You may have noticed my absence from this blog, the Polyglot Project interviews, and YouTube. This has not been due to a lack of interest, but to illness and injury. The injury was mine and although painful, not serious (see my YouTube video description here). The illness, on the other hand, affected a very close relative and is very serious indeed–pancreatic cancer.

Now, as you can imagine, the news of this illness completely blindsided me, and I was quite incapable of focusing my mind for quite some time afterward. My young cousin–the relative who received such a terrible diagnosis–and I are extremely close, and I refused to believe that he had been dealt such a cruel hand. But after watching him endure weeks of chemotherapy and radiation, reality has finally set in.

My cousin is a fighter, and embraces every day without self-pity and with great courage. What excuse did I have then, to be immobilized in a mental fetal position I had created for myself?

So, I’m back. I hope to have more regular posts to this blog, more videos on YouTube and resurrect the Polyglot Project Podcast.

Life goes on–my cousin taught me that.

In this episode of The Polyglot Project Podcast, David and I chat with Robert Bigler, a simultaneous translator.

Hope you  enjoy!

Click HERE to listen, or

Click to Download:

<a href=”http://www.mediafire.com/?gzqp2fa65f5uvn6“>

Why female foreign language students or speakers may not practice or show their languages

Multilingual women, where are you?

In late January, I had a Skype call with Benny Lewis for about two hours to discuss our language learning trajectories and I asked him why there were more male linguists showing their foreign language prowess online than females. I couldn’t find any women on You Tube or elsewhere on the Internet. As he elaborated last week in his blog post, Girls vs guys and the dancing-monkey reason to learn a language, Benny thinks it’s because men like to show off. He referred me to Jennifer Wagner of IE Languages to whom I posed the same question. Jennifer also wrote a blog post inquiring, Female Polyglots and Language Learners – Where Are You?

When I asked Claude Cartaginese of the Polyglot Project, he pointed me to a You Tube video he had posted asking, Where Are the Girls? The comments to his video indicated that some women may not want to post videos because they would be harassed by men or have to endure comments about their looks.
More women studying languages, fewer using them openly

Conventional wisdom (whether it’s true or false, I don’t know) claims that women learn languages better than men because of women’s natural proclivity to communication. I don’t know any statistics on language learning by gender so I am basing this on my own observations.

I’ve given many presentations about my book, Language is Music, and there are always more women in the audience than men. In October 2010, the US Consulate in St Petersburg, Russia organized three presentations for me at two educational institutions and one library cultural center and men made up less than 10% of the attendees. In October 2009, the US Embassy in Doha, Qatar organized a presentation for me at the Al Bayan Girls School and I was beyond impressed with the girls. Not only did they speak excellent English in addition to their native Arabic, but they were learning other languages on their own! They told me about how they were learning Japanese from anime movies. Their knowledge of languages and cultures would put most US high school students –both male and female– to shame.

So why do I see so few women out there waxing in other tongues?

Digital divide based on gender?

At first I thought it was a digital divide issue because it has been shown that there are fewer women than men using the Internet. Even Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, has admitted that a small percentage of Wikipedia editors and contributors are male and that he wants to get more women to use the site.

In part, I am sure that part of the reason we see more men than women actively showing their language ability is due to the digital divide. However, I think there are reasons that pre-date Cyberspace. I personally know more male than female polyglots although I see more women studying languages.

Other reasons why more men may pursue languages than women.

I am basing the following thoughts on my own experiences and those of other women. I welcome your thoughts on the topic because my goal is to encourage women to speak languages. If we can identify the road blocks that prevent women from going ahead with language learning, then we can figure out ways to get rid of those blocks.

1. Don’t outshine men

If one of the reasons that polyglot men like to show their talents on the Internet is because they like a boost to their egos, then perhaps it’s the exact opposite problem for women.

Both men and women have told me to hide my linguistic abilities (I speak seven languages) and vast travel and cultural experience to not outshine men. We’re in the 21st century, but that doesn’t mean that old gender roles don’t exist.

