All those extra minutes

Thanks, Micah for your comment about diligence. It's true that you have to be good at bullying yourself adn so often, with time and opportunites available, the question is "Why am I not doing this?" I think one way of being effective at language learning is to use your "extra" minutes--those moments while you wait in line, drive, eat, etc. Instead of spacing out, many 2nd language learners have found ways of learning language that can be as natural as when we were toddlers learning English. I'm not just talking about vocabulary taped to common appliances in the house. As a missionary I started writing characters on my hand at every light and now I do it on my dashboard. It was also fun to see how many characters I could spot on signs and billboards that I knew. Language became a game that I've forgotten how to play lately. Toddlers often are entertained by language or vocabulary-identification activities: alphabet books, counting, rhymes, etc., as parents try to keep them occupied during those extra minutes. Our discretionary time has changed, but do we use what we have as efficiently? While toddlers play, they are in fact working hard at learning.

Speaking of extra minutes I now have 4 hours of Japanese character study a day. It's incredible to try to get 18 credits of Japanese into 8 weeks and hard to block out a solid wall to study it in. I've found this idea of overlooked crevices of time is very helpful. It can be as simple as putting character cards in my purse before I run out the door, thinking of the times of waiting I have ahead, or writing my grocery list in Japanese. I wouldn't take me long to say prayers in my 2nd language and after I finish remembering to jot down a quick note of what I struggled to express. Micah's exactly right--why don't I do things that I should? Don't I want to be bilingual? Take a minute and think of where you might find extra minutes or activities that you do anyway. Make language a part of your routine and the discipline factor won't be a problem. I'm going to bully myself a little to do what I should and remind myself that language is fun and interesting. Why else would toddlers be so fascinated with acquiring it?

Elements of Effective Independent Language Learning

7. Discipline & Diligence

I'm taking myself to task for this very principle of independent learning, so I thought I ought to blog about it, though it's been long since I last blogged. My blog represents a lot of metacognating on language but so many of these principles apply to all kinds of things. I think this is partly due to what I believe about the purpose of being on this planet: we came to learn and language allows to learn about our learning to engage in metalingual thinking and understand the "other," or that which is outside ourselves.

Discipline is linked to motivation and desire, the first element discussed on this blog. Discipline is an optimistic pursuit of a goal that we feel is well worth the effort. But discipline goes farther than that. It is the deterermination to do what you set out to do because you said you would. Sometimes we may desire something but it is in our actions that we show whether we were sincere and intrinsicly motivated in that desire. When evaluating yourself, your success and your language pursuits, it may be wise to look at your diligence in all aspects of your life. What do you do every day that needs done and what are your patterns of procrastination? How did you make certain good habits that you have and how have you broken the ones that aren't good for you? It might be helpful to refresh the motivations you had.

Recently, as I've mentioned, I re-evaluated my language progress and realized I needed some more structure and help to accomplish my goals. I thought again of all the reasons why I want to have better Japanese, why this would be a worthwhile thing for me to invest in and the result helped me in making the decision to make that a promary goal for this summer.

Inside-out Project

I just finished a project on Japanese grammar and how it subordinates complex ideas. Backing up, let me explain better: In a language, the first thing you learn is the order of the sentence the patterns of very simple sentences, but to really communicate showing how one idea effects another, we use "if" and "when" and relative pronouns like "that," "which," "who" and many many more. It's the way two ideas like "Jacob ate a pie." and "The steak was made of mud" can become one sentence: "Jacob ate the pie that was made of mud."Now, from that first day of Japanese, I knew that this was a language opposite to mine in order, but not until I practiced the sentence patterns of subordinate clauses did I realize that speaking another language can also be inside out. I compared it to an orgiami figure--inwardly often very complex but with a little study and a gentle pulling apart analysis, the thing becomes understandable and best of all, reproducible. I'm still pondering how I can make these patterns my own. How does a language form like this become second nature? I find I do a lot of drilling and reading and writing and translating my more complex thought in written words rather than the spoken bursts and phrases which too often make up our speech, I've improved a great deal. I also find that it's been one of the first things to deteriorate as my own language pattern becomes the norm. For some reason, I retain the vocabulary so much better. I'd love to hear any thoughts that might come from others who have thought about this.

