The Weight of Worlds

I was skimming through my journal from this past year of language learning in France and came across the following entry, it rings even truer today now that we are putting down roots in yet another "world" here in Africa.

January 2, 2011

"I am feeling the weight of the reality of the two worlds that we live in.  I am getting worn down by the inability to understand everything that is going on around me.  We have strong friendships with people that we can't completely understand and neither can we yet fully express our hearts to them.  Lord, please give us perseverance toward the day when we will be able to express deep truths, loosen our tongues, give us words.  Still, there is no going back.  We will henceforth be members of two worlds that don't perfectly mix.  We live dollars and euros, European phone numbers and US phone numbers, French and English, French humor and American humor, church here and church there, family and friends scattered."

I am reminded today that all of these "worlds" in which we participate will one day be perfectly combined when they are perfectly centered on Christ.  I am so excited for that day!

"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice,  'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!'"  

Revelation 7:9

Suprasegmentals and Paralanguage: Another idea for relearning

What: imitating with reading

How: the language consultant reads aloud, one phrase at a time.  The learner rereads each phrase aloud imitating the consultant's intonation. 

Choose a text which:

• is below your silent reading level - very few new vocabulary because this activity focuses on intonation rather than pronunciation nor vocabulary acquisition
• is full of expressive dialogue - this sort of text will provide opportunity for your language consultant to express a variety of intonational patterns
• has varying phrasal lengths and structures - lists, "run-on" sentences, parentheses, etc. could all represent different intonational patterns

Recording: recording this sort of exercise and reviewing it is a humbling task but can be extremely helpful for self-observation of both pronunciation and suprasegmentals

Suggestions for Students: Make Correction Count

Several months ago, I wrote about welcoming helpful correction.  I would like to add some more thoughts to that post in light of the particular problems facing speakers as they advance in a language.

The more time that a person passes in learning a language the more risk there is of developing fossilized speech: making the same grammatical, vocabulary, intonational, and pronunciation mistakes without realizing.  As learning progresses, so must the motivation and dedication to correcting mistakes.

Here are a couple steps I have taken in this direction:

1. A Correction Notebook: I am keeping a notebook dedicated to corrections I get in my writing and speech.  I prefer to write the correct word or phrase and underline the part of the word or phrase that I produced incorrectly.  Then I write a note beside it if necessary to remind me of the nature of the mistake.
Examples:
son édification
la pratique (pas de c)
constamment = répétitive, très fréquente (vocabulaire)
incessamment = sans délai, au plus tôt (vocabulaire)
possessifs (pronunciation "ss" pas "z")

2. During language sessions, I have started asking our consultants to take notes on mistakes that they observe rather than sharing them right away.  This again allows for a log of the mistakes (I then add them to my correction notebook) and for me it makes the corrections more meaningful and memorable since we can analyze them together without interrupting my train of thought during speech.

Resources: Bescherelle Grammar

Bescherelle 3: Grammaire Pour Tous: Bescherelle 3 - Grammaire Pour Tous (French Edition)

Recently, I have started reading the Bescherelle French Grammar reference.  If you are not really into grammar, this may not interest you.  However, if you are determined to learn French, I have a couple reasons I think you should consider reading or at least skimming this grammar, even if grammar "n'est pas votre truc"

1. Grammar is important to the French society.  You can see this in their writing system (a good deal of spelling reflects the grammatical value of a word instead of its phonetic value), you can see this in France's school system (the Bescherelle Grammar and Conjugation references are must-haves for every student), and you can see this in everyday interactions (In my observations it seems to me that French speakers delight in viewing their language as grammatically complex and they have a very secure language attitude in relation to this).

2. This grammar can serve as a source for input flooding in written form.  There are both grammatically correct and grammatically incorrect (marked clearly) examples in this grammar.  The ability to compare the two is particularly helpful for learning which constructions are acceptable and which are not.

Using the Hachette Grammar Workbooks

The following lists some ideas for using the Hachette Grammar series beyond its own suggestions:

1. Complete each exercise orally before writing the answers.
2. As you work through the workbooks, highlight, in the table of contents, the concepts with which you have difficulty so that you can easily access them for future review.
3. Circle exercises you would like to review.
4. Mark exercises that you would find helpful to do with a native speaker.
5. Record yourself doing the free writing exercises, then listen to the recording with a native speaker and ask him or her to give you feedback.

Reflections: The Hachette Grammar Workbooks

The following is a list of some of my thoughts on using the Hachette Grammar Series:

• I found that month 6 of intensive language learning was the perfect time for me to start working through this systematic grammar series.  I attempted to start it during month 2 and again during month 4 but I found that there were too many answers that I was completely unsure of(probably about 75% at month 2 and 40% at month 4).
• At month 6, I was confident of about 90% of the material in the level A1 book even though I was probably at a level B2 in comprehension, and B1 in production at that time.
• I have preferred using the series as a systematic review rather than a first exposure to the grammar concepts.  At month 6, I had a solid foundation especially in oral comprehension and I was able to consult my memory on how I had heard things said by native speakers in order to choose answers to grammar questions.  This was a much more enjoyable way for me with my particular learning style, whereas someone else may have the patience and preference to learn the grammar concepts from a workbook like this.

Review: Hachette French Grammar Workbooks

The Hachette "Exercices de Grammaire" is a series of grammar workbooks for the french language which follow the Common European Framework of References for Languages (CEFR) levels of language proficiency: A1, A2, B1, B2.

The editors state that their workbooks target adolescent or adult students of French as a foreign language and that the exercises are designed to be used in the classroom or for personal study.

I have been pleased with the following aspects of the series:

1. The workbooks are monolingual - French only for instructions and exercises
2. The workbooks introduce each new concept with a section of the examples for observation
3. Many of the exercises create a context - a letter, a conversation, a story
4. The exercises are thorough and systematic
5. Sprinkled throughout the chapters are suggested activities for free writing exercises

My only suggestion for improvement would be even more context for the exercises which focus on verb conjugations.  The most common way to teach verb conjugations seems to be to refer to them by their grammatical labels.  This gives learners a superficial understanding of the tenses' meanings in daily communication.  I am still on the look out for grammatical exercises which treat verb conjugations with deep meaning rather than grammatical labels.  This series gets closer than many others I have seen, but it is still not quite there.

Tomorrow, I will share some of my personal reflections on when I started using this series and why.  Then on Thursday, I will share some ideas of how I have modified some of the exercises in order to evaluate and strengthen all four areas of language acquisition rather than focusing primarily on writing as the series does.