I am staring at a posting in my classroom of three adults dressed in casual travel attire, carrying luggage, and proceeding from the airport with excited looks on their faces. The caption reads "Language is adventure". This is true in my case: the thing that excites me the most is learning new languages, about new languages, and language in general. I am not multi-lingual yet, but I have made a conscious effort and some of these strategies have helped me improve in my retention and immediate use of the language I have learned. Here are some things I do which I would suggest for others.
1. You can't respond if you can't understand - This is a very simple concept, but it is very important to consider: if you are unable to understand what one is saying to you, or if you are unable to understand a text, a song's lyrics, then you will not be able to respond with any sort of meaningful response. The ability to listen and understand comes first and foremost. This is evidenced by the fact that all babies begin learning their mother tongue(s) before their born by listening to the language spoken by their mother. In this same sense, I feel that its best to prepare before living in a foreign country by digesting any kind of media that one can get one's hands on. 2. Meta Linguistic Phrases - This kind of strategy is context dependent and is quite limited in its application, but for someone who plans to be a student in a foreign country, I will be living within an environment I can use meta-linguistic phrases to effectively speed up my language acquisition and comprehension. For example, if you do not understand what a word means, you can ask for someone to explain that word using words. This kind of construction in Japanese is found in the grammatical structure 「何々」というのは? If one is asking about a specific word, this is how it would be used 「飲み物」というのはなんですか。ーーー「飲み物というのは飲める何かの事です。」This strategy will be useful in learning how to ask language specific questions without reverting back to one's native language. This strategy may also be helpful considering that one will not always have the opportunity to fall back on one's native language given the situation. 3. Make use of Every Opportunity to Speak -In my case, my ability to speak effectively on the fly is probably the worst of my four language areas when it comes to Japanese (reading, listening, writing, speaking). I do feel that I have gradually gained the confidence to at least be open about my Japanese studies, but I have certainly not reached the point of speaking freely without any apprehension. This is natural, however, and will disappear with my progression in my studies as long as I take every opportunity available to me to make use of what I have learned. Speak, speak, speak, speak. That's all that needs to be said. And if you make a mistake, speak again until you clear up any misunderstandings.
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Seeing as how I will be living in a foreign country for 1 year, I am sure that I will be having to reorient my way of thinking quite a bit. If I am unable to do so, it seems fair to assume that I will have a very difficult time adjusting to a new way of life (that might sound a bit melodramatic, but stay with me). For now, there is only so much I can so that I will swim rather than sink when thrown in the Japan’s cultural water’s so to speak. I feel after discussions had in class, these may be appropriate strategies to keep in mind during my adjustment period.
--- Empty Mindedness As children, we were constantly absorbing information about our native culture(s)’ customs, and learning about social norms and taboos through hearsay, personal observations, and by breaking these norms. As an adult, we may be hypersensitive to these customs because of our experience, but when being thrown into the thick of a culturally different setting, we may become like children again, having a lack of cultural know-how. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing however; we have been culturally conditioned at least once before, so being experienced in that regard, I feel that as adults we can speed up the process of cultural learning through conscious observation, and almost by approaching this with an empty mind. I use empty mind in a way that is like the term open mind, but with an emphasis on its neutral nuance. I find that the term open mind has a positive nuance that denotes cultural acceptance. This is nice, but my purpose here is not to hold another culture in awe, but to learn and internalize it in a way that I will come to understand it more naturally, like a child does when orienting to their native culture. How will this be accomplished? There is a myriad of ways one can accomplish this.
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May 2019
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