Posted in My languages

It was not inevitable that I ended up studying languages.  Or maybe it was.

I grew up in a monolingual English-speaking family.  Both sides had been in the US since the time of the Revolutionary War (one part from 1640 or so), and my distant ancestors came from England and Ireland. So I have no heritage language, really.

As a young child, I loved looking at maps and making up songs about the countries I saw on them.  In second grade, we must have done a unit about other countries, because my teacher wrote phrases in different languages on the board.  I copied them down and kept that notebook for a long time.  I still remember that one phrase was "Takk for maten" (Norwegian for "Thanks for the meal").

As I got older, I loved writing stories and poems and noticing things about language.  I kept a list of adjectives that had two opposites; for example, the opposite of "light" can be either "heavy" or "dark."  I understood grammar and was good at it.

At the end of seventh grade, I had to choose either French or Spanish for the following school year.  Since my aunt had been a French teacher and all my older sisters had taken French, I chose French, figuring that if it ended up being hard for me, I would have lots of help available.  I'm sure that my French teachers, if they even remembered me, would tell you that I showed no special promise in French.

The summer between seventh and eighth grades, I had an interesting experience that is still affecting my life.  One night I had a dream about an unknown boy.  While thinking about the dream the next day, I heard a song on the radio.  It was Menudo's first single in English, called If You're Not Here.  That evening at the mall, I found their album and discovered that one of the boys in the group looked just like the boy in my dream.  I bought the album, of course!

I really started liking Menudo, and that was their only album in English so far.  So I started buying their Spanish albums.  I withstood some ridicule from my sisters for that, because they couldn't understand why I would want to listen to songs I couldn't understand.  For two years I listened to those Spanish albums, and then in my sophomore year of high school, I took both French 3 and Spanish 1.

Spanish was my favorite class, because I loved the language and because my next older sister took it with me.  We would study together for the tests, and due to that, I finished the year with a final average of 96.  I remember at one point telling my teacher that I had been listening to Menudo albums for several years, and she exclaimed, "That's why you have such a good accent!"  It was during that year that I realized that I really liked languages, and I wanted to take French 4, Spanish 2, and Italian 1 in my junior year (I would have preferred German, but Italian was the only other language my school offered) , but my school would not let me, so I ended up only taking Spanish.

I went to college early, after my junior year.  I didn't study any languages right away. I finished the credits I needed for high school and wasn't sure what to do next.  While looking at the college catalog, I became intrigued with the idea of majoring in International Business. So then I started studying German.  By this point, studying a language was not hard for me at all, and I excelled in German.  But the class was only offered Wednesday nights, and I decided I wanted to attend a Bible study group that night, so I didn't take the second semester.

By that time, I had realized that I wasn't really a businesswoman type, and under the influence of my father, had decided to major in math (I'm sure if my high school math teachers remember me, they would be hysterical about now.)  The normal progression of courses led to my taking calculus in the summer.  In case you didn't already know this, that's a bad idea.  Summer course plus bad teacher equalled Jeanne studying calculus all summer, trying to make it make sense.

One evening after a test, I drove the half hour home in tears.  I had done really badly on it. (As it ended up, I actually got an A, because he graded on a curve and everyone else had done really badly too.  I seem to recall that just finishing two problems on the test was an A.)  As I drove home, I thought, "I don't even really like math!"  So then I asked myself, "What do I like?"  And the answer was - languages.

I summoned up the courage to call my dad on the phone (even though I lived in the same house, I couldn't summon up THAT much courage!) and tell him that I needed a break from math and was going to concentrate on languages for a while.  I sat down with my college catalog and figured out that I could graduate the following May with an AA in Liberal Arts.  I contacted my German professor and asked for his permission to study the second semester material on my own and enroll in Intermediate German that fall, which he happily gave.  I enrolled in Intermediate Spanish, after three years of no formal Spanish.  And I was happy!

After graduating from the two-year college, I transferred to a four year college and continued studying both languages.  I ended up majoring in German and minoring in Spanish (a double major would have taken another semester) and deciding to go on to graduate school to get my doctoral degree and become a professor.  What happened after that is another story.  The point is that it wasn't until the summer of 1991 that I realized, at age 20, what had been written on the wall since I was a child.  I loved languages!

