Learning languages Requires Us to Let Go and Engage!

Language is much more than the sounds, letters, grammar, vocabulary. That is why so many people struggle learning languages. We were sold the idea that if we learn all that, then we will “know” a language. What a load of bunkum!

Languages are the means we have to express who we are, what we think. They are the means by which we “attempt” to communicate with each other. I say attempt because all too often our communication can go awry and hence the stress that all of us have felt in our lives from these attempts at communication.

The problem is that first of all we have to say something that communicates what we want to express. That is often hard enough, of itself.  And then we want the other person to understand what we said in the way we meant it. When we succeed at both, a miracle! 

I may seem to be digressing from my introduction, but really I am not. What I want to show is that the language we use is meant to express what we want to say. So when we learn a new language it is important that we always keep that connection… ”how can I say what I mean in the new language” is the first step and then “in a way that will be understood clearly by another who speaks that language” is the second. This may seem like nothing new but it is! Let me continue.

Meaning is at the heart of a language. I am here not talking about the kind of meaning that has no life, but about the kind of meaning that moves us to action, to thought, to reflection. The meaning needs to impact who we are in some way otherwise its too easy to keep it at an arms length. That kind of meaning has little chance of being transformed into a new language that we relate to. That is one reason why immersion based language learning has the successes it has. We have no choice then but to react to the language. So it makes the language more personal, not removed (like typical language teaching can be).

When we put on top of all that a cultural overlay, there are even more complications we have to deal with. Unless we are prepared to become vulnerable and let the new culture permeate us, so the meanings stated and implied in another language affects us AND not try to interpret what we hear from our own cultural baggage, we can easily miss what another might be saying.

That is why translation is typically a poor tool for learning a new language. It certainly can sometimes speed things up, and at times may even appear necessary, however we can miss so much when that is the only tool we use to learn a new language.  Culture needs to be experienced for it to be appreciated, especially its subtleties. For that to happen we need to, as much as possible, desist from attachments to and judgments about our culture or the other.  The better we can do this the more effectively we will be able to pick up the nuances of other cultures.

So if you want to learn a language work out some way you can engage with it.  The more fully you do, the better will be your chances. 

Andrew Weiler, 2012

Challenging the concept of ‘culture’ in teaching

Please watch this video called Culture: tishrab ahwa? (Would you like a coffee?), taken from a coursebook called Alif-Ba, to teach Arabic to beginners...

After that, consider this statement and your position about it.

“Ideally, language learning should function as a multicultural discourse in which the ‘strange’ and ‘foreign’ become more familiar, and in which the participants learn new questions, new perspectives relating to the object of their study, thereby gaining an increased awareness of their own attitudes and perhaps develop a more critical consciousness of themselves and their motivation with regard to the subject they have chosen to learn.” (Attar, 1988, p. 9)

I strongly agree with the above statement... and you? Now, in the light of that video and statement, consider the following questions:

-        As an Arab (if you are one), do you think that the video represents the ‘culture of coffee’ in the Arab world?
-        Imagine that you are a beginner student of Arabic. What would you get from that video?
-        Do you think that video is consistent with the previous statement?
-        What is its purpose? Does it provide the learner with any new value/knowledge?

My answer is that the video only oversimplifies the reality which, in fact, is much more multi-faceted, and contributes to foster useless stereotypes. Working as a teacher of Arabic and Italian as foreign languages, I have been noticing more and more how much some coursebooks contribute to foster this kind of stereotypes. Their attempt to give the students a simplified taste of cultures impoverishes the latters and holds them up to ridicules. In my opinion, a teacher should always consider the perspective she/he is presenting to the students, having a constant critical look at her/his practice and - when dealing with language and culture - always considering the socio-historical aspects, avoiding simplification and thinking about what can foster a better intercultural communication, starting from the language itself.

You could be willing to ask yourself some questions, such as: 

a) Is it possible to represent a culture in a simplified way?

b) What is the relationship between representation and power?

c) How can we deal with complexity when teaching language and culture?

d) Is culture something separated from language or are they tightly interconnected?

c) Is it enough, when learning a new language to have a superficial idea and ‘ready to use’ information or is it necessary to follow a more complex path that pushes the learner to look at both the other and him/herself from a new standpoint?

d) Shall we challenge students to be open to negotiate their identity and beliefs?