A female relative of mine consciously did not talk about literature or history around her late husband because he wasn’t as cultured as she was and she didn’t want to hut his fragile male ego. She suggested I do the same or else men would be overwhelmed by me. This woman’s late husband would read her emails and listen to all her calls because he was jealous and possessive. Once I realized that she accepted how her husband acted like a prison guard, I stopped soliciting or listening to any of her advice.

I am certain I’m not the only women was has been told to shut up and look pretty and hide her intelligence.

I didn’t hide my languages because of those sexist ideas. I simply didn’t know what to do with my language skills until just a few years ago when I published Language is Music. But I did have an instance in Ukraine when my coworker and I decided it would be best I not show that I could speak Russian so that the people we would talk to would speak to our interpreter and address both of us rather than only speak to me. My colleague was Swiss and didn’t speak Russian. That was super hard to do because I had to stop reacting to what people say and hide my emotions. Some Ukrainians guessed that I spoke Russian because my eyes reacted to their words.

Perhaps other women have learned languages and have stopped pursuing them or maintaining them because the men around them don’t value languages or are jealous.

2. Languages undervalued in the workplace

Statistics show that women make less money than men. Women’s contribution in the workforce is undervalued not just financially but also in recognition and job promotion.  Foreign language ability is also undervalued in the workforce, especially when the boss is monolingual and doesn’t see the value in having a polyglot who can work with international clients and colleagues.

My first job out of college was for the US Department of Commerce in Silicon Valley. I was hired precisely because I spoke Russian and there was an upcoming trade summit between then Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin. I got to meet Russian VIPs including Governors and diplomats and be their guide. I was only 21 years old! Then I worked on organizing a trade mission of Silicon Valley companies to Argentina, Chile and Brazil. Guess whose Spanish knowledge was key in that work? (I was just starting to study Portuguese.)

Less than a year on the job, I worked with a Colombian-born colleague to arrange an agricultural trade mission to an agricultural trade show in Sinaloa, Mexico. I definitely used my Spanish to get that together. I even had to translate some materials myself. But some moron at the Commerce Department decided to send a Japanese speaking colleague of mine to Mexico instead of me! American taxpayer money had to pay for this man to have an English-Spanish interpreter at this Mexican agricultural fair where his Japanese was worthless. My supervisor said he was sorry but that the Japanese speaker had more seniority than I did and he was going to go. Had my supervisor had any international experience himself, he might have realized how ridiculous it was to send someone to a rural area of Mexico, where few people could speak English.

I was furious! As a taxpayer, I’d be angry too as this was more proof of government waste.

Are there other women out there who use their languages at work and get passed up for international assignments by other people with more seniority but without the appropriate language skills?

3. Difficulty in traveling or living abroad

In countries where women aren’t in public life and where men and women can’t be friends (because the genders don’t mix), women have more hurdles than men do in practicing their language. 

In cultures when men and women don’t mix, an innocent foreign woman trying to practice her language skills may be interpreted the wrong way. There’s a stereotype of the “easy” Western woman and some foreign men in traditional gender separated cultures may consider a Western woman smiling and talking to him as a sign of her sexual interest in him.

I took an Arabic class one summer in California and tried practicing my limited vocabulary wherever I could. Most Arab-operated businesses in the San Francisco area are run by men. While buying something at a Palestinian corner market in San Francisco, I tried using my Arabic numbers when counting my change or doing something else involving numbers. The cashier was very keen on helping me learn Arabic numbers, especially his phone number. I politely declined, but he followed me out of the store and yelled to me on the street reminding me to come back and get his number for more free Arabic lessons.

4. Standing out

Being the odd person out may discourage women from pursuing their languages in the countries where they are spoken.

