한글 (Hangul)

One thing often leads to another when you're looking stuff up on the computer all day, and while doing a spot of research on Will Rogers (I had legitimate work-related reasons) I ended up looking at Hangul, the Korean alphabet.

I like the look of Korean. I think it's a very aesthetically pleasing language, on paper. Spoken Korean doesn't strike me as being particularly interesting (at least, not more so than Japanese), but the written language just looks good, if you know what I mean?

It's like the language version of a McLaren sports car - sure, it's not practical for day-to-day driving, but something in me still wants to take it for a spin. I think it's something to do with the lines - it just seems so neatly designed. I think it would look perfectly at home on the dashboard of a space ship.

This, for example, is "Hello" (or something to that effect):

안녕하세요

And this is "traveller":

여행자

Doesn't it just look like it should be etched in stone by glowing magic, or scrolling across the screen on a robot's face?

It sounds silly, but if I were to learn an Asian language, I'd have a hard time trying to pick one just because Korean looks so darn pretty.

In the grand scheme of things, Standard Chinese would probably be far more practical. Higher numbers of speakers, more places where you might encounter it, that sort of thing. Korean is only spoken in two countries - and, let's face it, one of those countries isn't high on the "likely to visit" list.

Heck, there's no guarantee we'll even have a "North Korea" for much longer if things keep going the way they currently are. Even if they don't provoke China into squashing them just to make sure unpleasant explosives aren't exchanged so close to home, there's a very good chance that the entire country will fall into a heap as a result of poor management. I'm willing to admit that I'm not an expert on how to run a country, but it seems to me that neither are the people currently in charge of North Korea.

I have the same issue with the idea of learning Japanese. That language is useful in exactly one country. I'm already learning one of those (theoretically - I have to admit that my Estonian studies have slipped a lot lately), and there's a limit to how much brain space I can give over to languages with limited applications.

One of the reasons why I chose German to study was because it is an official language in several countries, and it's central position means more countries to both the east and west of the German-speaking lands are likely to be familiar with it.

So, for practical purposes, I should be learning something with a lot of take up in other countries, like Mandarin or Cantonese...

...But Korean is so pretty.

Poster Art, Visual Culture, and Esperanto

There’s a blog about Esperanto (but not *in* Esperanto) that I occasionally read, and a recent article brought up the question as to whether Esperanto has a visual culture.

Leks, the author of the post, noted that part of language classes in schools and colleges is learning more about the culture in which the language is situated, and often includes looking at the visual arts of that culture.  For example, a course in Spanish is likely to include at least some reference to famous Spanish artists and well known Spanish paintings.

He wondered whether anything similar existed within the Esperanto culture, and he couldn’t think of any examples (at least, none that were readily accessible).

But I could.

As I was reading his article, I realised that my impression of Esperanto as a culture is actually strongly associated with art.  When I think about Esperanto as a cultural movement or a cultural group, there are a number of artworks in particular that spring to mind – and almost always have.  I hadn’t noticed it before I read this article, but the art of the Esperanto movement is a big part of it for me.

Now, the author of the article is someone who is heavily involved in the Esperanto culture, while I dabble around the edges.  So why would it be that he struggled to think of a “visual culture” within the Esperanto culture, while I’ve “almost always” associated Esperanto with art?

I think it’s because we’re looking for art in different places.  He’s thinking about finding it in a gallery, while I found it in the ephemera collection of a library.

I’ve known about the language of Esperanto (or at least the idea of it) since I was a child, but it was always an abstract concept – one to which I didn’t pay much heed.  I only really realised that there was an entire culture (or subculture) wrapped around the language when I visited the Esperanto Museum in Vienna.

The Esperanto Museum isn’t actually a museum at all – it’s a permanent display by the Austrian National Library.  It takes up two smallish rooms in one of the library’s buildings.  And what they display is…

Posters and other ephemera.

The library has produced some interpretive signs to tell the story of Esperanto (and these signs formed the beginning of my education on the subject), but what captured my attention was the posters, pamphlets, flyers and printed what-nots that were on display on the walls and in the cabinets.

A lot of people forget that posters are an artistic medium.  When you look at a poster advertising an event or product, you’re not just reading it for information – you are looking at a work of art.  Late 19^th and early 20^th Century poster art in particular is fantastic, and you’ve probably seen a lot of old posters (once advertisements) that have been reproduced as decorative items in cafés and living rooms.

Posters, pamphlets, conference programmes… these are all examples of a certain kind of art at a certain point in time.  And they are all things that were designed for a particular purpose or event, and were often destroyed after they had served their purpose.  That’s why we call them “ephemera” – they were never meant to stick around. 

But many libraries have ephemera collections, and in this way they have saved these items that are – at one and the same time – evidence of the historical events of a culture and slices of visual culture.

Thanks to the Austrian National Library, I have a strong association in my mind between the Esperanto culture and poster art – particularly early 20^th Century poster art. 

Not only is the art itself glorious (in a way that only poster art can be), but it’s also rife with symbolism.  It’s fascinating to see how the artists (almost all anonymous) have captured some aspect of the culture’s ethos or highlighted a particular characteristic of Esperanto and Esperantists – all in approximately four colours.

Does Esperanto have a visual culture?  Yes.  Resolutely yes.  And if the flyer I recently saw for a congress in Indonesia is anything to go by, it’s still flourishing.

Artist: Joanne Johns

Speak Latin whenever you can

I just acquired a new book, and it's walking a tight-rope between hilarious and brilliant.

Latin For Beginners by Wilkes (author), Shackell (illustrator) and Priddy (designer).

It's an introduction to Latin, aimed at children, and designed in exactly the same way as an introduction to French or Italian might be designed.

It offers the exact same language learning advice (use it whenever you can) and the exact same situations (at the restaurant, in your home, talking about your hobbies) that you'd find in any modern languages introductory book for kids.

Using this book, you'll be able to tell the waiter at the restaurant that you really like potato chips (amo poma terrestria assa) or talk about what time one watches television (quadrante post quintam televisorium spectat).

And the little visual jokes that would be mildly amusing in a book introducing Italian are downright hilarious in a book introducing Latin.

What's a Thesaurus?

I had an interesting conversation with a German native the other day, trying to explain what a thesaurus was.

