matter, but his answer hardly helps the oral examiner to ask a follow-up question, does it? “Well,” I went on, “in some UK companies the management has set up a gym for the employees to use at lunchtime. What do you think about that?” “That’s stupid”, replied the student, “because we all go home to our families at lunchtime.” Obviously, the student who at least attempts to make the cultural leap by trying to visualise what life might be like in the target language country will do a lot better here, for a little imagination is always necessary; it is not possible, you see, to divorce the learning of the language from some knowledge of the culture.

So be open, give due attention to grammar , accept that some things are just so, be aware of the the subtleties of register and be a cultural frog whenever you can!

Here endeth Welshcakes Limoncello’s language learning sermon for this Sunday evening.