As for myself, I relate the role of a teacher to a transformative intellectual whose primary goal is to raise awareness and critical reflection. Therefore, I believe that a greater task for a language teacher is to help building bridges and facilitating mutual social, political and historical understanding between nations.

I also believe that learning a language should help to dip ourselves in a new dimension. I suggest we think, here, of Gulliver (in the famous novel Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift). During his journey, Gulliver modifies his perspective, starting to see others’ customs, laws and lifestyle from a new angle and, in order to do so, he feels the need to learn other people’s languages. He learns to listen to other points of view, to welcome them and, in some cases, to agree with them.

The concept of culture can be interpreted in several ways. Generalisation should be discouraged.

“Cultures are not monolithic and a variety of successful behaviors are possible for any type of interaction in any particular culture.” (Peterson and Coltrane, 2003).

P. Casola

Japan, Korea, USA: Are we all the same?

What do you think I would answer if you asked me if I sometimes feel like I don’t know where I belong?

Let me introduce myself a bit. I have a unique background: I am from South Korea and Japan. I was born and grew up in the former till I was 19 and then moved into the latter because of my family circumstances. At the age of 26, I moved, again, by myself, to the United States to learn English and obtain a Master’s degree in Rehabilitation Counseling. Recently, I got a governmental job, only a few months after graduating last May.

So, going back to our initial question, I would say I OFTEN feel like I am lost in my cultural identity but sort of proud that I feel that way. And I always think that we are all global citizens as we share that beautiful place called Earth. The culture in which you grow up highly influences the way your beliefs and values are shaped. As a result, it is hard to say that you can describe yourself without telling about your culture. However, it seems to me that many people are limiting themselves by their own thoughts on cultural differences. What is acceptable in one culture may not be the same in another one. But that does not necessarily mean that we are fundamentally different because we are culturally different.

We are all different in a way that we have our own preferences, desires, needs, interests, abilities, thoughts, and ideas, etc.  But we can also say that we are all the same regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, culture, socioeconomic status, age, and disability, etc.  I do not mean that I do not embrace individual differences.  What I mean here is that I am an individual with feelings as you are.  Yes! We all are human, aren’t we?

As a person who has been actively interacting with people from different cultures on a daily basis over the past 6 or more years and who has been trying to shift the focus from differences to similarities while interacting with them, by trying to understand their perspective without letting my prejudices and stereotypes take over, I can say, in confidence, that we are all the same at the end of the day. If we need to deal with cultural issues, we can try to communicate and use the flexibility in our cognition to better understand one another, rather than being automatically defensive or even judging.

YM

Lost in cultural Babel

I'd like to share this idea with you: It's very difficult to step back from our cultural conditioning and look at our own culture with fresh eyes, clarity and impartiality.


And what I mean by this is that if a foreigner says something we don't appreciate about our country/culture, immediately either we take it personally and badly or we deny it or, as a last resort, we try to find a reason or justification. We are seldom able to say: "Wow! Thank you. You just opened my eyes on something I could have never seen by myself." Or: "Yes. It's true, we do this and I now understand it can be weird, or totally non sense, or misleading for a foreigner."


We stick to our culture as if it was the only part of our identity and we miss the opportunity to broaden our mind. Why do we feel this necessity to "defend" something? If someone says something about our culture, why can't we just say: "You're right. That's true."  And that's all. No judgement, no denial, no attempt to camouflage. 


That's something that stirs my curiosity.


On the other side, I experienced how you feel when someone else looks at your culture from the outside and things you had always taken for granted start to become sort of "unconfortable". That's always the same point: we don't want to feel unconfortable. May I suggest this post? Stepping out of our comfort zone: That's one of the most exciting experiences. Feeling lost. Lost in translation.