Posted in My languages

So I have been worried since Brogan's birth that I somehow lost my lifelong interest in languages.  I haven't been studying German or Spanish or anything else - I haven't even wanted to!  I haven't been speaking German with any of the children.  I thought I was just too tired and had too much going on.  While that may be true, I now have another explanation.

The twelfth book I have read this year (I'll get to quick reviews of #10 and #11 soon) is called The Attachment Connection: Parenting a Secure and Confident Child Using the Science of Attachment Theory by Ruth P. Newton, Ph.D.  I picked it up from - where else? - the new book shelf and wasn't sure if I really wanted to get it, until I found I couldn't put it back because it was too interesting.  The basic premise of the book is that, more so than cognitive development, the first three to five years of the child's life is about developing secure attachment to a caregiver, which then provides the child with the social and emotional skills to learn and grow.  Newton discusses "emotional regulation" a lot, which basically means that the mother/caregiver helps the child to handle his emotions.

This book seems to give the scientific background to one of my favorite books ever: What Mothers Do Especially When It Looks Like Nothing by Naomi Stadlen (here's a link to my 3-part review of this book).  I specifically remember Stadlen describing how a mother calms her crying child by entering into his world, feeling his pain, and then slowly bringing him out of it.  That is emotional regulation.  "When sensitive parents consistently enough help their children regulate their emotions...children act and feel more confident, show greater competence at exploring and learning...and learn to regulate their emotions themselves."

In order to do this though, Newton says that the parent must have a right-brain-to-right-brain relationship with the young child. The right hemisphere "appears to house and orchestrate the entire nonverbal body-world communication system." So to be attuned with your baby, you need to shift into his world, where cuddling, cooing, and caring are at the top of the agenda.  It seems clear to me that studying a foreign language is about as left-brained an activity as you can get!  In fact, I have found myself having trouble with English some days.  I have always had a tendency to replace words with "thing" or "thingie" but lately I have been saying incomprehensible sentences like "Put the thing on the thing."  And I have had to literally stop speaking to search my mind for a common word.

Although I had planned to speak a lot of German to Brogan, after he was born, I just couldn't.  I didn't want to.  I think that this book's explanation makes a lot of sense.  Speaking a non-native language to my new baby, especially without any emotional connection (like if it were a heritage language or my husband's native language), would have put a big roadblock between our right brain mindmeld.

But Brogan is six months old now, and just a couple of days ago, the thought popped into my mind, "I miss German!"  Maybe I have sufficiently learned "Broganese" so I could have a bit of my left brain back.  That'd be nice.  Off to give the baby a kiss!

This book is very readable despite the scientific emphasis.  Then it has a very helpful and interesting guide to different ages, newborn to age four. Each section has a list of new skills your child might have and suggested activities that you can do with him, along with case studies that illustrate the age.  The last chapter addresses the question of day care, saying, "We cannot continue to ignore the elephant in the room, even if we don't quite know how to get it out yet."  Newton encourages mothers to acknowledge their true feelings about work, since children are happier when their mothers are happier, whether that means working or not working, as long as the child's attachment needs are met.  She feels that more options need to be given to families, and points out that the biggest problem with child care in general is turnover.  She also suggests that children under 3 may not thrive in group situations.  I know that I had to address my feelings about leaving Brogan even to teach a class once a week and decided that I could not do it.  When he is two or three, I hope to start again.  I found that it was one thing to contemplate leaving him before he was born, and another thing entirely once I was holding him in my arms!

Posted in My languages

Last fall in my Methods of Teaching Romance Languages class, I first learned about the concept of "comprehensible input."  Input is language that learners hear or read, and the "comprehensible" part means that the language learner must understand most of it in order for acquisition to take place.

A few months ago when I ordered my homeschooling things for next year, I also got a little booklet called "Tips for Learning World Languages at Home" by Chris Roe.  I have been developing a presentation on homeschooling foreign languages and wanted to see what the booklet recommended.  One of the interesting points it made was that, at the beginning, their family regarded NOT being in a language class as a disadvantage, but later as an advantage.  Why?  Because the girls never heard incorrect Spanish from the other students.

Later I was thinking about how so many Americans (me included) can say, "I studied (insert language) for (insert number of years) in high school and can't speak a word of it."  I started wondering how much actual input those years represented, and then how much of that time was wrong input from the other students. 