A dark haired and brown-eyed Spanish woman told me that when she was living in Syria studying Arabic, her blond-haired and blond-eyed Spanish female friend was constantly harassed on the streets because she stood out so much. (The brown haired girl could easily pass as Arab.) I know there are Arab women with light features, but a Western woman can really stand out, especially in areas where there are more men on the street than women. In her case, I’d dye my hair a dark color. But even if one dresses modestly, standing out can still be hard to avoid. When I was in Doha, Qatar, I still got looks and stares from men even though I was completely covered. There were a lot more men in the country than women and I didn’t see any Western women walking around by themselves like I was.

Recently I spoke to a white woman blond-haired, blue-eyed woman who grew up in Japan until she was 11 and spoke native Japanese. When she returned to Japan as an adult, she had trouble making Japanese friends even though her Japanese was native. Japanese men wouldn’t hit on/flirt with Western women unless they were looking for a one-night stand in some touristy area. While Western men, no matter their level of Japanese or attractiveness, were a hot commodity for Japanese women who wanted to leave the country and/or be with a white guy. The bottom line is that there was little incentive for a Western woman to learn Japanese and live in Japan, while reasons abounded for foreign men.

My examples here are all of white Western women, but the same could be true for anyone who is physically and culturally different. My sister lived in Ecuador and told me that Asian Americans had a hard time working in indigenous areas in Ecuador because the indigenous people treated Asians poorly. An African woman in Russia might be harassed or beaten as hate crimes there are prevalent.

Do you know of other reasons that may prevent women from learning and using their languages? Do you have any solutions or suggestions to help women overcome the roadblocks? Please comment below.

In this episode of The Polyglot Project Podcast, David and I chat with Susanna Zaraysky, a polyglot who takes a novel approach to foreign language acquisition based on music. Susanna is the author of Language is Music.

Hope you enjoy!

Click HERE to listen.

Please be sure to visit Susanna’s website: Susanna Zaraysky

In this episode of The Polyglot Project Podcast, David and I chat with Kathleen Hearons, a polyglot who takes a grammar-based approach to foreign language acquisition.

Hope you enjoy!

Click HERE to listen.

Please be sure to visit Kathleen’s YouTube channel: katrudy7

In this episode of The Polyglot Project Podcast, David and I chat with Professor Peter Browne.  Peter talks to us about many aspects of language learning and gives us his thoughts on constructed languages. There were some technical issues at the beginning, but we worked them out.

Hope you enjoy!

Click HERE to listen.

Please be sure to visit Peter’s YouTube channel: Alkantre

Introduction

I want to share with you my experiences with learning the French and Latin languages, and to demonstrate that you can learn a language now, even if your previous language learning attempts failed.

I am a proponent of learning techniques that rely heavily on language acquisition using the target foreign language, with little or no assistance from the native language. It may sound counter intuitive that you could learn a foreign language with instruction delivered exclusively in the foreign language but there are audio, video, and printed resources that do exactly that.

Let Go of Existing Language Patterns

Why is it so difficult for adults to learn new languages? The reason many people fail to learn languages is that they cling to language patterns acquired early in their life and try to superimpose their existing language patterns over the target language. You need to give up the notion that your target language will have any particular structure and just accept the target language as an independent entity that is not a translation of your native language.

The Quest for French Proficiency

I started learning French from my mother (who was born in Québec) when I was very young, but since I grew up in Toronto in the 1960’s and 70’s, I was cutoff from any major exposure to French. My father spoke only English, my mother spoke mostly in English, and I lived in a neighbourhood where everyone spoke English. I wanted to read, listen, and speak French, but at that time I had no access to radio or television stations broadcasting in French.

When I was a boy, we would go almost every summer on vacation to Rivière du Loup, Québec to visit my relatives. Since I was able to speak a small amount of French, and my cousins could speak some English, we were able to communicate effectively. We would stay two weeks, at which point my French would start to improve, then I would have to leave. This was extremely frustrating from a language standpoint since I knew, even then, that exposure to the target language was the key to learning the language.

