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Tag: English Language Learning

From humor in mimicry to success in learning

Published September 13, 2020

September 13, 2020

Language skills are divided into the activities we do with language (e.g. receptive/productive, or reading, writing, listening, speaking); however, the language skills all come together as a complete set. While some people may speak better than they write, their writing skill is lacking only according to the conventions of language. The spelling may have errors. Tense usage may be inaccurate or limited. Function words, like articles, prepositions and relative pronouns, may contain errors or be omitted. And, in the case where the first language dominates in bilingual speakers, code-switching can occur when the second language is deficient.

But, for everyone, their unique language exists in their minds and is comprehensible to themselves. It is when the language comes out in speech with pronunciation errors or in writing with poor word-choice that the level of fluency is evaluated and tested against an interlocutor or reader.

Intelligibility is an important part of success in communication. And, word choice also conveys a lot of information beyond the basic content of what is said. A person could be a native speaker, and use many words that don’t make communication precise, either resulting from the use of idioms or excess verbiage. On the other hand, a native speaker may simply, as many young people do, use words in a playful or uncommon way.

What does this say about language? The language that exist in our minds comes from a very mysterious place of interplay of past experience with our environment and prior input, and the need or impulse to express ourselves in the present moment.

My son went from crying to get something as an infant, to using language to do so in about a year and a half. From the age of two, he began producing sentences. And now by two-and-a-half, he is stringing together phrases to express ideas that were not responses to immediate stimuli. This particularly dealt with comparisons. For instance, he said, “Some mandarins are sour. But, some are not bitter. They are sweet.”

Where and how does language exist in the brain? These are the deep questions of linguistics that remain central to its field.

Where too does language play come from? It surprised me that my son, whose speech is almost always intelligible to me if not to others for lack of referents or shared linguistic base (Vietnamese, English and Spanish), did not begin to play with words, as in babble, until two-and-a-half.

Some of the play originated with sounds from books, like Dr. Seuss’s Mr. Brown can moo. Can you? As in, the sound of rain, “dibble, dibble, dop.” Or, from misunderstandings of lyrics of songs from Go Buster. As in, “Scout’s got stuck in the mud. A push will get her right out of the muck.”

Other wordplay has mysterious origins. But, play is fun, and in echoing his babble, I’ve teased him saying, “That doesn’t make sense.” And, jokingly asked, “How do you spell it?”

So, we have interchanges like, “A troodle. What’s a troodle. That doesn’t make sense.”

Even more mysterious than language production is the fact that the majority of our language has no communicative purpose. It is running about in our heads during both waking and sleeping hours. Thus, I have been quite surprised when my toddler son has woken up from sleep saying something. These clear and fairly loud utterances are usually in reference to some aspect of play or a favorite toy. But, this stood out one morning when he woke up saying, “How do you spell that? It doesn’t make sense.”

Reflecting on the quantity of robot-calls to our home telephone, my son picked up his toy phone one afternoon, and in response to my question, “Who is it?” he put down the receiver and said, “Spam…That’s weird!”

And, so it seems that a large part of learning is mimicry. Evidence of aptitude and mastery of language appears along with a sense of humor. And, as joking and jest require imagination, insincerity and even deceit in building up to the punchline, the communicative force of good jokes demonstrates adept inter-personal skills.

What should the goals of English language learners be then? Competence, precision and accuracy? Or, should learners rather aim for humor and fun in role-plays?

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A wise man once said nothing

Published August 29, 2020

August 29, 2020

My son, Hai Nam, is learning to speak three languages: English, Vietnamese and Spanish. He enjoys listening and repeating. He can copy pronunciation and intonation with good accuracy. There are a few phonemes that have taken more time to develop than others. In chronology of development, they are f, m, th, L, and in Spanish, rr. Vowel sounds did not pose much difficulty, but perhaps long vowels came after short vowels.

We have been reading books to him in all three languages. It was very interesting to see that at two years old he was recalling full sentences. And, now after two and a half years old, he produces original full sentences. Perhaps, because I speak to him in English most, I recognise his English speaking skill best. But, now that my father has been speaking with him more in Spanish, he is producing it independently, as well. 

From the age of two he’s had complete and accurate recall of the alphabet song in English and in Spanish. Although as Spanish letters are not all single syllables, that one has been more difficult. For instance, the letter y is ee-gree-AY-ga, a four syllable word.

He recognizes and names sounds outside, like trucks backing up on the road. The sound of a chair moving in another room. He can ask and answer questions, which is great because he can express needs and desires.