Me:  Do Germans have thesauri?  I was trying to find one.
Her:  Do we have what?
Me:  A thesaurus.  Do you know of a good thesaurus for German?
Her:  What is that?
Me:  It's a book where you can find other words that mean the same thing as the word you know.
Her:  We have synonym books, if that's what you mean?
Me:  Sort of, but I was hoping for a good, proper thesaurus.  It's got more depth than synonyms - it breaks ideas down into chunks and gives you words that match those chunks.
Her:  Um... What?
Me:  Like, it would take the idea of furniture, break that into different kinds of furniture - like furniture you sit on - and then give you words for furniture you sit on.  Couch, divan, chaise-longue, chair.  That sort of thing.
Her:  Why on earth would anyone need that?

A good thesaurus - a true thesaurus - defines the universe.  It divides and subdivides all of the concepts within human experience and then offers you a vocabulary to use for those concepts.

It's more than a book of synonyms.  It's more than a dictionary, really - for it gives you the definition and then lets you find all the words that fit.  Well, many of the words that fit.  There are a lot of words in the world.

When I was in high school, Roget's Thesaurus was on the book list.  It became one of my most cherished tools.  I cannot imagine a world where this book does not exist.

As a librarian, I encounter other thesauri all the time.  The systems of subject headings (like MeSH) used by databases to classify and organise their entries are thesauri.  Whether the topic you are dealing with is the English language or the fields of medical knowledge, the point of a thesaurus is to ferret out the facets of a thing and give you a term you can use for any particular facet.

So, needless to say, I was absolutely flabbergasted recently when I read something that suggested English is unique in the word for having a thesaurus like Roget's.

Surely such a thing would be vital for any serious study of any language?  How could you take your language seriously and not have a thesaurus?  More so than a dictionary, a thesaurus maps the conceptual world of a language.  A dictionary will tell you the definition of a "divan" - a thesaurus will show you where the word fits into the grand scheme of things.

And, from a language learning point of view, a thesaurus would surely be the most useful of tools?  Rather than plowing through multiple dictionaries, trying to find the word that sort-of-maybe-kind-of matches the word you have in mind - constantly finding words that don't quite match up - you could just look up the definition of the word you want, and find the words that match that definition.

I have a book at home which is a multilingual exploded visual dictionary, and it is the most marvelous thing.  It's sort of, kind of, almost a multilingual thesaurus, only there are pictures involved.  You can find a word for the hilt of a sword in six language just by finding the picture of a sword and looking for the hilt.

That's what a multilingual thesaurus should be.  That's what it can do.

That's a powerful and useful thing.

So, applied linguists of the world, get cracking.  There's the whole of human language to map.

Q&A: Helfen

The question has been sitting on a piece of paper on my desk for a while now, but I haven't quite found the time to find the answer:

What's the difference between "hilf mir, bitte" and "helft mir, bitte"?

I can't even remember where I saw these, to be honest.  I just wrote them down in the hope that I would eventually get off my blessed assurance and find the answer.  It's a praxis thing, you see.  I never really understand something until I challenge myself to question it deeper, and then think about how I could explain it to someone else.

I'm not 100% sure of this, because I'm piecing this together from two separate conjugation tables which are each giving me half the story.  I may be wrong, but I'll discover that later.

In "hilf mir, bitte", helfen is clearly in the 2nd person informal singular (2PISg) imperative form.

I think, although I'm not sure, that in "helft mir, bitte", it's in the the 2nd person informal plural (2PIPl) imperative form.

Now, I'm not sure about this, because one of my conjugation tables lists "helft" as the standard present tense form for 2PIPl, and as far as I know you usually drop the present tense endings for an imperative.

But at the same time, I'm pretty sure I've never encountered imperatives for 2PIPl before, so I have no idea if they should have the ending or not.

In my other conjugation table, it *does* include "helft" on the list of imperatives (along with "hilf" and "helfen"), but doesn't put a pronoun next to it (like it does for almost everything else), so I can only assume it's for 2PIPl.

So, I think the difference between "hilf mir, bitte" and "helft mir, bitte" is the number of people you are asking for help at the time.

Role plays are always terrible

I studied Speech and Drama for about twelve years, and then I taught both Drama and English for two years.

I have, on more than one occasion, flirted with the idea of undertaking a thesis on the confluence between performance and language learning by examining whether drama class activities designed to improve performance can be successfully used in a language classroom to improve oral language skills.

It is my considered opinion that role-play activities suck.

They just do.

It's like there's something in the genre that is inherently terrible.

You know what I'm talking about.  You have to pretend to be Harold, who has something terribly ordinary or mundane to do.  Your partner plays Mildred, who wants to talk to Harold about something equally mundane but clashing with Harold's mundane plans.  You must pretend you care about these mundane things and try to negotiate some sort of conversation or compromise.

Blah.

Scripted drama/sketches have the benefit of actual thought.  Improvisations (proper improvisations - like those found in theatre sports) are kept aloft by the participants entering into the spirit of the game and have an air of anything-can-happen danger.  Role-play activities lack both the game and the thought, and always seem to trudge along like a lame duck caught in an oil slick.

Role plays in classroom situations can have some limited benefit, in that they get the participants to start thinking about ideas from different perspectives, and they prompt the use of conversational skills like listening and turn-taking - but they're almost always boring and horrid.

Turn a role-playing activity into an assessment item, and then they become boring, horrid and terrifying.  Not a good combination.  Role plays can, possibly, be used as a spot of scaffolding on the way to a less horrible assessment item, but I would really recommend something else.

Anything else, really.

Might I suggest: a proper script, a proper improvisation or a decent vox-pop?  These are all good alternative to role plays.

The "best" way to learn a foreign language?

Well, quite by accident, I've been running an experiment over the past five years to determine the best way to learn a foreign language.

Note:  I used the word "foreign" on purpose.  This is for languages that aren't part of your language environment, and therefore aren't really second languages and aren't supported in any way, shape or form by informal learning in the community.

And I should probably also clarify that this is for adult learners, as children have access to language learning approaches (such as regular, relatively easy classes, being an exchange student and going on camps).

I've done:

• the thing where you buy a commercial teach-yourself package with books and CDs, and try to teach yourself.
• the thing where you hire a private tutor and have regular one-on-one classes.
• the thing where you attend a two hour evening class once a week for ten weeks.
• the thing where you have two-week intensive classes in the country where they speak that language.
• the thing where you do a proper university degree via distance education.

