Language Trainers Blog

Time magazine has published an interview with the author of new book Babel No More, Michael Erard. This book is an intriguing read for language students, and fans of linguistics, as it delves into how to approach learning a new language, and how some people are able to learn a language quickly, whilst others are not. The main focus of the book is people who are able to speak more than one language (polyglots) and people who are able to communicate in many languages (hyperglots.) The interview is available here.

You can also read the first couple of chapters free on Amazon!

It’s that time of year again, where we’re all trying to think of fabulous Christmas gifts for family and friends. Don’t worry, I won’t be making these a regular thing all the way through December! I’ve just discovered these magnets which would make a great gift for any language student, and thought I’d share!

These little Magnetic Poetry Kits now come in Spanish, French, Italian, German, Norwegian and Swedish, and are a fun way to practice your writing skills in another language. There’s also a Hebrew alphabet kit, a sign language kit, and a Chinese for Kids kit, but these are a little harder to find.

These are available from Amazon, Eurocosm, and directly from Magnetic Poetry (this is a US site)

The people at Hotels.com have been busy conducting surveys recently, and their latest research seems to confirm what we already knew…British people are not renowned for their language skills.

64% of the 2000 Brits surveyed didn’t know a word of any other language. One of the reasons given for this was “expecting hosts to speak English.” (!)

63% of those polled had no idea what the Dutch word “goedemorgen” means. I don’t speak Dutch, but could easily guess that it would be “good morning,” due to the similarities when trying to pronounce it.

1 in 50 respondents claimed to understand everything that was said to them in at least one other language, but could not reply.

I think the results, even from a small sample of the population, are pretty embarrassing. What can we Brits do to turn this stereotype around? Obviously, Language Trainers students are at a huge advantage here!

I had a conversation with two friends regarding learning the other day; one is French, the other Italian. Both agreed that it wasn’t as necessary for native English speakers to learn another language, as English is the one language a lot of people know. They also both started to learn English at a young age, and live in the UK to understand the language better.

Is this where we are going wrong? Is it the education system, or are we simply lazy? What are your thoughts?

Students at UCLA, UC San Diego, and other schools in California are deciding to learn indigenous Central and South American languages rather than the standard choices like Spanish, French or German. Students are now learning Mixtec and Zapotec (spoken in the Oaxaca region of Mexico), and Aymara and Quechua (spoken in the Andes - Bolivia, Peru, and Chile).

Many of the students will never go to a place where these languages are spoken, but some are using it as a base from which to travel or carry out charity work.

These new courses have even had positive consequences for the teachers. Some of the professors who grew up speaking indigenous languages were raised to think that Spanish, and then English, were more important than their native languages. For some, it wasn’t until they realised that other people wanted to learn about their cultures that they became proud of their languages and backgrounds.

I think it’s great that indigenous languages are being promoted at a university level. Hopefully one day they might even bring them into elementary and high schools.

Full article: LA Times.

There are certain things about learning that we know. Things like how you are supposed to study in a quiet place and how every student has a different learning style. I just read a very interesting article that turns a lot of these established theories on their heads.

A study by Californian psychologists has shown that there’s no evidence to support teaching to accommodate different learning styles. Even though everybody does prefer getting input in slightly different ways (e.g. visual vs aural), regular teaching is basically equally beneficial to everyone.

Another myth is that you should use the the same quiet study area for every study session. New evidence has shown that if you vary your surroundings, it will better store information in your brain. If information is associated with more than one thing (e.g. sound or visual information), it will help reinforce the neural pathways. Also, if you study more than one thing in a session (e.g. vocabulary, speaking, and listening), it is much more effective than sticking to just one topic.

To summarise, mix it up a little, in both location and subject. See if it works for you!

Full article: The New York Times.

I don’t have children myself, but I’d like to think that if I did, I would expose them to as many learning opportunities as possible.  I was speaking to an expat teacher the other day and she said that at one British school in Shanghai (which her children are no longer attending), children only receive Chinese instruction for two hours a week.  Apparently most parents don’t anticipate their kids being in China for long enough for it to be of value.