Teaching Philosophy

I've been working now on a few teaching/learning philosophies in the past years and I think I've come up with a version that is brief and reflects a lot of the elements discussed on this blog.

Philosophy of Teaching and Learning

It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot, irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.
--Jacob Chanowski

I found this quote on a wall as an undergraduate student at Brigham Young University-Idaho, a school whose motto is “Rethinking Education” and it seemed to square well with what I thought about my own learning, long before I thought I would become a teacher. I do not intend to reflect an undesirable image on learners, but rather found that this is how I would describe myself as a learner. I was drawn to the focus on learning as an exchange, rather than a one-way experience and a disregard for appearances in the pursuit of more important things; this leaves students free to make necessary mistakes. As a teacher I am interested in what a student brings to the classroom, his choices and actions and making sure he or she feels accountable and informed when it comes to his or her performance.

What a Student Brings

The quote from Jacob Chanowski, assumes that students don’t come to the classroom as empty vessels to be filled. They come with “cultural capital” and though their language skills or backgrounds may rough and unsophisticated, they bring much to the classroom. I am convinced that a teaching approach should use the students’ first language to reinforce their second language acquisition and that a multicultural classroom can and should be the goal of every ESL class. A multicultural classroom embraces differences and invites students to use the common language of English to express and discuss their experience.
A student is not just a cultural being, but a cognitive presence. Students in my class will be invited to engage in metacognition about the way that they learn, to diagnose their strengths and weaknesses in content or with the multiple intelligences and work on overcoming them. Self knowledge can be very empowering as students discover that language is something that comes from inside of them and make choices suited to what they want and who they are. In this way language learning becomes a collaborative effort between student and teacher in negotiating authentic communication situations.

Agency

Ultimately the learning achievement of every individual lies with that individual. I must find ways of tapping into intrinsic motivation because every student is an agent who must be given freedom to choose and plan. These choices and the framework for such planning comes with guidance from a teacher. A teacher facilitates this best when fostering intrinsic motivation and focusing on meaningful learning rather than rote learning.
The ultimate goal of language education is independent learners. Language is not something that we are ever done learning, so the ability to continue into unchartered waters independently is a goal I have for my students. Together we will strive for self-correction, identifying logical errors etc., and my feedback will reflect that mistakes are progressive; my teaching style will focus on what gives us energy and rapport in the classroom.

Accountability

To understand our progress and continue or increase as learners, we all have to measure and quantify what we are doing well, how we measure up to a standard, etc. We must feel that there is some kind of accountability. While the dangers of over-anxiety in a language classroom are very real and reflect a balancing act for teachers to speakers of other languages, there must be expectations of venturing forth and participating for students. In a beginning classroom, the teacher may provide most of the material and even much of the second language communication, but learners should feel that they are not spectators and that they are expected to reach for greater facility. This also demonstrates meaningful learning in that students are not required to give the answers I give them or repeat my version of knowledge but rather to boldly and, at times, almost bare-footedly, to tread where they have not gone before. Learners should not feel that they make these ventures alone. However, they should feel greater autonomy and a sense of independence when they accomplish a language task.

Technology

I feel that for an independent language learner there is no better tool than technology, mainly computers and digital media. Technology also represents a global language and skill necessary for success and communication. I hope to connect my students to me, to each other and to the world through technology. In my classroom I will find ways to use various forms of technology for these reasons. Technological advances have made me wonder at times at what use technology will make of teachers rather than how teachers will use technology. Once again, my mind returns to Chanowski’s questioning, adaptable, human learner. Teachers also must be a questioning, independent source of dialogue, collaborative learning, and the adaptability that is so necessary for language learning centered on independent individuals who are members of the larger world.