I haven't done:

• the thing where you have a two week intensive course in your own country (but I'm thinking of doing that)
• the thing where you study a proper university degree and turn up to on-campus classes (but I wish I'd done that).

And, having done all of this, I sat down the other day and thought about what had given me the best results, and what I should do if I want to actually move forward with this whole language learning thing.

And then I realised that the advice I was about to give myself is actually my answer to "what is the best way to learn a foreign language?"

My answer:

• Buy yourself a good textbook package - like you would be using if you were doing a proper university course - and also buy yourself a good teach-yourself package that's a little less intense.  Then,
• Hire yourself a private tutor who can help you work through both books, provide correction and feedback, give you someone to interact with in your target language and keep you on track.  Then,
• After you've covered the basics with your books and tutor, take some short courses every now and then to give you the benefit of a classroom.  A short course in a place where your target language is actually spoken outside of class is a magical thing for locking in the things you've learnt with your books and tutors. And,
• Above all, do homework.  There are activities in those books you paid a fortune for.  If you actually did them, you would be better off than if you just read over them

I struggle with the last point, myself.  I try to power through and cover the information, and forget that there is a real benefit to actually applying it to an exercise.  Taking the time to think about the question and trying to write (or speak) and answer is probably the most useful thing I'm not doing at the moment.

So, this is what I'm going to try to do with my two target languages this year (and next).  Textbooks, tutors and short courses, with a touch more self-discipline in the homework stakes.

I was going to try to spend some quality time in Austria the next time I went to Europe, and I'd say a language intensive is on the cards.  I'll have to see if I can squeeze another one in Estonia in at the same time...

Why learn Esperanto?

Sometime over the course of the past year, I've shifted from learning about Esperanto to learning Esperanto.

I'm doing it very slowly (which is ironic, seeing as one of the "selling points" of Esperanto is that it's quick to learn), but then I'm really only giving it five minutes a day and an extra 20-30 minutes a week.  In that light, it's actually a testament to the facileco of the language that I've picked up as much as I have.

One of the things you notice most when you start looking at Esperanto, is how often the question "why" tends to turn up.  It seems as if everyone struggles with understanding the point of it.  I did, initially, before I was won over.  It seems people who don't understand what Esperanto actually is are constantly asking why anyone would learn such a thing, while those who are learning Esperanto are constantly trying to give other people a good reason for it.

When I mention to others that I'm learning Esperanto, most people (if they've heard of it) ask me why - as in "why bother?" or "what's the point?" or "where will you use it?"

Well, to quote a character from Tashi:  "It doesn't matter!  You always ask the wrong questions!"

To be perfectly, strictly, completely honest, I'm learning Esperanto for the same reason one might take up quilting, amateur astronomy or chess.  I secretly suspect a lot of other Esperantists have taken it up for the same reason.

It's a hobby.  An amusement.  A diversion.  A chance to enjoy myself by engaging in something that pleases me.

Like quilting, I'm playing with pieces and patterns (only of words, rather than material), and as I learn more I can put the pieces together in the patterns in a way I find intellectually and creatively stimulating.

Like amateur astronomy I'm exploring part of the universe through a particular lens - picking up enough of a science I find fascinating (in this case, linguistics) to make new discoveries about the way it all works while keeping it light and fun.

As as for chess?

Well, chess is probably the best analogy for Esperanto I can think of.

When someone takes up chess, you don't ask "why" - the answer is incredibly obvious:  you take up chess in order to play chess.  And nobody asks you who you will play chess with, because that answer is also obvious:  You play chess with other chess players.

Why learn Esperanto?  Well, duh - you learn Esperanto to speak Esperanto.  Who will you speak with?  Other Esperanto speakers.  It's not rocket science.

And, just like taking up any other hobby, it opens up the world in a way that you'd never notice or appreciate unless you gave it a try yourself.

You can find a greater purpose or a more noble reason if you want to go looking for it - but you don't need it.  Esperanto is it's own reward.

The cat in the bucket

I have a little chart on my wall to remind me of the major locative cases in Estonian.  It involves a cat jumping in and out of a bucket.

In Estonian, a lot of the heavy lifting that is done by prepositions in English is carried out by case endings slapped onto the ends of nouns.  The most obvious examples of this (and also the easiest to wrap your head around) are the locative cases.

These cases represent the concept of into/in/"out of" and onto/on/"off from".  In my chart, these concepts are illustrated by having a cat jump in and out of a bucket:

• Kass hüppab ämbrisse (the cat jumps into a bucket)
• Kass on ämbris (the cat is in a bucket)
• Kass hüppab ämbrist välja (the cat jumps out of the bucket - or, more literally, the cat jumps from the bucket to the outside)

The onto/on/"off from" cases are illustrated by the cat jumping onto and off from a table:

• Kass hüppab lauale (the cat jumps onto a table)
• Kass on laual (the cat is on a table)
• Kass hüppab laualt maha (the cat jumps off from a table)

Now, I have a cat, and she is (it must be said) constantly jumping on and off pretty much every item of furniture in the house.  I've never seen her jump into a bucket, though.  A box, yes, but not a bucket.

This makes me wonder - did the writers of the book (from which I photocopied this chart)* have a cat that was known for jumping in and out of buckets, or did they think the sight of a cat jumping into a bucket would be amusing, and therefore memorable?

I suspect it might be the latter.  Other illustrations in the same book are also quite amusing (there's a corker which involves a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat that has been put on a table that has a bear hiding underneath it).

This is something that has been bothering me a bit of late.  It seems to be accepted these days that no one will pay attention to boring things like grammar unless they are jokey and amusing... but sometimes the boring example is the one that explains it best.

I have seen a few English grammar books of late that seem to be aiming for the "cat in the bucket" approach to making their examples fun an interesting - but they go too far in the "slightly unusual" stakes.  It's hard to see the wood for the trees when the trees are going out of their way to dance around and wave their hands.

I'm all for the "cat in the bucket", as long as it is clear, simple and self-explanatory.  But maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't hurt to show something that is every-day, stock-standard, by-the-book and -- dare I say it? -- boring (along with the amusing thing).

Give me the boring version so I can confirm my understanding, then give me the amusing version so I'll remember it.  There's no law that says I can't have both.