Do you agree with this?  I can sort of see why parents would think something like that (especially if they were going to send their kids back to the UK to boarding school), but if the language education isn’t going to encroach too much on their core education, I can’t see how it is a bad thing.  Kids will learn more about the local language and culture, which has obvious social and educational value.

I am a big fan of actually living in the country you’re living in, rather than locking yourself and your family away in a mini version of your home country.  Of course, everyone needs certain home comforts, but I think children should be given more experiences and opportunities, not less.  If they are about to be sent home to experience western culture anyway, why not let them experience the place they’re living in in the meantime?

I’m sure you’ve considered a day when you would be interacting with humanoid robots on a daily basis, right?  Well, that day is coming up soon in South Korea.  The government will spend about 45 million USD on an “R-Learning” program that will put English-speaking robot teachers into preschools and kindergartens nationwide by next year.

Of course, the kids won’t be supervised entirely by these bots, but they will be involved with duties like singing songs and telling stories.  As with many non-English speaking countries, there just aren’t enough qualified English language teachers (let alone native speakers to interact with students), so this easily-standardised method is definitely a viable option.  Most of us wouldn’t be comfortable speaking to a robot, but if kids are acclimatised early, this could lead the way to further robo-education.

With all the advances in computer and robot technology, do  you think that there will soon be a replacement for real live teachers?

Source: Crave blog. Image: ocularinvasion.

It sounds like a normal-enough story: a 3-year-old born to Chinese parents in America is brought back to China and so needs a Chinese teacher because she only understands English. The odd part? The ‘child’ is a giant panda.

Because of an agreement between China and several other countries, any pandas (and their offspring) sent out of China to foreign zoos are only on loan for study purposes, and must eventually return to their homeland.

Mei Lan, a panda born in Atlanta, Georgia, is due to move to a breeding centre in Sichuan province in China this week.  As part of her welcome and orientation, the centre is arranging for a Chinese language tutor to teach her some basic phrases, as she has only ever heard English.  She will be also be weaned off the biscuits she was used to in the US, and moved on to a Chinese recipe supplemented by fresh bamboo.

I’m not sure how fast pandas can learn commands, though.  If their general behaviour is anything to go by, it will be a slow process!

Source: LA Times.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary in the UK, has said that every secondary school student should have the opportunity to learn Mandarin, and other ‘up and coming’ languages.

With mandatory language study for seven-to-11-year-olds coming into effect next year, this recommendation will no doubt spread to primary schools.

Even though students will by no means be forced to study Chinese (any language will do), there have been a lot of arguments against attempting to make the language accessible to every student.  For a start, where will these teachers come from?  There are very few students studying Mandarin at present, and most teachers would come from that demographic.  It has been suggested that there would be specialist language centres that students would go to in order to study, but is this a practical solution?  Another major argument is that Chinese is only the predicted most-useful foreign language for kids of this generation (although other recommendations are Russian, Polish, and even Indonesian).  When I was growing up, Japanese was the next big thing, and it wasn’t so long ago that people thought everyone would need to speak Russian. Will Chinese ever be useful to the everyman in the UK?

I think that the focus should be taken of the specific languages being recommended, and put on the fact that kids will need to do second language study.  Although I was quick to drop languages when I was younger, I did enjoy them, and wish I had continued for longer.  If we can instil a love for language learning in the next generations, regardless of the language they choose, it will never be a bad thing.

Which language do you think will be essential in the next 10 or 15 years?

Source: Telegraph.

I came across this digital media blog post about a charity organisation called Literacy Bridge that is using budget technology to try to make a difference to the lives of people in developing countries.

Literacy Bridge is utilising easy-to-use, low-cost voice recorders to help spread information and increase literacy levels in rural Ghana, where knowledge is still primarily spread via word of mouth.  The Talking Books, designed to cost around 10USD each, are already being used to help understaffed schools teach their children, and spread knowledge and news through remote communities.

Talking books can be used to record and store pre-recorded audio, as well as being connected to each other, and to central kiosks, to transfer information, lessons, and news.  The speed can be altered to suit different learning levels, and people can improve their literacy by playing audio at the same time as listening to books.  The devices are so simple that small children can use them as well as adults.

A pilot program was launched early this year, and the organisation has recently received a grant from Amazon.com.  To find out more information, or donate, visit Literacy Bridge.