The one persistent error is with personal pronouns. He mixes up subject and object pronouns, and possessive adjectives. He’ll use you for himself and I or me for the person he’s referring to.

He also slips up with word order in negative sentences. He’ll say ‘should not’ and ‘not should’ interchangeably. 

I’ll be very interested to learn what his earliest memory is when he’s older. I’ve so often recalled places from childhood based on photographs I’ve seen of myself there. Even still, I believe my earliest memories are from around two years old. Particularly, I remember falling down the stairs when my parents went to look at the house they rented for us from the time I was two and half to the age of ten.

It’s great to hear Nam recall a full sentence from days ago. He just said something I had told him about our pet cat. He said, “It’s hard to control a cat.” 

Speaking of time markers, he’ll use yesterday for any day before today. So, when the power went out a few weeks ago. He was saying a couple weeks afterward, “The power went out yesterday.”

All of this seems to validate the lexical approach, the audio-lingual method, and the value of a text-rich environment. I make this point as an observation of my son’s own effort to learn, not because we have pushed him to recall words or sentences. Repetition and recall of his own volition leads me to this conclusion.

He enjoys nursery rhyme animations called Little Baby Bum and Buster the Bus. These have certainly provided great input, in addition to our communication at home and on videocalls with my wife’s family in Vietnam.

For my part, I’ve been frustrated when my son is uncooperative, but from the time his speech was emerging, I’ve suggested, “Let’s talk.” His ears perked up, and he stopped whining. He was genuinely interested in my instruction or reason as to why he should not do what he had been doing.

It has become very difficult to get him to have a nap in the afternoon. I recently tried establishing rules, but Nam wasn’t keen. Without rewards or punishments related to sleep, the rules were ineffective. And, I couldn’t see any benefit to punishment in this case, because I had wanted him to relax enough to fall asleep on his own. So, I still rely on car rides or walks in the stroller to get him to sleep in the afternoon.

I’m not surprised, though. I remember that during preschool I had been very sad one day when I overslept during nap time and woke up alone, not knowing how long my friends had been up and playing already.

Since our moment to moment desires respond to fleeting impulses, I’ll conclude with the advice that I’ve needed myself, that I’d recommend any language learner, and that I’ll give my son when he needs a reminder: Life is not a sprint but rather a marathon.

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Make learning easier, more sustainable and more pleasurable

Published August 26, 2020

August 26, 2020

Most often unconscious, habits that we actively develop can make a world of difference. 

The reflective practice tool I’ve been using with students since 2018 is a habit scorecard based on ideas presented by James Clear in his book Atomic Habits and related talks.

(Recent podcast interview with James Clear on EntreLeadership: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/atomic-habits-with-james-clear/id435836905?i=1000428080039)

The basic idea is to reflect on our habits and make small changes, resulting in sustained improvement. In language learning, this could be the habit of using the target language to speak with classmates in casual conversation, perhaps a big challenge at first. After all, lots of students learning a foreign language only use their new language when they must. However, any classmate could be a practice partner, and the practice doesn’t have to stop when leaving the classroom. So, if you don’t do this already, making the change would certainly be an improvement that overtime will have a big impact!

Looking up new words in a dictionary could be a habit that needs increasing or decreasing depending on how frequently you do this. Overuse of an electronic dictionary or translator is a habit to decrease when it becomes a crutch and you can’t read without ever turning off your phone. On the other hand, using a dictionary and keeping a journal of new words in context can be a habit to develop if you’re trying to expand your high-level vocabulary. This is because the meanings of academic words can be very difficult to guess based on context.

A third and very simple reflection on the habit scorecard for language learning is having fun in study. Some will say learning can’t always be fun, but I strongly believe that it has to be a positive experience overall. Challenge certainly does push us to grow, but play is very important. So, the language learning habit scorecard also includes, “I had fun.” If students are active in class, they typically check this box at the end of the lesson when we do reflection using the habit scorecard. Believe it or not, this does target our goals. The reason we want to have fun learning is simple: If we have fun in class or with self-study, we are more likely to retain the lesson and feel motivated to continue with the subject. To that extent, we are more likely to pursue the subject in free time and thereby accelerate progress.