*This book is currently in a different house to the one in which I am presently residing, and no one seems to be selling it at present, otherwise I would tell you what this book actually is.  It's quite a nice book, and I refer to it often.

What motivates you?

I've been thinking, lately, about the assumptions behind integrative orientation.

For those of you who don't know, integrative orientation is one of the concepts that gets bandied about when the literature concerning language learning (as distinct from "language learner literature", which is literature for language learners) starts talking about intrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is the idea that we learn something because we just love that thing.  We learn French because, gosh darn it, French is fabulous and we want to learn it.

Integrative orientation is the idea that we are intrinsically motivated because we love the culture behind the language and we want to be a part of it all.  In this case we learn French because the French are awesome and people who speak French are awesome and we want to share in all that awesomeness.

A lot of the stuff about motivating language learners assumes, therefore, that learners will be even more keen to learn if you show them more awesome groovy stuff about the culture and people behind the language.

Show your students French movies and tell them all about French cooking and they will slowly find themselves really wanting to be part of the French scene - this will make them want to learn French on a deep psychological level, which will help them learn French more easily.

Well, there is probably something to that, because when I was in high school I was much more integratively oriented to French (which wasn't offered at my school) than Indonesian (which was).  I took Indonesian because it was on offer, but quite frankly the more they told me about Indonesia, the less I felt like learning Indonesian.

Indonesia just never sounded like a place I wanted to visit.  It's hot, full of people and has poor dental care.  Not to mention dysentery.  I have a distinct lack of interest in places where the public hygiene is so bad they have the name of the place in a colloquialism for abdominal diseases (Bali Belly).  India is also unattractive to me, for more or less the same reasons.

And that whole bartering thing?  That may sound like a fun game, but it really just means the entire population is trying to rip each other off.  The sellers are trying to fleece the buyers for more than the product is worth (and hoping you're dumber than the last guy and will give them much more than it's worth) while the buyers are trying to undercut the sellers and pay less than the product is worth.  That is not a fair and equitable economy, in my books.

So, yeah, pretty much everything everyone told me about Indonesia left me feeling completely disinterested in learning Indonesian.  Kind of like integrative orientation in reverse.  If I'm not interested in the culture, the country or the people, why should I learn this language?

Well, I've recently renewed an interest in Indonesian - but not because I suddenly feel more likely to visit Indonesia.  No, my interest has been sparked by the realisation that Indonesian is an auxiliary language.

It's not the "native" language of anyone in Indonesia, but a standardised register of Malay that has been adopted as the lingua franca of the archipelago.  (I think everyone should, at some point in their lives, mention that at a dinner party:  "Oh, yes, Bahasa Indonesia.  I do believe that's a standardised register of Malay that is used as the lingua franca of the Indonesian archipelago..."  Then quickly change the subject before anyone asks you to explain any of that.)

I kind of knew that in high school, but the concepts of planned and auxiliary languages weren't on my radar at the time.  It probably would have been if someone had mentioned the word "Esperanto".  Even when I was a kid I was interested to know more about that language, but most people seemed to dismiss it.

A couple of months ago I read something that pointed out the artificial (yet successful) nature of Bahasa Indonesia, and suddenly my antennae were up.  I had an "oh, yeah..." moment, shortly followed by a "well, that's actually quite interesting" moment.

Now, coming from the angle that "planned languages are awesome" and "auxiliary languages are neat", I've started to think I might be interested in Indonesian after all.  I still don't think visiting the country sounds like something I actually want to do, but the language is becoming, well, intrinsically interesting.

I wonder if I would have been more engaged with Indonesian in high school if someone had tapped into the "this is an interesting language" side of things, rather than the "when you go to Indonesia..." angle.

And I also wonder if the focus on culture, place and people might actually demotivate people who could otherwise be academically interested in a language?

It would be interesting to find out.

My Language Learning Experiences

Some of this may be a bit repetative for anyone who usually reads this blog, but this particular post is for an assignment I'm working on, so please forgive anything particularly boring

My first “formal” experience of learning a foreign language was in high school, where we had two years of Indonesian classes (Bahasa Indonesia).  These classes were taught by a science teacher who had lived in Indonesia for a few years.  Most of the kids in the class were not there because of a burning desire to learn Indonesian.  Some of us wanted to learn a language, and it was the only one on offer, others simply wanted to avoid Geography, which was the only other subject that could be done at the same time.  We learnt very little Indonesian, largely due to the fact that our hearts weren’t really in it – neither the students’, nor the school’s.  The school clearly offered this particular language because they thought they could get away with offering a language subject without hiring another, specialist teacher.

In my senior years of high school there were no language courses offered (our Indonesian speaking science teacher had left), and I decided to put myself through an evening French course.  This was a completely different style of learning (especially for a 16 year old) and I probably learnt more French in those 12 weeks than I had learnt Indonesian in the two years at school – but it was expensive.  I could only afford the one course (and my family had no interest in supporting what they saw as a waste of time and money – why would I need a language other than English?  Couldn’t I take up a more useful hobby?).  Perhaps, if I had been taught how to learn languages independently, I would have been able to continue studying in my own time using books and course materials borrowed from the library.

I could have studied languages in university, but there were a few different things I wanted to do, and I couldn’t do them all…  In the end, I chose to study English in more depth rather than any other language.  Clearly my intrinsic motivation wasn’t up to the challenge of learning a language at the time.

Ten years later I decided to learn Estonian, which is something of a heritage language for me.  I spent a year or so trying to learn on my own with a couple of text books, then I found a tutor.  Shortly afterwards, I decided to learn German as well (it’s more useful than Estonian), and I started by taking a couple of evening courses (like the French course all those years ago), to prepare me for enrolling in a distance language degree.  For the past two years I have been studying German through the Diploma of Modern Languages course in UNE.  This pretty much involves teaching myself using a text-book package and having the occasional contact with some teacher – unfortunately, mostly for assessment purposes.  The first semester, when I could attend the moodle-based tutorials, it went quite well.  But when you are learning completely asynchronously you get no “play time”, no feedback and no practical correction (you don’t get the correction in time for it to be formative, you only find out what you could do better after you’ve submitted an assessment piece).

Contrast this with my private studies for Estonian.  Even though we were studying via Skype, and there are some limitations, I had one-on-one work with a knowledgeable “coach” who could give me feedback and correction as I played with the language.  I then attended a two week intensive course, and I have to say the combination of guided private study plus intensive course has been the most successful language learning balance I have undertaken. 

