Language learning

Paragogy Case Study: Language Learning

I started informally learning a second language at age two when my family moved to Japan. My formal studies of Japanese lasted two years: first and second grade at Tokyo's Nischimachi International School (NIS).

Age 8, or 3rd grade, my family moved back home to Winnetka. From grades three to five at Greeley I remember having Spanish classes, but not many. My main memory is some sort of rap or song we sang to learn the capitals of South America. Beat was saucy "Bo-go-ta Colum-bi-A!".

I studied French at Washburne Junior High School in grades six through eight, and continued my French work during all 4 years of New Trier High School. During that period my family did 2 exchange programs with a French one, and twice I spent three weeks there.

My previous work passed me out of Colgate University's language requirement, and I haven't taken a language class from a school since 2003.

I have often worked as a golf caddy in the summer months since '03, and many of my fellow independent contractors were born in Mexico. From hanging out and asking the definition of fun words from time to time I've picked up a sliver of Espangol.

I did a semester abroad in London via Colgate and I visited Paris and used what I remembered of my French unimpressively with locals. In summer '08 I worked for Le Chateau des Enfants, an English language focused summer camp at The American School in Montagnola, Switzerland. Under the influence I impressed my fellow counselor & English Teachers by having a broken conversation in French with a cab driver on a ride back to campus. He didn't speak English, I didn't speak Italian, but be both spoke French. His was better than mine, but we communicated enough that he joked I was "the President" and I said "Non. Je suis un peasant." (No, I am a peasant.) which I illustrated with hand gestures indicating the President was high, near the cab's ceiling, and the peasant (i.e. moi) was low, on the floor mat.

After Montagnola I worked in Hamatonbetsu, Japan a picturesque rural town of 4,000 roughly 90 minutes South West of Japan's Northern tip (which is a 3 hour, very expensive, ferry ride from Sakalin, Russia). Obviously my informal Japanese studies resumed. I had 2 close friends in town from Washington state, a husband who taught at the local high school and wife. Besides them, essentially everyone else I interacted with at my office, schools, Judo club, Taiko club, and in town were native Japanese speakers. Many spoke English, some quite well. I didn't have a formal tutor and gave up on the self-study course offered by the JET Program. Yet, my spoken and aural Japanese improved considerably. I learned from peers working and being social: I wish I could quantify how much Japanese I learned at Karaoke bars. On that note, I learned to sing "Yuki" a song by Enka artist Jero somewhat popular in Japan.

July 2009 I shipped out to the small city of Anqing, China to teach Aural English at Anqing Foreign Language School. I hired a tutor born and raised near Anqing. She was an English teacher at an Anqing school and was highly recommended by a teacher from Philadelphia at an Anqing college. She helped a lot, but similarly I learned most of my Anqing-hua, or Anging dialect of Mandarin, via working and socializing amidst its 1,000,000+ inhabitants. Between weekly lessons and talking with locals I grasped enough spoken and aural Mandarin to have 20-ish minute conversations with cab drivers. I had to lead the conversation and keep it on topics I could converse about (was I married? Chinese girls? Job? English Teacher! Salary? Alcohol? America?, etc.). If I lost command it could get too abstract for my vocabulary and very quickly fizzle out.

I have never Reviewing my formal and informal language studies, and considering what I have learned about how to learn a language as an English Teacher I feel there are 3 keys to studying verbal communication in a new language well:

1 - Move to the country that natively speaks the language you want to learn. 2 - Be very social (talk to colleagues, go out to dinner, join local clubs, etc.) and very unafraid to make mistakes and look like a fool speaking the new language. Make mistakes over and over again. 3 - Hire a tutor.

For me those 3 things without any sincere formal book study or class work got me using Japanese and Chinese every day living in those cultures. I was nowhere near fluent and illiterate, but I was able to make friends, joke around, clarify confusing customer experiences and more, taking my interactive experience with the new culture to a far higher level.

Locals were almost always appreciative of my language efforts and while I did obviously get laughed at more than once, people can sense if you are earnestly trying to learn their language and normally are patient and sometimes even excited to help!