On the habit scorecard for discrete language, I include, “I pay attention to my pronunciation of final consonant clusters.” It can be very hard for Vietnamese students I’ve taught to pronounce final consonants. These sounds, however, are not just important to pronunciation as they also affect grammar. Take, for example, the third-person ‘s’ for verbs in the present tense and contractions for is. “She’s amiable. What’s amiable? It means friendly.” If the letter ‘s’ is not pronounced, or if it’s transposed, these sentences end up sounding like, “She amiable. What amiable? It mean friendly.” Or perhaps, “It’s mean friendly.” Or, “It mean friendlies.” In these sentences, the ‘s’ has been moved and the error seems even more awkward than omitting the ‘s’ in the first examples where the reduced verb ‘is’ and third-person ‘s’ on means are missing. Again, beyond pronunciation, these are grammatical errors, as well. Uncorrected, this type of error then fossilizes in learners’ speech. Thus, on the part of the learner, receptiveness to correction is of utmost importance. 

As a teacher, I use immediate correction techniques with the aim of raising student awareness to their errors. As often as I can, I take the time to get students to self-correct with the hope that they develop the skill of monitoring their own speech. Hard as it can be to change, the purpose of focusing on the small habits (good and bad) is that overtime making small changes emerges as making great strides in progress toward fluency. 

Now for an example of lifestyle habits that are relevant to all of us: diet and exercise. I have had to admit to myself that weight control as I age is a lifestyle based on habits in the way I have already discussed. I have seen a dramatic, visible change over years of good and bad habits. Most dramatically, the change has been with an aging body and changing musculature. I was fit as a teen and quite healthy-looking in my early twenties. However, bad habits led to weight gain in my late twenties, which over a period of years progressed very rapidly toward obesity. 

In the years I was studying for my master’s degree, I was simultaneously working and studying full-time. I spent the days teaching and evenings at my desk reading and writing. At least the work and study matched, since I was teaching English and studying second language acquisition. Nevertheless, I saw my weight grow by twenty pounds over the preceding three years, and then by thirty pounds over the two years I was a student teacher. The physical change shocked my friends and family upon my return from overseas. 

I took up fitness again at the age of 28 and went from obese to merely overweight. Then, I moved to Vietnam at 29. Because of the very hot climate and my participation in a staff weight-loss competition at the school where I taught, I lost more weight. At 30, my fiance and I took up yoga. I lost weight even faster. We attended hour-long yoga classes in the evenings. Then, we married, and the changes in habits became hard to sustain. 

From the age of 31 to 33, I changed my workouts to strength training. Unfortunately, my range of motion became very rigid. Whereas I had been playing sports like tennis, soccer and swimming in my youth, the weight-training lacked both cardio and flexion. My back turned into a knot every night. At 33 years old, I had to address my back pain at the doctor’s through chiropractic adjustments and physiotherapy.

These days, I stretch every morning and evening, and I try to stay active throughout the day, rather than single hour-long workouts. Besides these basic fitness changes, my wife and I have had an ongoing weight-loss challenge. Over the past six months we have steadily lost weight. The change has been about three percent weight loss every two months. In six months, I have lost ten pounds, or five kilograms. My goal remains to reduce my weight again by this amount in the next six months. 

The change to diet has been to reduce carbohydrates, and to restrict meals to an eight-hour window between 10 am and 6 pm. This technique of intermittent-fasting allows for 16 hours of fasting every day.

At the moment, I’m at the weight I was almost ten years years ago before I started my master’s degree. That’s twenty pounds, or nine kilos, below the highest, unhealthy weight I had reached. It is great considering I have built muscle in these years, as well. I have also overcome what, at one point, I thought would be chronic pain. And, I fit into clothes that had been too tight to wear, a result of slimming five inches, or about 12 centimeters, around my waist. Looking forward, my wife has challenged me to a waist measurement competition, as well. Theoretically, I could reduce my waistline by the same amount again, and if I did so, I would be at my teenage waist measurement… Update forthcoming!

So, if I had been a healthy young man, what got me to this point? Largely, anxiety from required participation in competitive sports in high school. This speaks to the point of having fun with our habits–to have fun with our goal in mind. And, it takes trying different strategies out. For instance, while it does work for rapid weight-loss, counting calories was not fun, and I could not sustain that as a habit. I subsequently realized intuitive food choices without constricting the amount would lead to sustainable weight loss without experiencing sleeplessness due to hunger. For better or worse, this has meant eating more meat and fresh fruit, and drinking still water or coffee with milk only.

To round off my point, I’ll reiterate that as hard as change can be, small changes are easier than big changes, they are longer-lasting and when fun, they are even easier.

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Useful Vocabulary for IELTS Speaking topic ‘Stars and Planets’

Published August 2, 2020

Related to the previous post with model answers to IELTS Parts 2 and 3 on the topic of Stars and Planets, here is a video with vocabulary and phrases that I used.