Feedback is awesome.  Being able to talk and interact with other learners is not needed every day, but is also awesome.

From my own experiences, my recipe for the best language learning “environment” goes a little something like this:

1.  Students should want to learn that language, and teachers should want to teach it

2.  Students should be taught how to “teach” languages, so that they can do more of the heavy lifting themselves

3.  Teachers/tutors should regularly talk to/play with students, giving feedback as they go along (and not basing all feedback around assessment items)

4.  Some contact with a) other learners, and b) native speakers

5.  A stick and a carrot.

A little more on point 5 is warranted:  The one thing my DipModLang *is* providing me (which I didn’t get from private study or evening courses) that I find most valuable is the deadlines.  There are many tasks I know would be good for me, but I just don’t get around to doing them.  When I know I *have to* do them and hand them in by a set date, I tend to be less lazy about these things.  I just wish the tasks I was being “encouraged” to complete would be less we-have-to-mark-you-on-something and more this-is-going-to-make-you-a-better-communicator.

What should a teacher bring to a language class?  His/her coaching kit – show us how to teach ourselves, then give us plenty of exercise, feedback and encouragement.

What should a learner bring to a language class?  His/her will to win (if we stick with the metaphor).  A learner should be wanting to play, willing to “skill up” and happy to fake-it-until-you-make-it.

Or, to use keywords from the literature, a successful language class needs a combination of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation, Autonomous Learning, Autonomous Teaching, Social Interaction, Feedback, Washback and Opportunities for Authentic Learning Activities/Experiences/Applications.

 

Economics of Language Choice and Conlangs

Back in 1998 Abram de Swaan wrote a fascinating two-piece article for the journal Language Problems and Language Planning called  "A Political Sociology of the World Language System (1): The Dynamics of Language Spread" and "A Political Sociology of the World Language System (2): The Unequal Exchange of Texts".

The central argument of these articles is that people choose what second language to learn based on similar "economic" considerations that they would use to choose what telecommunications network to join (or, in modern terms, what operating system to throw themselves into).

He talked about languages having a Q-value, which is the desirability of the language based on the number of native speakers and the number of people who already speak it as a second language.  When choosing a second language to learn, most people go for one that will give them the most communicative bang for their buck, in other words.

If you lived in an area where most people spoke their own indigenous language or Dutch, you would see Dutch as being an attractive option, because it would give you a greater number of other people to communicate with.  Dutch is the center of a language constellation in that region, and has a high Q-value.  However, Dutch is but a planet circling the sun in the larger constellation where the big shiny language is German.  You might decide that German is therefore more attractive.

The biggest and shiniest language of them all is, of course, English - if for no other reason than the sheer numbers of people who speak it as a second language.  However, your personal needs in your local area might lead you to choose the big, shiny language in your smaller constellation, simply because you think you, personally, will speak to more people and have a greater supply of texts in that way.

Basically, de Swaan argues that people want consumer confidence in whatever language they choose to learn in addition to their own.

The thing that struck me about his argument, although it seemed to slip de Swaan's attention completely, is how this applies to constructed or planned languages.  He did give them a passing glance, but only to point out that artificial languages to exist, not to note that the consumer argument that he had observed for natural languages applied even more-so to those that have been constructed.

How many constructed/auxiliary languages have come and gone over the years?  The big winners in the game are the ones that look like they have legs - if you know what I mean.  Klingon has an army of geeks making sure it survives, and Esperanto has numbers.  The numbers make it more attractive to anyone who might be thinking of taking up an auxiliary language instead of, say, French or Spanish.

There was, at some point, a bit of a Betamax vs VHS thing happening between Volapük and Esperanto.  Esperanto won that consumer battle.  Now people learning an auxiliary language can choose between Esperanto, Ido and Interlingua if they want an IAL spoken by more than four people - and even then, Esperanto has the numbers.

I know one of the reasons why I'm learning Esperanto* is consumer confidence.  There are, depending on your sources, somewhere between 50,000 and 2 million speakers, and the language has been around for 125 years.  I have previously suggested that it was only mildly more useful, as a second language, than Welsh - but I've changed my mind on that point.  I have some faith that learning Esperanto is not going to be a complete waste of time.  I can't say I would feel the same about the other conlangs and IALs.

The consumer confidence element of language choice applies so very clearly to constructed and auxiliary languages it's staggering.  I'll have to see if someone has written a paper about it - I'd be very surprised if they haven't, but I have a strange feeling such a paper would probably be written in either Esperanto or Interlingua...



*I am learning Esperanto, but I'm doing it very slowly.  Don't expect posts in Esperanto any time soon.

LPLP

I've recently discovered the journal Language Problems & Language Planning - and, by "recently", I mean I noticed it sitting on our shelves ages ago but I have finally taken the time to see what kind of articles are inside it.

It's a highly interesting journal that is dedicated to the decisions people make about languages.

The stuff that comes out of our mouths on a day to day basis is reasonably free of official decisions (some would argue it is reasonably free of decisions, full stop), but there are a lot of official decisions to be made about the language we use in governments, schools and courts - not to mention the languages that need official support to survive.

China is trying to build an "improved" standard writing system.  The Dutch spelling system is apparently doomed to eternal conflict.  Cornish is trying to come back from the dead.  French Canadians are trying to make sure they can continue to have their own schools.  Minority languages all over the world are trying to gain recognition and support.  Esperanto is just plain interesting - and still kind of almost trying to change the world (but only subtly - much like Fabian Socialism*).

Multilingualism, bilingual education, multiculturalism and heritage languages that won't just lay down and die...

I have a habit of thinking about languages in terms of grammar and vocabulary (and sometimes philology and literature) - but the history and politics of languages can be incredibly fascinating, and that's what LPLP takes as its focus.

Some of the issues I've mentioned above might be a little less than topical.  For some reason I've started reading through the journal beginning with Volume 20 - from 1996.  I went to that volume to find an article referenced in a more current issue... and ended up staying for a while.

I'm finding the language climate of the late 1990s quite fascinating at the moment.  I've just finished reading a 1997 article on the kerfuffle over the 1994 attempted spelling reforms for Dutch.  Dirk Jacobs points out that the biggest problem with fixing spelling is the fact that professional writers (journalists, authors, etc) have a large stake in the issue and more clout in the public sphere than linguists can muster.  He concludes that spelling reform will only be able to happen if you get the journalists on-side first (and doubts that will be an easy thing to do).