Language Learning is a One Way Street

I look up foreign words in a native language dictionary rather than a dual language dictionary. If I need a foreign equivalent for an English word, I use a dual language dictionary to find the foreign equivalent but I never look up the English meanings of foreign words in a dual language dictionary. I think you should always go in one direction from your native language to the target language. Try to think like a speaker of the foreign language. What would they do to learn a new word, phrase, or subject?

Formal Language Instruction

One of my high school English teachers who had Latin training, Mr. Adams, bemoaned the fact that his students had no formal Latin language instruction. At Birchmount Park, French and German were available as foreign languages but not Latin.

Mr. Adams was well known as one of the most difficult English teachers in the school. When Mr. Adams went to school, if a student made a few spelling errors in an English exam, he would fail the exam. When I was in Mr. Adams’ class, the grading system had changed. If one of Mr. Adams’ students made a few spelling errors, the student’s mark was lowered but the student did not fail the exam.

There was something extraordinary about Mr. Adams. His personality just seemed to exude intelligence and savoir faire. I sensed that Mr. Adams definitely had a passion for teaching as did several other teachers in my school. When we were reading a short science fiction story called A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury, Mr. Adams assigned me the task of researching the anti-gravity technology that was used to levitate a metal path for the dinosaur hunters in the story. Not until then, nor ever since, had any English teacher assigned me such an intriguing request!

At the time, I was not interested in continuing English courses because I had more ability in science and mathematics. Mr. Adams had a discussion with me about the importance of continuing English instruction and how the choice might impact my admission to a university. Mr. Adams so impressed me with his sincerity and teaching abilities that I took his advice to continue English, worked harder, and squeaked through his class. Gratias tibi ago, Mr. Adams, for giving me that crucial bit of career advice during my high school years.

French class was somewhat easier since the concentration was on basic language instruction but after seven years, I still could not converse very well. I learned quite a lot of vocabulary, rules, and grammar but I still had a lot of difficulty communicating verbally. This is a common result when students learn a foreign language in a classroom setting.

To learn a foreign language, you need to work on acquiring content first rather than focusing on grammar and translation. As Loki states in one of his videos, if you learn grammar first, you are learning the language backwards. But if you spent time learning grammar, you have not wasted your time. You just need to acquire more content by reading and listening. After I learned French backwards to some extent, I was determined to change course and learn my next language in the correct order.

Divine Intervention

At some point, I stopped going to Rivière du Loup and had virtually no exposure to French for a period of about ten years. Then the saviour came, the Internet, and with it French podcasts, live streaming, and on-demand video. The input available on the internet combined with a basic knowledge of grammar allowed me to re-activate the stored knowledge of French that I had developed over the years. Now I can call my French relatives and talk to them in their language. My French is not perfect but I can speak at a level that is sufficient for comprehension even by my older relatives that speak no English.

While I was working on my French skills through the years, my cousin Anne, who lives in Québec, learned English and completed a degree in Spanish. Now we can communicate in either French or English.

French in Action

An excellent French series that teaches French in French is French in Action (FIA). Dr. Pierre Capretz created the FIA series, combining French spoken at a natural pace, an interesting story, and attractive actors into a series that has an avid fan base. The enthusiasm generated by the series is evident in a post on an FIA fan site which states that Valérie Allain as Mireille has done more to promote the French language among English speakers than anyone since William the Conqueror¹.

Lingua Latina, Lingua Ex Deo

I started learning Latin because I adored the Latin motets on a compact disc called The Chant of Christmas Midnight² and wanted to understand the text of the songs without using an English translation.

Words such as ad hoc, ad nausium, and ex post facto are easily recognized as Latin but others are so deeply entrenched in English that they are not recognized as Latin per se. Words such as color, exit, animal, and circus (as in Piccadilly Circus) have the same or very similar meanings in Latin and English. Latin is everywhere from the American dollar bill to the botanical names of maple trees. The next time someone claims Latin is a dead language ask them why the go-out signs are all written in Latin!

Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata

I wanted to know the exact meanings of Latin words and so I decided to conquer this language once and for all. To learn Latin, I bought Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata³ written by Hans Ørberg. Lingua Latina is written entirely in Latin and starts with the sentence “Roma in Italia est” and then gradually increases the complexity of the written text. The reader uses the context of the story and the known words to infer the meaning of the unknown words using what Hans called the principle of contextual induction⁴. There are diagrams, grammar explanations, charts, and exercises but they are all in Latin. The method is challenging but it produces a high level of reading proficiency and quickly expands your vocabulary.

Think of the advantage for a Chinese student that knows the Latin alphabet because he learned Pinyin but has no English language skills. In Lingua Latina, he can see a map with Rome and Italy, then figures out the meaning of “Roma in Italia est.” He reads the paragraph and then finishes the chapter. He reads chapter two and then chapter three. He realizes that this relatively easy and voila, you have another potential Latin student!

Before I started chapter one, I tried to read chapter five of Lingua Latina and could not understand the text. I was surprised that I could not read simple text from a language that was the direct ancestor of French. I could read simple Spanish and Italian and get the gist of the meaning but simple Latin was completely incomprehensible.

I read in a review of another popular grammar intensive Latin textbook, that the book uses a decoding method to train the student hunt for the subject, verb, and object in the sentence. If you read Lingua Latina, there is no decoding—you just read and comprehend the text like you would a native language text. I also tried listening to the previous chapters and to my surprise some but not all of the text came across as completely natural whereas months ago every audio chapter was like a garble of alien words and grammar.

I went back to the motets I mentioned earlier and discovered that some of the existing translations were inaccurate. The translator had taken artistic liberties to embellish the English version with words not in the original Latin!

I am now studying Latin verb conjugations and noun declensions so that I can better understand the text. If you study grammar to produce Latin, it does not work. Work on input and when you get confused with the language, study some grammar to understand the language.

Get a Virtual Personal Language Coach

After I read chapter eight of Lingua Latina and completed the exercises for chapter seven, I completely stopped learning Latin. The combination of a new language, a full-time job, and the language exercises had me exhausted. After a couple of weeks, I stumbled upon a Youtube video by Bret Martin called Deadliest Sins of Language Learning. Bret is so passionate that sometimes when I watch this video, I think he is going to pop out of the monitor and enter my room just like the alien did in one of the episodes of The Outer Limits. After watching Bret’s video, I stopped doing the Lingua Latina exercises, started reading again, and completed a total of twenty two chapters, covering about 1100 words of vocabulary, in one year. If you think you do not have enough time to learn a language, watch Claude Cartaginese’s video There’s Always Time for Self-Improvement. If you study languages, a suite of videos like these are the next best thing to having a personal language coach.

With the correct technique, you can learn a foreign language by spending just twenty to sixty minutes per day studying the language. If you spend forty minutes per day commuting to work or school, you can use that time to listen language courses. If you add twenty minutes for self study at night, you have one hour total time devoted to language study. Do you have cable television and newspaper subscriptions? Consider canceling one or both. You will save time and money that you can apply to language learning.

Note that if you have limited time and work on too many languages at once, you will not learn any language with much proficiency. Arabic is a difficult language but Bret is succeeding because he is working on just one language. I tried learning Latin and Spanish at the same time but it was too much effort, so I gave up Spanish to concentrate on Latin. If you are working full-time, try to limit yourself to learning just one language at a time and reviewing the other languages that you already know.

Divide and Conquer

When I was in grade school, I remember reading stories from the SRA reading lab. The lab was a large box that contained stories printed on durable booklets that the students removed and read at their desks. The stories gradually increased in complexity so that students could expand their vocabulary and improve their reading skills. Since the stories were independent, students could choose easier material if stories were too difficult or skip forward if the stories were too easy. Students could move slower or faster through the material depending on their abilities and motivation. The system essentially broke a complex task into smaller parts and then allowed students to proceed at their own pace.