I suggest using a dictionary for new words. Practice repeating the words and phrases for pronunciation practice. And, listen again over the model to hear them in context.

Try recording your own original responses with an audio recorder. Listen to your recording, and take note of your speed and pronunciation.

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Screencast of live drafting of IELTS Writing Task 2 — Opinion Essay on Artificial Intelligence

Published July 17, 2020

“Some scientists believe that in the future computers will have more intelligence than human beings. While some see this as a positive development, others worry about the negative consequence. Discuss both views and give your opinion.”

This prompt was found on an IELTS preparation blog. A follower of the blog reported that this was the topic they’d received as the Task 2 prompt in July 2020. I made these videos with a free version of Screencastify, which only allowed for recording five-minute segments at a time. I accidentally deleted the first segment in which I had recorded myself typing the introductory paragraph. Oops!

For anyone interested in seeing the commentary on writing process, view the last video. Here also is the full text of my essay, to which I made a change at the end of the third paragraph after completing the videos.

Some believe that artificial intelligence will outperform human intellectual capacity at some point in the future. Although there are clear benefits to working with smarter machines, there are many drawbacks. The greatest benefits include the aid that we as a society will get, but we must neither become overly reliant on the technology nor sacrifice individual liberty for the sake of our non-human counterparts.

As for the drawbacks, we can see how our peers, family members and perhaps, if we are reflective enough, ourselves interact with digital devices. We already employ lots of artificial intelligence in our computing systems, but the likelihood that AI will surpass our intelligence is not far off. The computer, however, is not all-knowing. The real beauty of the intelligence is not in its replication of human ability but rather in the fact that it can learn. We would hope that computers could learn all the positive traits that we possess. However, our best minds do not presently populate the internet with ideas. Hence, as AI attempts to replicate authentic human communication, it has demonstrated the more obnoxious end of the online chat world. This was not such a problem when it was easy to distinguish bots from real users, but it has become harder to pick the two apart in recent years. This, unfortunately, is the most divisive element of the fake posts that have been aimed at political discourse. Our imagination is the limit as to what possible negative outcomes of AI may arise as it gains on us.

The positive aspects of artificial intelligence lie not in the system’s ability to recreate a virtual world, but rather in its implementation in public policy. Using AI to model outcomes and make predictions would help policy makers “see the future.” This does not mean that computers will actually make the decisions, but rather that their human operators will seek their guidance. Again, the machine is not all-knowing but will have greater capacity for knowing without being swayed by intuition or ‘gut feeling.’ The fear of a cold-hearted AI is misplaced, as what we avoid in its implementation are the biases and misconceptions of even the most adept among us in their inherently limited scope. The abilities of high-achieving, powerful businesspeople and technocrats are aided in many ways by teams of assistants and subordinates. Even still, these teams of managers and political operators are prone to error and are swayed by emotion. That is not to say that they are always misguided, but rather that their abilities would be aided by AI to the benefit of all people.

In conclusion, the benefits to the population are outweighed by the drawbacks when we consider the greatest tool AI provides. The technology would seem to grant a supernatural power—the power of seeing the future through modeling and algorithms. Employing this tool at the highest levels of business and government would give us all an upper hand since there would be no need to second guess ourselves. (499 words)

This is the 8-video playlist. At the start of my first video, I am reading my introductory paragraph. Click forward to move to the next video in the playlist.
Final comments on timing (Part 8/8)
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IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Essay: Reasons and Solutions

Published July 11, 2020

Here’s an example IELTS Writing Task 2 prompt that combines the question types cause&effect and problem/solution. The question asks for an explanation of causes and solutions to the problem of species loss. I have long enjoyed teaching IELTS preparation because the contents of the exam provide many learning opportunities. Prior to my example essay are four background readings for reference.

Here’s an October 2018 article citing a special UN report on the topic of climate change:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/un-says-climate-genocide-coming-but-its-worse-than-that.html

Here’s an August 2019 article citing another UN report on agriculture and land use:

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49238749

Here’s a September 2019 article citing a special UN report on the oceans:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/ipcc-sea-level-rise-report/598765/

Here is a June 2020 article on the 6th mass extinction:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/01/sixth-mass-extinction-of-wildlife-accelerating-scientists-warn

Task 2 Writing Prompt:

Animal species are going extinct due to human activities on land and sea. What are the reasons and solutions?

