https://padlet.com/joanndelaney55/2ipa6pgdd0yp What do you think? en-us 2017-11-15 14:40:28 UTC 2017-11-18 08:05:40 UTC hello@padlet.com joanndelaney55 https://padlet.com/joanndelaney55/2ipa6pgdd0yp/wish/207213638 Learning a language is like.....

Any other form of study, and it helps if you have an intrinsic love of it but are also prepared to study and put your study into practice. PL

learning a new skill - life skill
swallowing your pride
making mistakes
cracking a code (when suddenly words and phrases become familiar)
Having fun and talking
understanding a culture
discovering a whole new thing you want to learn about
mastering a skill
finding new ways to relate to other cultures (by speaking their language)
helping you to intergrate - Allowing you to become part of society. (EJ)

At school French was  just another subject and was too distant from its ultimate purpose which is to be able to communicate with people who speak another language.

Speaking French has been like a window into other worlds as it has enabled me to travel independently and communicate with people in very different contexts

Learning some colloguial Arabic while working in Sudan  was  a bridge to establishing  some level of common humanity with people in the market, on the train etc as we went about our daily lives (AC) 

Similar to Ann's Arabic experience, I think learning a new language is making new friends or integrating into a society. The most successful language learning has taken place because of being surrounded by people who refused to speak English to me (Afrikaans as a child and Zulu as an adult - which I learnt enough for basic interactions at the time). Being part of a group (for better or worse). (AB)]]> 2017-11-15 14:43:18 UTC https://padlet.com/joanndelaney55/2ipa6pgdd0yp/wish/207213638 joanndelaney55 https://padlet.com/joanndelaney55/2ipa6pgdd0yp/wish/207214446 My first day in french class with Major Watt. He thought he was still in the army and had taught my brother five years before. I was terrified of him and a skinny young thing. He read out the register like a roll call: 'Lyon...' 'yes sir' ' I hope you are as good as your brother was'. Well that was it. That was the nail in the coffin. I spent the rest of that year in fear of him and learnt next to nothing. When I got into education for years I wished that I would bump into him in the street so I could say, ' Major Watt! god you were a terrible teacher.' PL



 had a negative experience of learning a language... this is what happened....
I think I went once to a stage two Dutch course, when I should have gone to a stage one class. From what I remember I didn't understand much and had to spend the whole lesson nodding politely and not being able to participate fully. I didnt recognise hardly any words in the reading task (they were harder words) and couldn't decipher the text. I was totally dependent on the teacher for explanations (who spoke English) but this didnt feel right. I was given no strategies for coping - there was no differentiation. (EJ)

I did a year of German at school and although I seem to have acquired a lot of passive vocabulary, I was never able to speak it.  I found that having to deal with so many word endings associated with the different cases too inhibiting.  (AC)

We could chose between French or German for two years in high school and I chose French. The woman wasn't a native speaker either and was probably a couple of pages ahead of us in the textbook. We covered the same stuff for two years but she kept going back and changing things she'd got wrong. I still can recite the first page but I've still got this feeling that French is a bit messed up and way too complex. We went straight from "hello, my name is..." to a tables of plurals and tenses... I've never tried again. (AB)]]> 2017-11-15 14:44:26 UTC https://padlet.com/joanndelaney55/2ipa6pgdd0yp/wish/207214446 joanndelaney55 https://padlet.com/joanndelaney55/2ipa6pgdd0yp/wish/207215001 I learnt Welsh as an adult -  I did a special course called Cwrs Wlpan. The word 'Wlpan' comes from the Hebrew meaning ‘studio'. It is the most successful (intensive) Welsh course. It consisted of lessons every day for 3 months, for 3 hours every morning. It was an intensive approach (immersion almost) and involved lots of drilling and repetition. We worked in pairs alot, practising simple conversations. By the end of the course we were able to go to the Welsh pub and speak in Welsh to other people all night. In other words we had reached a certain level of fluency (very basic!). I have since forgotten much of it!¬ Because I then lived in Amsterdam for 3 years and started learning Dutch (which I cant speak either!). So I unlearned' all my languages! (EJ)

I learned French at school with a very scary teacher who used to give us long lists of vocabulary to learn every week and humiliate us in class if we failed to learn it.  There was also a lot of focus on decontextualised  grammar.  Somehow this gave me a strong foundation and I got an A at A level despite never having to use it! When I later spent a lot of time travelling round West Africa I found that although I lacked any functional language skills I was able to make myself understood effectively when talking about things. (AC)

We did Sotho for two years in primary school. It was very much a tick box exercise so the government could show, presumably, that we were learning our regional indigenous language. Our teacher was white, so not a native speaker and probably not even fluent. But she was really into it. Obviously a rebel, she taught us songs, one of which turned out to be the second part of our democratic national anthem (Nkosi Sikelel' was banned at the time and is the first part of the anthem). I still remember a lot of what she taught us, which wasn't enough to get past a basic greeting and asking someone about their family, mainly because she was so into it and made it feel very important to know. I think it's safe to assume that we all grew up thinking things were weird. I should also say that friends in another class with a different teacher had a completely different experience - much like my French experience.  (AB)]]> 2017-11-15 14:45:16 UTC https://padlet.com/joanndelaney55/2ipa6pgdd0yp/wish/207215001 joanndelaney55 https://padlet.com/joanndelaney55/2ipa6pgdd0yp/wish/207215809 Young; not worried about making errors; used the language outside class; interested in all aspects; like to make notes; obsessive about keeping records of lexis etc; talkers; have an intrinsic love of the native language; has a boyfriend/girlfriend/friend who speaks that language; likes reading; have interests which are conducted in that language. These were all characteristics of the best student I ever had. She was meticulous in her study and immersed herself in it from all angles.   PL


Willing to speak, fairly outgoing

Not too worried about making mistakes

Have foundations in other languages (i.e speak other languages)

Have some well developed study skills

They practice a lot, at home or with friends

Good memory / recall

(EJ)

In addition to what Emily has written:

We could debate what is meant by 'good' language learners! However, I would add:

Good learners tend to be well motivated,  especially integrative or resultative motivation

being young  - up to about 15 helps - especially if they are non-instructed learners

Learners who are not literate in their L1 may become great communicators in the language but not often grammatically accurate

Learners who have had a very traditional learning background e.g. from China, may feel inhibited and therefore lack spoken fluency.  However if we are measuring their accuracy they may well excel

Good learners have strategies they can use when communication fails e.g. they can rephrase , resort to non-verbal communication etc

There is also something called 'language learning aptitude' 

They do not have barriers to learning such as distracting family commitments, exhaustion from long working hours, poor mental health and medication, negative experiences of education etc
(AC)

In addition to the above I’d also like to add pressing motivation to learn: being taught at school (French and Sotho which I did want to learn but it wasn't essential to learn) versus learning because I had to to be able to function in society (my mum sent me to an Afrikaans nursery after staff in a shop refused to speak English to me - and she was big on us being independent). I remember looking at the lady and feeling humiliated for not being able to speak Afrikaans. Interestingly we had a very ambiguous relationship to Afrikaans as it was the language of the apartheid government so while we all had to speak it in Pretoria  (and I ended up in a bilingual high school where all our specialist subjects - art, ballet, music and drama - were taught in Afrikaans) we didn't because it was important to identify as English (hence my very non-Afrikaans name). So identity contributes but in my case it meant I didn't use the Afrikaans I could speak unless it was essential - so probably wasn't as good at it. I am still fluent in Afrikaans but never was in Sotho , Zulu or French. (AB)




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