The Lingua Latina chapters are getting harder and every time I read a new chapter for the first time, I think, oh no, how I am ever going to understand these new words. Chapter sixteen was so difficult the first time I read through it that I thought, “You must be kidding, this is impossible!” So, what do you do when you find yourself in this situation?

The way to solve this linguistic challenge is to divide the chapters into smaller sections. Spend ten minutes reading two or three pages and then stop. If you cannot read that many pages in that amount of time, read just one page and then stop. If you do just one page per day, try to read that page several times during the same day. Stay in the same chapter until you understand at least ninety five percent of the words. Your brain will decode the new words from the context and then you can move to the next page and repeat the process. Complete the chapter and move on to the next one.

Always Move Forward

Do not spend six months trying to understand every word, declension, and conjugation in a chapter. In Lingua Latina, the problem words and grammar are likely to be repeated in future chapters and it is more important to continue acquiring new vocabulary than to strive for complete comprehension. If you cannot decode one or two words in a chapter, flag the word in the book and move on to the next chapter. After you advance a few chapters, go back and re-read the paragraph with the unknown word. Usually, the meaning the word becomes apparent.

Lingua Latina is a great little novel in itself with an interesting story line. Here is one of my favourite lines from chapter twenty that I adapted slightly:

Ita loquitur homo qui officium suum scit.

As Hans Ørberg might have said, “To find out what this means, read Lingua Latina.”

You can watch Luigi Maraglia and other instructors on Youtube using Lingua Latina to teach Latin to a class of Italian students. The La vía de los humanistas (LLPSI) capitulum XXII video shows the students, the teacher, and a ferocious dog that attacks one of the students.

If you want to learn Latin, buy Lingua Latina and the related compact disc so you can hear the text spoken by the author himself. The publisher offers a limited demo version⁵ with text, audio, and exercises so you can sample the book and the compact disc. I have other instructional books for Latin but they do not come close to matching the breadth and depth of the language instruction in Lingua Latina. For advanced Latin students, there is a second volume, Roma Aeterna⁶, that introduces the reader to prose written by original Latin authors.

Once I finish Latin, learning another romance like Spanish or Italian should be relatively easy. I recently tried reading Interlingua, an artificial language based on romance languages and comprehended most of the text. So if you decide to learn Latin, you almost get a second language as a bonus.

The Cortina Natural Learning Series

Rafael Díez de la Cortina devised a series of instruction texts based on what he called the natural learning method. The only prerequisite is the ability to read the Latin alphabet. Some of the Cortina natural language books had a second version with an English translation printed on the right side of the page.

This Cortina series of books all used the same story line so learning one language will help you learn the other languages in the series. The following languages were published: English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian. The English and Spanish books have twenty chapters, the German and Italian twelve. If you cannot find a suitable language book that teaches in your native language, this series allows you to learn five major languages without using a separate instructional language.

I have a 1908 German-only version of Deutsch Auf Deutsch with an original price listed in the back pages of $1 for a hardcover book! The natural method works by starting with very simple sentences such as “Paris ist die Hauptstadt von Frankreich.” The idea of simple text with gradually increasing complexity is the same technique that Lingua Latina uses.

There are a few drawbacks to the Cortina series such as the lack of audio or a parallel text pronunciation guide. The English In English text is too formal and awkwardly written at times because Cortina appears to have used the literal translation from a foreign language, e.g. “Group First, of what nationalities are you?” A more idiomatic version would read, “Group one, what are your nationalities?” Even with the drawbacks, this series can advance you from rank beginner to lower intermediate without resorting to vocabulary lists or the grammar and translation approach.

Once you reach intermediate status, you can switch to target language materials or a multitude of other language courses. Unfortunately, the Cortina natural learning series is out of print but you may be able to find these books on internet bookstore and auction sites.