I know that in my case, I had French for 3 years in eighth, ninth and tenth grades.  I took an inventory a month or so ago and came up with about 5 things I could say in French.  I can read it okay, but that's mostly because of its relationship to Spanish.  I had no other input besides my French classes.  Even in French 3 Honors, my teacher didn't speak much French and neither did we.

Contrast this with my Spanish experience.  I don't remember if I have ever mentioned on my blog why I started studying Spanish.  In the summer between 7th and 8th grade, Menudo released their first English language album.  I heard one of their songs on the radio, liked it, and bought the album.  I wanted more of their albums, but they were all in Spanish.  I bought them anyway.  My family made fun of me because I didn't know any Spanish but listened to them all the time. I went to see Menudo twice in concert (the first time I had third row seats! and saw a twelve-year-old Ricky Martin way up close!) and listened to them in Spanish a lot.  So for two years I listened to Spanish music - I believe we could call that "input" even though it wasn't "comprehensible."  Then I started studying Spanish in school and did very well.  I remember once telling my teacher that I listened to Spanish music, and she exclaimed, "That's why you have such a good accent!" I also remember the first time I completely understood a Menudo song in Spanish.  I was driving, so it had been at least 4 years that I had been listening in Spanish.  As the song ended, I realized that I had understood the whole thing, and I was very excited.

I have gotten a bit off track, but my main point was that I had additional out of the classroom input in Spanish that I did not have with French,  and this probably made a huge difference.

I have also wondered if the concept of "wrong input" could contribute to the speech delays that twins commonly have. When a child is born into a family, everyone in the family normally speaks better than the child.  Even if older siblings don't speak fluently yet, they at least speak better.  But with twins, they spend the majority of their time with someone else who cannot speak better. 

This is something I struggled with in teaching this year.  Some of my students had such atrocious pronunciation that I would cringe.  But I could not make them repeat everything over and over again or read everything myself - then my class would be annoying and too teacher-centered.  When we read things out loud, I ended up asking students to read a couple of sentences and then, when we went over it, I would read it again several times.  But how damaging is it for the students to repeatedly hear things said wrong or say them wrong themselves?  I don't know.

I just find this concept of "wrong input" interesting.

Posted in My languages

Avid readers will remember my language experiment entry where I tested how fast I read English, German, and Spanish.  Since then I have decided to work on improving my reading speed in German.  So I am happy to announce that I recently finished reading my first book in German!  It is a children's book called "Das doppelte Lottchen" by Erich Kästner.  If you are familiar with the old movie "The Parent Trap" or the newer version of the movie that the Olsen twins did, this is the book that it's based on.  The parents of identical twins get divorced when the girls are babies and each takes one.  The girls don't know about each other until they meet at summer camp and realize that they are twins.  At the end of the summer, they switch places so each can get to know the other parent, and eventually they get the parents back together.

This book was translated into English, and I had it as a little girl.  It's called "Lisa and Lottie."  I am trying to find a copy of it for my daughters, who are very interested in the story.  Of course, back when I read it, I never dreamed I would have identical twins some day!

Our library has a pretty good sized German section, and they have 4 or 5 books by Kästner, so I am reading through them.  They seem to be exactly at my level, where I can follow the story and get most of the details while cementing new vocabulary in my head.  I have continued to study words using the Usborne Internet-Linked German Dictionary for Beginners.  It amused me that I wondered how on earth I would ever remember that curls were "Locken" and braids were "Zöpfe", and then I started reading "Das doppelte Lottchen."  One twin has curls and the other braids, and the words are used over and over and over!

This morning I took a placement quiz on the Goethe Institut website which tells you what level course you should take with them.  The levels are tied into the European Common Frame of Reference (scroll down to read the levels - they are A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2.)  I remember taking the placement test sometime last year and getting either the B1 or 2 level, but this time it said I should take a class at the C1 level!  There were a lot less questions where I said, "Huh?" and then just guessed.  I got 22 out of 30 correct.  This time I recorded the date and how I did so I can retake it again at the end of year.

I still need some kind of immersion experience, and I am still kind of clueless on how to accomplish that with my soon-to-be 4 children under 5, not to mention the increasingly worthless dollar.  It will have to be something here in the US definitely.

Up next in my reading queue: "Das fliegende Klassenzimmer."  No, I don't yet know why the classroom is flying!