Inside-out

This week I did a little presentation on the complexities of Japanese grammar, specifically subordination. Subordination for those wondering is when we combine two ideas, two sentences with one being what is going on and the other giving some kind of reference like, "The kid who is hugging the dog is my neighbor." The independent part is "The kid is my neighbor" and the supordinate part is "who is hugging the dog." I've discovered that this is the inside-outness that I felt was a part of going from English to Japanese. This represents the main difficulties in translation for me, as well and when my sentences even if correct in vocabulary, seem to be funny and non-native like, this is a major part of the problem. I've been putting together a plan to remedy this. I will work on a study plan for grammar and see if I can't discover some things about independent study in my native country and grammar forms. I intend to do a lot more writing and reading of Japanese and see if I don't have a heightened sense of how the grammar is put together. I'm excited to begin. I wrote a little about grammar translation methods and how they seem not to facillitate communication in the target language very well, but there might be some merit to studying grammar through reading a little more indirectly. That's all for tonight.

In Tribute and Thanks

I thought I'd spend a moment in tribute for the guides who I've had as a second language learner and what it was that made them great.

The first were my teachers at the Missionary Training Center, Shinji Fujioka and Amber Kamoe, both from Hawaii originally. I think their modeling was the most important factor. They returned from their time in Hokkaido and Fukuoka and continued to learn and behave like missionaries. Part of this is loving those you teach and their patience and concern extended to us. They were constantly innovating and finding ways of teaching us in fun and authentic ways. Neither of them felt they were finished or fluent and they corrected us often in a way that showed their interest in our progress, but spoke to us like we were one of them. Their separate personalities influenced their teaching style.

The next would have to be my training missionary, Sister Matsumoto from Kurume. When it came to studying during our months at the training center, I was known as the battle-ax for focusing on studying. I met my match. SIster Matsumoto was very strict and kept me from making excuses and told me that "the time after the mistake is important time." She held herself to the same standard, though she was in Japan and didn't need another language to communicate as much as I did. She constantly wrote down English words she heard from missionaries and diligently practiced speaking, listening and reading at every opportunity. Befroe her time as a missionary she didn't speak English and the progress she made was astronomical. She helped me develope a study schedule and to use my extra minutes while waiting or eating or walking to improve my language. When I would practice long presentations of material she busily wrote pages of all the mistakes I made and then gave it to me to study with a note on the top that said: "Sister Powell, don't get discouraged." She helped me enormously, though I didn't always appreciate it. The other missionaries she trained had to pay her 100 yen every time they spoke English. I smile to think of her no nonsense approach and yet her ability to laugh often and make me laugh.

The next guide who I still think of often was Sister Kawano from Miyazaki, another native Japanese speaker. She was optimism itself and I found it so contagious. Much of my growth during my time with her was due to just wanting to talk to her so much and her tireless patience and interest in me and what I thought. She was always careful to make sure I understood and helped me laugh at myself. She filmed me once, trying to write Kanji becuase she said it was one of the funniest things she'd ever seen. Then she showed me many tips for making it look right.

The list goes on and on with people like Sister Eguchi, who forced me to speak to her in polite Japanese when I was beginning to fall into the habit of always speaking in plain form. This helped in emergency situations when I needed to polite word to come out without thinking about it too much. Many missionaries gave me tips about just believing that I could and trusting it would happen, about finding opportunities and finding out what I wanted to say in English and then making the transfer instead of being frustrated when I couldn't express myself but didn't know what I wanted to come out. There were many American companions too who helped me udnerstand what the patterns were that I was hearing and dear Sister Mortensen, who, though sick as a dog, helped me understnad the first pages of teh Book of Mormon. Thanks to the many who helped me learn how to read the Book of Mormon in Japanese and how this opened up my world and upped my interest in never losing the ability to speak Japanese.

I wonder if it took as many people to help me speak my native language. The answer is of course it did. Independent language learning--the kind without a classroom, ironically enough, takes a village. Language facility comes when we bounce it against as many others and their language as possible. What a great collaborative creative effort!