Cortina 20-Lesson Series

Cortina still offers the 20-Lessons series that uses a different teaching method. The Italian in 20 Lessons book features a pronunciation guide, parallel text translations, small drawings, a grammar reference, and four chapters at the end written entirely in Italian. Although the book does not rely as much on inference, I like it because it does offer a lot of content. This series is also offered in a wider range of languages than the natural learning series. To see a complete review of the 20-Lessons series by professor Alexander Arguëlles, watch Cortina: Foreign Language Learning Series Reviews.

An alternative to the Cortina series, complete with audio, is Assimil. Assimil expects you to read the native text translation but eventually you should be able to hide the native text and just read the target language. Most Assimil products are readily available and reasonably priced. When you choose a language course, remember that a higher price does not guarantee a better result.

I also like the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) course for French. The FSI course features native French speakers performing language drills that allow you to practice French while commuting to work or school. The FSI audio and manuals in PDF format are available for free on the internet.

The Dawn of Audio Based Language Instruction

My copy of Deutsch Auf Deutsch has an advertisement for a phonograph called the Cortinaphone, with the following explanation.

“In presenting the Cortina language method, we are not asking you to try an experiment (…) Thousands of students have used it successfully, and if you are in earnest in your desire to learn any modern language, you cannot afford to be without this wonderful system which teaches you to ‘to pick up’ any language you wish (acquire a practical knowledge of it) by the natural method, the method you used as a child unconsciously in learning your mother tongue – the method of listening to the language.”

In addition to buying the player, the language student had to buy fifteen double sided albums with a playing time of four minutes per side for a total of 120 minutes of language instruction. With the availability of mp3 players, videos, and the Polyglot Project, acquiring a language is much easier, less expensive, and more practical than it was over a hundred years ago. A hundred years into the future, readers will giggle at my references to CD and DVD technology.

Raumpatrouille

If you study German or like science fiction, I am leaving you with a suggestion to watch Raumpatrouille, a German movie not intended for language learners per se. This black and white 1960’s German science fiction series was eventually released on DVD for region two with no sub-titles; however, the seven separate episodes were combined into a movie called The Producer’s Cut with English sub-titles. The original episodes featured one actor speaking French but he was dropped from the movie. The series features some interesting special effects, an intriguing soundtrack, and an underwater Starlight Casino that you could never forget.

Author: Harold Almon

YouTube: LinguaExDeo

I am pleased to announce that one of our listeners, Jamie Cameron, was gracious enough to have transcribed the entire interview–over 8000 words! This is a great resource for non-native speakers of English who may wish to listen to the interview with the transcript in front of them.

Click HERE to download the transcript.

We hope to have transcripts for all subsequent podcasts. Eventually, the podcasts and their transcripts will be posted on iTunes as well. In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to this blog–it would be a pity for you to miss out on hearing a single one of these interviews!

Copyright © 2011 by John Fotheringham. For more tips, tools, and tech for Mastering ANY Language, go to LanguageMastery.com

Language schools can be a wonderful place to learn more about your target language, meet fellow learners (who can become both study partners or even lifelong friends), and get your linguistic and cultural feet wet before (or even while) immersing yourself in a new culture and foreign tongue.

However, language schools can also be a major impediment to the very goal you go there to achieve: learning a foreign language as quickly and efficiently as possible.  This may come as a shock to those who have been conditioned to believe that classrooms are the only place, or at least the best place, to learn a language.

Here are the top ten disadvantages of formal, classroom-based language learning (at least in my view):

1. You don’t need a teacher or school to learn a foreign language

There is an important distinction to be made between learning and schooling. Those who believe they need formal training in a language are making the false assumption that the two are one and the same. To reach fluency in a language, you need to acquire a great deal of tacit knowledge, that special kind of internalized, experience-based information that you may not be conscious of. The sad truth is that most teachers focus on explicit knowledge (e.g. facts about the language such as grammar rules), which has very little to do with one’s ability to speak a language. Explicit knowledge is easier to teach and test, however, which probably explains why it makes up the bulk of school curricula.