I've had a few ideas challenged since I starting reading this journal.  One of the more recent articles, by Sabine Fiedler, drew my attention to the unquestioning respect we have for native speakers, and raised the point that a native speaker isn't necessarily the be-all and end-all of a language.  That was an eye-opener.

It's a fascinating journal - and taking me on a fascinating journey.  I wonder if I'll keep travelling through the 1990s and 2000s.  I wonder what I'll learn along the way...




*-What do we want?
-Gradual change!
-When do we want it?
-In due course!

A Fantastic Language

I’ve been looking more closely at Esperanto lately, and I must admit it is a fascinating thing to look at.

When you look at what it was meant to be and the concept behind it, you realise the language is absolutely fantastic, in almost every sense of the word.

The idea – or, rather, ideal – of the language was that everyone in the world would learn it as a second language.  Everyone would, therefore, have at least two languages to use:  their own, and Esperanto.  You could know other languages if you wanted to, but you would be able to communicate with everyone in the world through the shared medium of Esperanto.

Esperanto – a planned language that is intentionally simple, making it more accessible to everyone.  Esperanto – a neutral language that belongs to no one country, so it doesn’t carry any political or cultural baggage.  Esperanto – a language that subtly teaches you how languages work, so that learning further languages becomes easier.  Esperanto – a language that is always and forever a Second Language, so that everyone is in the same boat of having acquired it as a language learner, and no one has the advantage of knowing it as their first language.

Esperanto – which is really fun to say.  I enjoy putting it into random conversations, just because the word feels good rolling off the tongue.  Try it – you’ll feel almost smarter and just a little bit exotic.

Esperanto – a constructed language acting as a free and accessible communication tool, to enable us all to talk as equals and discuss things like rational human beings, rather than going to war or something equally silly.  An idea so powerful that the Nazis felt the need to ban it.

It’s fantastic, in that it is both a wonderful idea and a complete fantasy.

There are a few problems with Esperanto, which get in the way of reaching the ideal.

For one thing, far from everyone learning the language, very few people actually do learn it.  As second languages go, it is mildly more useful than Welsh… but not much.

Then there’s the matter of neutrality.  While it may be politically free of baggage, it isn’t culturally so.  It is a European language – and, significantly, an educated one.  Almost all Esperantists have, or can probably get, a higher education.  If you tried telling a farmer in rural China that a language spoken by European scientists was free of cultural baggage, he would probably tell you that you were wrong.

And while the language might be intentionally simple and useful as a language learning tool (studies have shown that learners in Taiwan find Esperanto easier to learn than English, and English easier to learn after learning Esperanto), it really is a gateway drug to Indo-European languages.  Learning Esperanto won’t really help you with Korean to the same extent that it would help with English or German.

And as for the part where it’s always and forever a Second Language?  Well, that’s not strictly true.  There are actually people who speak it as a first language.

For a planned language that has been around for less than 150 years and failed to take off as a form of diplomatic communication, Esperanto has been surprisingly successful as a family language.  Members of the Esperanto community meet, marry and use the language around the house – which results in their children growing up bilingual or trilingual, with Esperanto as one of their “native” languages. 

The really interesting thing about this phenomenon is that it gives the language more “cred” with the average man on the street.  I’ve had conversations with people who sneered at the very thought of an artificially constructed language until I mentioned the native speakers – and suddenly they took it a little more seriously.  Most people (myself included, until recently) completely miss the point of a constructed language, thinking it’s somehow in competition with “real” languages, or a game rather than a tool.

I’ve just read a very interesting article by Sabine Fiedler (doi: 10.1075/lplp.36.1.04fie) in which she points out that native speakers are confusing the issue when it comes to the role Esperanto is meant to play and it’s worth as a language in general.  In it, she also asks whether the rise of English as an International Language (EIL) means we should stop letting native English speakers decide what is and isn’t right for English.  It’s the first time I’ve ever really stopped to question the way we assume the native speakers are the be-all and end-all of a language. 

Is there an international standard of every language that should be determined by the people using the language as a co-operative tool, rather than the people who grew up with it?

And has EIL completely taken over from what Esperanto was meant to be?  Is there hope for the grand vision of the language yet?

Maybe.  “Esperanto” means “hope” after all…

In Action

When I was a child, I was absolutely held in thrall by an educational programme that would occasionally screen in the mornings on ABC.

The ABC had a programming schedule that would alternate between educational programmes and children's entertainment, depending on the day of the week.  I can't remember exactly which day was which, but if you were watching morning television on, say, a Monday you would see cartoons and such, but if you watched on a Tuesday you'd see programmes about maths and chemistry.  I loved those.

They were part of an educational support programme that ABC was running for schools in the 80s and 90s.  The broadcaster would have a schedule of programmes, which it would send to teachers, and those teachers could then arrange to have their class watch TV at that particular time.  My grade 5 class watched the entire series of something to do with Australian settlers (I can't remember what it was called, but it was something generic like The Colonials).  However, I think most classes at the time couldn't quite structure themselves around live TV, so most teachers asked their schools to buy the videos, if such things were available.

Sadly, my mother insisted on sending me to school, so I didn't get to see many of the educational programmes on ABC but, thanks to the fact that Aunty* ran its scheduling based on the school calendar for the southern states, I could watch a couple of weeks a year when the Queensland holidays ran a week earlier or later.  I was always secretly pleased when any sick days coincided with an episode of Square One (a maths programme), or something equally dorky.

But the show I loved most - and one that would occasionally be screened early on Saturday mornings - was French in Action.

It was actually my mother who got me onto that show.  She had an idea, at the time, that we would watch the programme together and learn French - one she vehemently denies, now.  I don't know how she heard of it, but I do remember her saying that she heard it was a particularly good language programme.

It was.  In fact, I've never seen anything that can compare to it - not just in languages, but in televised classes in general.  FIA was simply one of the best examples of education design I've ever seen.  Even today, whenever I watch an educational show or listen to a podcast, I find myself thinking "that's kind of like what they did in FIA, only FIA did it better..."