So, that short experience I was talking about. Here it is: I was watching an Italian movie with British friends, when suddenly I realized that I was not watching that movie as an Italian, but as a British myself, or somehow as a foreigner. Scenes that would have felt right to me at other times, felt weird at that point, because I was watching the movie with them. The family relationships depicted in the movie, the way the two brothers interacted, the way the parents interacted, as well as all the values that that movie was conveying started to be weird to me. "This is not good", I thought, "if they see this, they are going to think that the Italians are this and this and that". And than I thought: "But the Italians ARE this, and this and that." And I felt a little ashamed. But than I thought: "You know what? Let's stop with fake movies for export market, this is REAL, it might sound ridiculous, it might sound weird, it might sound too Italian, but this is just the way we are! I didn't dare to ask my friends what they thought about the movie. Of course they told me it was great, but which British person would really tell you what she/he thinks, since in Britain it's not polite to say something negative?


I'd love to really, really (with no understatements and two-way meanings) know what the British think of that movie. 


E.

The slightness of British difference

This is a short post about how trying to be polite can be very confusing for someone from a different culture.

It took me sometimes to realize that. I'm in England at the moment, attending some courses and I've asked different questions to my teachers. Three or four times it happened that someone or myself said something completely unrelated to what the teacher was explaining and she said: That is a slightly different situation.
And again: That is slightly different from my example. Or: That is slightly different from what we are doing here. Therefore, I recorded in my mind that what I said or my colleagues said was similar (that is what slightly different means) to the teacher's examples. For three weeks I thought I was, and my colleagues were, almost right. So I kept the two alternative examples in mind as both possible.

For three weeks. Until, I finally understood! It was an epiphany for me!

In England, when you say something completely out of topic, your interlocutor will say that it is slightly different from what she or he meant.

So, if you come, like me, from a culture where you "call a cat a cat" (beautiful French saying that goes: Appeler un chat un chat, meaning call things with their real name) you could be puzzled. Politeness can be misleading, because you don't understand what people really mean, and if they really mean what they are saying, included in an academic environment where you wish to clearly understand as much as you can and go back home with consistent and meaningful information.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Polite or not polite, this is the question, politeness can mean something starkly different in different cultures, and here I am arguing that it can even be confusing and cause problems.

All this is fun! But... be careful!

E.

Ulysses reloaded

[Please, give us feedback about this post, the author asked for it!]

I read the Odyssey for the first time when I was 20, but in many ways it was like reading a known story: fragments of it had permeated my childhood since I can remember. Fewer things can stimulate the imagination of a youngster more than epic fights against mythological monsters or avoiding the traps of mischievous divinities, all embedded in the long and winding journey of a hero who eventually returns home in triumph. Sure enough, Homer could have been the first Hollywood producer. However, the Odyssey is not just for kids: it portrays so many aspects of the human condition that one can relate to it still today. When I left my home country 7 years ago on a postdoctoral grant, I was also filled with a thrill for adventure not unlike the one that drove Ulysses to join the Trojan war.

Once you leave your home country, you immediately realize the world is swarmed with modern Ulysses, already back home or still in transit. And with the present crisis looming on us, more and more people will be forced to join this condition. The toils of these modern Ulysses are certainly not as glamorous as the ones afflicting the original hero, but equally important (and painful...): finding an apartment, opening a bank account, wrestling with stubborn bureaucrats or trying to learn the local language are just some of the everyday battles one has to fight.

But let me come back to the Odyssey. One of the things that always fascinated me about the book was that it was not clear (at least to me) whether Ulysses truly wanted to come back home. Of course he says so vehemently, but whenever he has the chance he invariably misses the shot: he acts foolishly, annoys the Gods and is being pushed away from the right path over and over again. If we reflect on the fact that he spent 10 years (ten!) wandering around the Aegean Sea while continuously missing the way home, it is just ridiculous. Even as a kid I smelled something fishy. This had to be done on purpose, otherwise Ulysses was the worst sailor ever!

Likewise, in the course of the last 7 years I have asked myself many times whether my changing countries every 2 years is part of the journey home (as I’ve always been claiming) or I’m just running in circles in fear of making that final step. To be honest, I haven’t figured it out yet, but what I've lately been observing in many of my friends staying abroad is that the need to hit home is a rather sudden call: one has been restlessly wandering the world and realizes, almost overnight, that this seemingly random walk has somehow always been the long journey back to Ithaca. And it works like a biological clock: they urgently feel the need to get home, right there, right now. I'm not at that stage yet, but I would not bet a dime with you that things won't change in a year, or maybe in just a matter of months: I've seen too many hardcore travelers turn back home on short notice not to be cautious. Like with a leaking faucet, your sink might be overflowing before you realize it.

