What about Foreign Languages and/in the Flat New World?
Photo by urbanmkr. Scrabble game played in four different languages (Spanish, Dutch, French and English)
David Warlick’s Post “Only a Second Language” finally brings in the topic of foreign languages into the concept of a Flat World.
I suspect though that most people reading David’s post still don’t understand or “get” the point. Although I am grateful that David felt it was important enough to bring the subject up in his blog, I was not able to read in between the lines that he himself really understands the value of speaking in more than one tongue and what it takes to learn another language.
When people hear that I am a Spanish teacher, inevitably they start with their story of how they took two or four years of a foreign language in high school or college, but that they do not remember anything.
I just want to “scream” that “taking” classes a few days a week will not make them speak another tongue. Culture and language are inseparably intertwined. Foreign language students need to stop “taking” a class and immerse themselves into the target culture and language if they want to have any hope of communicating and collaborating at a somewhat equal level with partners, friends, or businesses around the world. When someone tells me that they tried learning another language but they failed, I always wonder if the just “took” classes and expected to know the language after a few years or if they started listening to the target language on a daily basis, read books and articles, watched movies and surrounded themselves with people who spoke the target language?
Did they physically visit a country that spoke the language and made it a priority to converse with locals to learn about traditions, history and language nuances that are not written in textbooks?
The only Americans that I have met (so far) that have truly became multi-lingual (not being raised as such) are the ones that have taken the extra step and saw that learning another tongue is a life long commitment and extends far beyond the few classes taken inside of a classroom.
Until foreign language instruction is stopped from not being taken seriously and continued to be stamped as a “Resource” or as an “Elective”, the attitude from students, parents, teacher colleagues and administrators will not change. Students will see it as something they can choose, not really essential to graduate. Parents do not place the same value on knowing a foreign language as science for example, simply because they do not know one. Colleagues will see your class as a “babysitting” service to give them some time off to plan for the real important subjects. Administrators and guidance counselors will continue to treat foreign language classes as an after thought and foreign language teachers as “Stepchildren” in the faculty.
Quotes like the following come to mind when trying to explain to a monolingual person what it means to be able to communicate with others in their native language. What it does to me, as a person, when I am “allowed” to speak only one third of the words that are floating in my head, when I can only associate a certain language melody with a concept or idea which I am trying to express.
Andrew Cohen, Professor of Linguistics (University of MN)
If you know only one language, you’re a prisoner, stuck in the tyranny of that one language.
Charlemagne said:
To have another language is to possess a second soul.
Ezra Pound:
The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language.
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March 10th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Amen, Silvia.
I think the key is making the learning of languages a priorty, an integral component of the curriculum. Even though language is a requirement at my school, students, parents, and other teachers view it as an extra, and therefore don’t devote much time and energy to the enterprise. And, students’ idea of travelling abroad is going to Cancun.
God Almighty.
March 13th, 2007 at 1:40 am
Silvia, I am enjoying reading your posts about coming towards a cure or a strategy to combat monolingualism. I agree with you that to be a global citizen in this century it is essential to have an international perspective. Acquiring a second or third language is one way to do this. Immersion into a culture is also one way to do this, if the opportunity arises. There is also positive action that can be taken within any school that can de-alienate the Language B (second language) department.
I would like to draw your attention however to the fact that even though my daughter (age 12) has lived in 4 different countries during her life and has had cultural immersion in terms of going to school with native speakers etc, up until now she has been unable to learn another language due to her mild dyslexia and associated learning problems. In fact she has been totally turned off French for life I think. Despite this, I am confident in knowing that she has developed other ways of communicating and being able to get along with people of different backgrounds and feel very proud that she is developing from a child of the world to be a global citizen. I encourage language acquisition but do not hang my hat on it being the only way to flatten the world.
March 13th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Julie,
I liked the expression you used about not hanging your hat on language acquisition as being the only way to flatten the world. I believe that no “one approach” is ever the only approach.
In you daughter’s case I would even assume that she is probably more a global citizen than another person, who happens to know multiple languages fluently according to the book, but never had the experiences your daughter had nor developed ways to communicate in different ways, compensating for her learning differences.
While writing the original post, I was particularly thinking of a typical student (in the USA) who has never lived abroad nor sees the value and different perspective knowing another language can add to our “reality”. Unfortunately that is an attitude most Foreign Language teachers here have to battle with.