If I explain the format, you'll recognise most of it.  Other programmes have used similar techniques before and since.  There was a plot running through the entire series - each episode would show a few short chapters of this ongoing story.  Snippets would be repeated, with particular words highlighted.  Those words would be shown in other context, spoken by a variety of other people in a variety of other settings.  The spelling of the word would be shown, and a mime would act it out - just to drive it home.

Everything (apart from an introduction right at the beginning of each episode explaining what we were about to see) would be entirely in French.  Even the "class discussion" (there was a "class" who would often discuss what was happening in the story) was done entirely in French.  The learner was expected to "pick up" the meaning of the words based on the context(s).

Did it work?

Well, on the one hand I don't speak French. On the other hand, I did spend a lot of my childhood randomly spouting French things like "Je déteste ce!" and "J'suis malade" - these are things I picked up from the programme, and still remember to this day.  I didn't pick up useful things like counting and the days of the week.  They might have been in the episodes I didn't see, or they might have been left out entirely.

When I took myself to French evening classes for one semester in high school, I found myself in the peculiar position of being the only person in the class who couldn't count to ten, but could say entire sentences (albeit rather short ones).

And I have to admit that I'm finding what little French I do know a bit sticky.  I'll occasionally come up with the French word when I'm trying to think of the German or Estonian (both languages I am actually trying to learn at present, as opposed to French, which I'm not).  One day I'll probably start learning French again, and I expect I'll find a few more traces of FIA floating in the back of my brain.

I think I can safely say that FIA gave me a foundation in French that would have proved rather useful if I had built on it by continuing with the language.  What it definitely did, though, was give me a benchmark for educational design.  So often I find myself wondering how we can bring the FIA way of doing things into our own educational what-nots.

And so, just to indulge myself more than anything else, I'd like to finish by outlining six educational design principles that I first discovered in FIA, which I believe are worth pinning to a notice board if you are going to work on a series of vodcasts or podcasts:

1. Never underestimate the value of light entertainment (people engage with stories and anecdotes - they always have and they always will)
2. Give people a heads-up - let them know what they should be seeing and learning as a result of watching (or listening to) this thing.
3. Repeat your keywords.  Feel free to repeat them a little too often.  They become stickier by being slightly annoying.
4. Embrace the pastiche.  By mixing and matching different techniques to emphasis the important parts of your message, you are making sure your audience doesn't start tuning your "voice" out as background noise.
5. Write short and write long.  Each part should be able to stand on its own, but become richer when experienced as part of a bigger picture.  One episode on its own should be perfectly fine.  Three episodes in sequence should be even better.
6. Offer context.  Offer lots of context.  Let them see what you are talking about, and see it from a variety of different angles.

*"Aunty" is a common nickname in Australia for the ABC (from back when it was the Australian Broadcasting Commission).  It indicates something that is a part of the family, but a little bit dowdy.

The Librarian's Dilemma

One of the great things about working in a library is the fact that you get to know the collection really well.

You know to look for things in places other people might not think of - not because the books are "hidden" somewhere difficult to find, but rather because you have the freedom to think laterally.

So, for example, when I started learning German I not only went to the language section of the main collection, I also went to the curriculum collection. A number of academic libraries have a curriculum collection, although the collection may be known by a different name. These are designed to look like school libraries, so that Education students can see what kind of resources might be available to them when they go out to a school to teach.

I went to our CC to see what language resources they had, which is where I found one of my favourite "introduction to German" books Learn German (which I mentioned in my From Something to Nothing post.

I wanted my very own copy, but they appeared to be long out of print, so I ordered something that appeared to be a similar thing under a different title (Easy German) to see if it was related.

Turned out it was a later edition - and a substantially revised one at that. While the cartoon story was still there, the layout of the book had been completely overhauled and the illustrations were somewhat re-arranged as a result. The grammar points in the original had been peppered around the same page as the story, but in the new version they had been pulled out to their own pages and fleshed out a bit more. Oh, and a lot of the exercises from the original weren't there in the later version.

So, now that I knew a later version existed, the logical thing to do would be to order it for the CC... Except that the way things are at the moment, ordering a new edition would eventually lead to the old edition being "disposed of", if you know what I mean.

And, from a design perspective, they were quite different. I found the older version easier to read and more interactive, but the newer version more informative and in depth. If it were up to me, I'd definitely want to keep them both. Such things are, however, rarely up to me.

So I spent several weeks wondering if I should order the later edition of the book, knowing it would probably mean we would the older edition. This is particularly relevant to me at the moment, as I'm toying with the idea of looking at the design of introductory language texts as a Master's project.

In the end I bit the bullet and decided that, since I know own both versions (albeit, only in German - and the book does come in French and Spanish) the only people who will miss out are all of our members. And, hey, they probably wouldn't borrow out the older book anyway. Something about people, these days - they can't seem to see an old book on the shelf if there is a new book sitting right next to it...

From Nothing to Something

The German subject I'm taking at the moment is promoted as being an introductory course for beginners who have never studied German before, but it is based around a text-book programme that is not ideal for such a course. Especially in regards to distance learners

Deutsch: Na Klar! is a programme for beginners, but not for "true" beginners. The information it covers is basic, but not introductory.

The book/programme seems to be working on two assumptions:

1. It assumes students have had some exposure to German previously

Or at least some sort of language learning. It's undeniable. If you've never done anything with German in the past, you will struggle with this book. The Introduction is supposed to ease you into the course, instead it clearly works on the assumption that you already know something about German or language learning. Not much, but more than nothing. This is particularly obvious when you look at the explanations offered for many of the concepts covered in the Introduction and first chapter. It's just not sufficient to support someone who has no experience with the language or with language learning.

Which brings me to the second assumption:

2. It assumes you have regular class time and can consult with teachers and students

Once again, you can't avoid this fact. For one thing, the explanations are pretty sparse - if you have a teacher to elaborate on them and go into more detail, then this is fine, but when you are studying on your own it's a bit of a handy cap. Also, a large number of the exercises given in the book are for classroom activities. You need to undertake an activity with one or more classmates, and then discuss the activity with the rest of the class.

Neither of these assumptions make this a good programme to use with distance students who are learning German for the first time. I have a slight advantage in that I intentionally took an evening course in Basic German last year to prepare for this Diploma. If I hadn't, I think I'd be having a very rough time of it. I know some of the other distance learners who tune in for the Monday night online class are struggling. One hour a week with someone you can't see is not sufficient to make up for the short-falls in the programme.