2. You don’t need to learn grammar rules

At some point in history, the education establishment convinced society that they needed to be “taught” languages. This was quite an amazing feat considering that all human beings are endowed by evolution (or God if you prefer) with the ability to automatically acquire any language they hear in adequate quantities. The problem for most learners (and the reason they buy into the “I need more schooling!” mentality) is that they never get an “adequate quantity” of language input. The irony is that this input deficiency is often caused by the very classes that are supposed to provide it. With a focus on memorizing grammar rules, most learners end up spending the vast majority of their time learning about a language instead of the language itself.

3. Tests and grades do more harm than good

Ideally, formalized testing and grading systems motivate students by providing competition and objective feedback. In reality, however, most grading is far from objective (teachers tend to reward students they like and penalize those they don’t), and tests do little more than demonstrate one’s ability to memorize facts. Feedback is important, but it needn’t be in the form of traditional testing or grades. Ask your teachers to evaluate your performance by giving specific examples of things you said right or wrong, not with multiple choice tests.

4. Classes go as fast as the slowest person

The bigger the class, the wider the range of abilities, and the slower the class will have to go. Schools know that students are more likely to stick with something too easy but will quickly throw in the towel if something is too difficult. And despite placement tests and numerous class levels, it can be very difficult to appropriately group students by their actual skill in the language. With finite time slots mutually convenient for all students in a given group, some students will inevitably be placed in classes that are above or below their actual ability level. Also, placement tests come with the same problems mentioned in # 3: they test one’s memory and knowledge (especially of the written word).

5. Reading out loud does not improve your pronunciation or speaking ability

Teachers often have students read out loud to allegedly “practice pronunciation.” The truth is that your pronunciation improves only from massive amounts of listening input and then massive amounts of speaking when you’re ready. Reading aloud does little more than show what words you are unfamiliar with and often reinforces mispronunciations instead of fixing them. While some teachers genuinely believe in the read aloud method, others just use it as a zero prep activity to count down the clock.

6. Oral drills do not help you learn how to speak; they only demonstrate your ability to do so

Just as reading aloud does not improve your pronunciation or reading skills, oral drills do little for your speaking fluency. We improve our speaking ability through increasing the quantity and quality of listening input (e.g. podcasts about your favorite topics), and then applying what we have heard in natural, contextualized conversations.

7. You will be encouraged to move up to the next level even if you aren’t ready

This is all about business. Schools make more money when you buy new books, take level tests and re-enroll in more classes.

8. Your progress reports are meaningless

Teachers hate writing progress reports. They are usually an exercise in creative writing, not meaningful feedback on your actual performance and progress in the language. Not knowing what to say (and not wanting to waste time on a task they don’t get paid for!), many teachers will just cut and paste canned comments, or come up with general, vague statements and overly technical descriptions of your grammar and pronunciation problems.

9. You should be the one who chooses the material

Despite being widely used, standardized textbooks are bad tools for a number of reasons. They build on the myth that schooling equals learning, as discussed in # 1 above. They lull students into a false sense of accomplishment, where completion of chapters is confused with actual internalization of the content. And with content written not to entertain but to avoid offending anyone, they are typically boring and sterile. Interest in the material is essential for effective language learning, so make sure to choose schools or teachers that allow you to choose materials that float your boat.

10. It doesn’t take years to learn a foreign language well if you do it right

If you like the language you are learning, believe you can learn it, and get as much listening and reading input as possible, you will learn the language well enough to communicate in a matter of 6 months to a year. Most students, however, end up paying tuition for years and years despite a lack of progress. Students blame themselves (backed up by the bogus comments found in their progress reports), not realizing that the problem lies not in them, but with their school’s materials and methodologies.

Click HERE to listen.

Moses McCormick

David Mansaray