Bb-Assignment 5

Do you think language and if so, what language? 

Yes, I believe I think language. In my case, I switch between languages. When I am speaking or working in Dutch (L1), I mostly think in Dutch, although at times, when a Dutch word is not available, my brain might offer an English (L2) word and suddenly I continue my thoughts or writing in English. When speaking or working English, it might happen the other way round. This is more than likely because I have lived and worked in England and in English for most of my working life and the language has become my daily language, even though I am now living in Holland.

What goes faster - thinking or speaking?

In reality I believe that thinking goes faster than speaking. However, when speaking a second language when not yet proficient in this language, you will think in L1 first, then translate it into L2 and then speak. This way speaking might be faster. I believe, therefore, that the sooner you stop ‘translating’ and start ‘thinking’ the language in your head, the quicker and more comfortable you will be with that language.

Bb-Assignment 6

Do you dream language? What/how do you and blind/deaf people dream?

From the fact that people mumble in their sleep and sometimes have full conversations, you could deduce that people dream using language as much as they incorporate sight, sound and taste.  Most people dream in their native language but, when exposed to other languages, they will either incorporate those or dream in the language of choice at the time. I certainly experienced that when I lived in England. 

I also gather deaf people do dream language but then in sign language. People mumble in their sleep and there are reports of deaf people sleep-signing. Those who are born blind or become blind before the age of five do not see in their dreams. Nevertheless, their dreams are just as rich in narrative and detail as in sighted people so there is no reason that they wouldn’t dream language as well.

However, there is a school of thought which says that we all dream in the same language, another language, an emotional language (think of babies dreaming).

Bb-Assignment 10

My own language learning memories

It is quite hard to recall the ins and outs of how I learned English, German and French during school as it is rather a long time ago and a lot of water has gone under the bridge since that time. What I do remember is working with study books which contained grammar and vocabulary exercises. To my knowledge we spent most of our lessons at school and at home working through those. Practising past, present and future tenses of verbs played a big part in this. In addition we had to read a number of books, like Jane Eyre and such and write essays on them, but I remember no links to the country’s culture. In fact, I do believe I was very ignorant of these countries’ cultures as a whole. The teacher tended to explain the grammar from what I can recall, then we would discuss it and check for questions and then we did some exercises together. Afterwards you had to work out further exercises at home. Then we were of course also tested on them. We would need to do exercises and there was some practising of pronunciation but, because I was very self-conscious about my inability to pronounce the ‘th’ properly at that time, I tried to avoid participation as much as possible. We had written and oral exams. The written exams were mostly grammar related and the oral exams were always literary related, ie questions about a book. I really don’t recall much conversational practise. If it did happen, I probably blocked it out as I was so concerned about ‘doing it right’ that I didn’t want to put myself in the position where I would ‘do it wrong’. Nor do I remember watching any films or being creative with the language. The emphasis seemed in hindsight to be on writing with some element of communication thrown in. If I had to guess at the methods used, I would say that it was cognitive code mixed with grammar translation. The teachers used elements of drilling, elements of working things out for yourself and a large emphasis on the right grammar and spelling. Although I feel all of these are important, I am sure I would have benefited from more of a communicative language teaching style. This would have meant that a teacher might have given me as an individual more support in my fear of pronunciation, of saying something the wrong way. I might have learned that to fail is to learn and I might also have found out much earlier, that it requires just a bit of guts and practise to get it right in the end. 

Bb-Assignment 11

My ideas on language learning incorporating what was learned from my internship 

Different methods should be used for different levels of learning. I believe the first question you should ask is ‘who is my audience?’. The second question you should ask is ‘what will they need the language for’ and then adapt the material and methods accordingly. Even between classes things may differ - a mostly reflective class might need a different approach then a very active one. I would like my classes to be as interactive as they can be. Whatever is needed, I do believe that the ability to learn to communicate effectively in that language, on whatever level, is key. Someone once said to me about communicating in a foreign language: ‘Just learn a 100 basic words, pick out the ones you need and throw them together as best you can and throw it to the receiver. Let them work it out - they are the experts!’. What he meant was, don’t worry too much about the ins and outs of grammar as it is about communication and getting your point across. Now, I don’t believe that we should advocate that this would be enough but it did get me thinking. It is a great help in providing a mindset that you shouldn’t worry too much about doing everything perfect whilst you are still learning a language. You are allowed to make mistakes. The biggest hurdle in learning a second language is the fear of making errors. I wonder if using this simple concept will get pupils to let go of their fear of making errors. It might create a whole new mindset, one where pupils are happy to try out new things and it may contribute to pupils learning more quickly. I would love to try out this concept in the form of an exercise and perhaps I could call it ‘The 100 word Juggler’. Despite this concept, however, I do believe in some structure - a basic structure, such as the test-teach-test method would be interesting. Furthermore, I would be looking to use a mix of theories, such as Communicative Language teaching incorporating for example grammar translation, the cognitive code and the direct method.