Now, I'm not saying it's a bad programme. It has it's good points, and isn't too difficult. The problem is that it can't stand on it's own. You need the classroom environment to support it, and you need to have had some exposure to German ahead of encountering it.

I also have the advantage of being a librarian who has just completed a Master's project on using resources to support language learners, and I've been reading all about autonomous language learning techniques. As a result, I've been making up for some of the programme's short-falls by actively using other books and resources. For a while now, I've essentially been using two textbooks (not to mention a whole pile of other things, when I can get my hands on them).

Deutsch Heute is probably a better book for distance learners, in my humble opinion, as it gives more thorough explanations of the grammar and vocabulary points. I've been using the eighth edition of this book to augment the fifth edition of Na Klar. It has, in a way, become my classroom. When I want to get more explanation of something, or see a different range of examples, I turn to this book.

I've been using the eighth edition because that's what we had in our library. I'd say it was probably the text book used at the university back in 2005. I tried to buy a copy of that edition, but could only order the ninth. I'm hoping the ninth edition is not radically different from the eighth, and hasn't decided to move more information from the book to the Internet. I'm all for hypermedia augmentation, but I don't like it when you have to use the Internet because you can't get what you need from the book.

Now, having said all of that, I don't think Deutsch Heute is a suitable programme for absolute beginners, either. Neither of these books really work on the assumption that the student is starting from nothing

I've noticed this in other "introductory" text-books as well - especially those aimed at "academic" learners. They never seem designed to take you from nothing to something.

Books aimed at children or "life-long-learners" (in other words, people who aren't studying with any serious purpose) are much better at this. In fact, the best book I've found, so far, for taking someone from nothing to something (in German) is a book called Learn German by Nicole Irving.

Now, this is a very interesting book. For one thing, it's a book that knows its theory. The use of an adventure story to carry the dialogue; the way the dialogue is used to illustrate key grammar points; the use of simple charts and tables to describe language points; the comic-book style use of pictures to help comprehension; the use of "exercises" that bear a strong resemblance to games... These ideas were all in the "top of the pops" for the design of language material in the 1990s (at least at the school level). The book was, quite obviously, written to take advantages of all of the latest and greatest ideas that had been discussed in the literature of the time. There's also a tape that goes with the book, but my library didn't have a copy of it, so I can't comment on what was on it - besides, you don't need the tape to use the book.

For another thing, it's actually three books. Sort of. Perhaps it's better to describe it as a shell. The plot of the story, the illustrations and the design and layout of the book were used for three separate books: Learn German, Learn French and Learn Spanish. No aspect of the story or illustrations is particular to a given culture, so the dialogue and grammar descriptions could be converted to any language and the book would still work. The name of the town and characters is changed to be more typically French or Spanish (or whatesver), and away you go.

This book was specifically designed to take someone from nothing to something - and something decent, at that. It isn't focused on teaching you conversational German/French/Spanish, but rather give you a foundational knowledge about the language and its grammar - something you can then build on. And all while telling a story that was reasonably fun.

I found this book to be a great help when I started this whole German schtick last year - it pushed me ahead of what I was learning in the evening course and put me in a better position for understanding the material in these so-called "introductory" German courses. It was truly introductory.

Academic language courses need to consider starting with something like that when dealing with complete beginners. They need to give that first chapter or section over to those of us who need the basics introduced and elaborated, rather than just "covered" or "touched on".

Anyone designing an introductory language programme needs to start with the concept of taking people from nothing to something before trying to build on foundations that haven't been adequately laid.

I'd recommend Nicole Irving's Learn German/French/Spanish books to anyone who is thinking of learning that language... but they're out of print. You may be able to get a second hand copy, or borrow one from a library, but Usborne (the publisher) never reprinted them. I guess they just weren't as popular as the First Thousand Words in Something-Or-Other books that have been in print for ever. More's the pity.

I've ordered something by Irving from Usborne that I hope will be a kind of later edition of this book. I'll let you know if it's any good.

Public Libraries and "other" languages

I went to my local public library the other day, and on a whim I went over to the "foreign languages" section to see if they had any Russian children's books that might be nice and simple for picking up some vocabulary (in case you weren't aware, I'm currently learning Russian and Estonian).

I was intrigued to note that there weren't very many books in the Russian section at all. In fact, one person could borrow the entire stock of books on the shelf and still have "room" to borrow a couple of books from the rest of the library.

Now, even if the other two branches had the same number of books on their shelves, when you consider the fact that the books were a mix of fiction, non-fiction, adult and children's books...

Well, let's just say the average Russian living in this town has very little reading material. I don't know exactly how many Russians we have (I personally know three, and they don't seem to know each other so either the Russian community here isn't very close-nit or there are enough for them to get their "fellow countrymen" fix without knowing every single Russian in town), but I'll wager there are enough of them to warrant a slightly better selection of books.

Let's put it this way: I borrowed a cook book. Just one. It was the only Russian cook book there, so no one else gets to make Russian pastries until such time as I could be bothered returning it.

And, yes, I know how the system works. The State Library has a collection of books in foreign languages, which it circulates to the local public libraries on request. All you have to do to get more Russian books is ask. However, you kind of have to know what to ask for. You can't just rock up to the library, see a book on the shelf you haven't read before and think: "Oh, yeah, I may as well try it". Is that not one of the great joys of a library?

I was thinking there needs to be a better system (that's my 'thing' these days: "we need a better system"). Perhaps, when someone signs up for a library card, they could have the option of marking their "home language" on their form. For every person who has that home language, the library ensures they have at least five "new" fiction books and five "new" non-fiction books cycle through the library branches each month. That way, theoretically, each registered library user would have a reasonably large selection to choose from.

Say, for example, there were 25 registered Russian readers in town - that would make 250 Russian books on the shelves). Would that make an untenable number of foreign language books? Yes, probably, but if you consider the fact that we have three branches in this town, and all of the books would rotate between those branches for a period of approximately three months before going back to the State Library to be sent to another town, then it seems a bit more reasonable. Also, there's no reason why they can't bring back the same books every couple of years, as long as they aren't all the same books.

And, yes, that may get a bit ludicrous when you put together all of the languages spoken by different people around town... but dammit, what are libraries for, if not to fulfil our unreasonable expectations?