But here comes the crux: what is home? Sure we all have our Penelopes somewhere (family, friends, memories), and the time we spend away from them is slowly but firmly weighing on us. But for how long can we still call a place home when we are away? Is there a threshold or we can always emulate Ulysses’ comeback, seemingly restituting things as they were before we left? Can we spend years away and still expect to come back unscathed? Neither the feedback I get from different returnees nor my own experience sounds like Ulysses's comeback. Not at all. As the years I've been away increase every short visit home is more and more painful: I've gradually lost touch not only with people but also with cultural background; in my family everybody got kids, and so grown-up by now that I completely missed their childhoods; all my reference points are stuck 7 years ago; etc. It's like waking up from a coma... Unlike in the Odyssey, our Penelopes back home have not sown a tapestry at daytime to unsew it at nighttime. The tapestry has been always growing, to the point that now we can barely recognize it. Do we belong there anymore? Is there a place one can still call home?

The same dilemma applied to the original Ulysses, though. Only that Homer, wisely enough, stopped the epopey at the right time and spared himself the pains of telling the readers what happened afterwards. However, other authors thought about it. Interestingly enough, all these sequels show an unadapted Ulysses that ends up leaving Penelope and Ithaca, never to return. Our modern Ulysses would step in here and probably add: indeed, what is the point in staying when your Ithaca does not exist anymore?

I don't know the answer, but maybe the problem is to view things in terms of journeys and destinations. Much the same way we cannot trail back to our childhood, that place we used to call home is not there anymore, it's gone forever. The safety net it once represented has faded into a (potentially dangerous) memory. Live with it or be ready for bitter disappointments. I can easily picture Ulysses back in Ithaca longing for the past, feeling emotionally detached and seeking only the company of the surviving members of his crew. As modern Ulysses we should avoid running into the same pitfalls... However, while writing this post I became aware of the term Ulysses syndrome, used in psychology to identify disorders affecting, especially, immigrant population who cannot adapt to new cultural and geographical environments. As one of my italian friends (also a blogger here) says: "once you get into the Intrazone you will always remain there. You just have to accept it". I agree, and in it we can still choose to behave like the original Ulysses and cry over spilled milk or else adapt and switch gears to always make the best of our changing situations. Good luck to all of you in this endeavour!

by O.C.

Cultural flavors from distant lands

It was my first week in the US. I was walking my two big dogs in the park close to the river, when I gave a shot: “Good morning,” I said, practicing my rusty English, and that old black woman greeted, and stopped to talk to me. Her name was Rose, and she told me about when she arrived here thirty years before, and how it had been difficult to her at that time making friends in a white neighborhood. She stayed there standing for an hour talking to me, a white person, giving me some tips, and stopping people who were passing around, just to introduce me to them. I was a lucky guy.

Never before in my life had I lived abroad, so far away from home. Now I’am forty years old, I found myself living in a small little town in a foreign country. Sometimes, I still feel as if it were a dream: I quit my job, I left my house, and most important, I left my family and friends to start a new life in a different land.
I used to live in abig city, drive for two hours a day from home to work, stuck in the traffic, and work around eighty hours a week; that was the price of living in an expensive big city. I made good money; I cannot deny, but I was tired of that life. I wanted to experience something different.

Now here I am, living in a little town, biking, walking, taking the bus with my backpack, and knowing people from everywhere, from distant places. It has been a great opportunity to get to know different cultures, different ways of living and thinking, which sometimes it is hard to understand and rationalize about; however, those experiences have opened my mind and enhanced my understanding of cultural differences. It is always rewarding filling out that our lives’ blanks. Everyday is a new chance to do or learn something. Everything. That’s why I’m here: to not despise any possible innings of learning. Learning about people, places, costumes, languages, sounds, tastes. Yes, cultural flavors from distant lands, from intricate minds. I really enjoy talking to people, listening to their stories. Learning from them. It can be surprising and wonderful to have those experiences, and I think everybody should try it at least once in his or her life; then, the world might be a better place to live, with less prejudice and bigotry, broadening the people’s minds.

by E. De Maria