Sample Essay:

The Anthropocene, our present era, has brought about the sixth mass extinction. The causes of rapid species loss in this era as opposed to past great extinctions result from human activities on land and spill-over effects in the sea. Any proposed solution must be undertaken rapidly to be effective at preventing the collapse of human society itself. 

To list the many causes of rapid species loss would require several pages. But, to highlight the main causes is fairly simple. Modern industrial society is fueled and sustained by dirty energy sources and industrial farming. These two activities in combination have put unprecedented amounts of greenhouses gasses in the air and prevent their reabsorption. The gasses then warm the atmosphere and prevent the cycling of ocean currents. This prevents the oceans from natural cooling. Warming waters acidify and lead to aquatic life die-out. Drought and fires, along with excessive deforestation for farming, have led to species loss on land. However, the decline in biodiversity is not limited to fauna, as the declining numbers of pollinators also leads to the extinction of flora. 

Comparatively dramatic solutions are required to address such disturbing problems. In fact, nothing less than the wholesale transformation of industrial society will need to happen. The changes must be undertaken at the global level by nations enacting laws that restrict certain industrial practices. The changes would all be to target a reduction in activities that generate greenhouses gasses. To a large extent these changes would need to be undertaken by major multinational corporations. For instance, in the aviation industry, planes would have to fly at lower altitudes in order to reduce their pollution in the stratosphere. Factories would have to change energy sources from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Petroleum extraction would have to be curtailed, and petroleum use would have to be limited to plastics for certain durable consumer products, not for fuel. In addition, agribusiness must be transformed with the intent of reducing as much as possible mono-cropping and the raising of livestock for meat. Last but not least, all of these changes must be made by the year 2050 in order to have any impact in preventing runaway ecological change resulting from the feedback loops of global warming.  

In sum, it is plain to see that the problems lie at the foundation of modern industrial society, and that the great and necessary solutions would be met with substantial push-back from industry. 

(404 words)

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Harness the competitive spirit

Published July 7, 2020

July 7, 2020

Some don’t last when it comes to language learning; others show unwavering determination. It should be understood that language learning is a years-long, if not life-long endeavor, but one can take advantage of a variety of unique opportunities to accelerate learning. Competition can be used in such a way.

I taught exam preparation for TOEFL at a cram school in South Korea in 2010 and 2011. High school-aged students would study there all day through their summer vacations, each day taking a full practice test. Middle school-aged students at the school prepared for a speech competition organized by the school.

At their ages from 11 to 13, these middle school students were able to dramatically improve their pronunciation, and thereby improve their confidence through the speech competition. The texts of the speeches were pre-selected but unique for each competitor. In general, the content of the speech was inspirational. Besides my work with the students preparing for TOEFL, I helped to prepare the younger students for the competition, in which the speeches were used to judge accuracy in pronunciation and memorization, and individual post-speech interviews were used to judge their fluency.

I helped to prepare the competitors by recording myself read the speeches onto portable cassette recorders. These recordings were used to aid memorization and as examples of native pronunciation. The page-long text was not easy to memorize, but most students did a wonderful job doing so.

The most remarkable aspect of the competition was that the students were able to transform their pronunciation in English to near-native pronunciation.

Every day leading up to the competition, students would have the opportunity to rehearse their speeches with the teachers at the language school. They would practice from memory and, when having forgotten a line or word, receive prompting. Slips in pronunciation would also be corrected, and corrections would be repeated until said accurately in connected speech.

The strategy worked very well for all students but one. On the competition day, the competitor who had won the previous year was unable to recite her speech. Perhaps, her overconfidence had led her not to give adequate time to memorizing the text of the speech. On stage, she forgot the words of the text, and when she came for her fluency test, she was in tears.

As I had been conducting these interviews out of earshot of the stage, I did not know why she was crying until later. I tried to console and give encouraging words. I offered not to continue with the interview questions. But, she wanted to complete them.

Afterward, I was told by the organizer, “She should be crying, she forgot her speech!” Suddenly, I realized how serious this competition had been for the kids and their families.

When our expectations of ourselves are high, we are highly motivated. But these must be tempered with realistic expectations and the understanding that language learning is a long journey with many peaks and valleys.

Although I haven’t been a competitor in this type of contest, I can attest to the challenge posed by endeavoring to learn a second language. I moved to the USA with my parents from Colombia when I was two years old. I learned a bit of Spanish growing up by talking on the phone with my dad’s side of the family, and I studied Spanish at school from 6th grade to 12th grade, finishing with the Advanced Placement Spanish Literature class. I then continued with literature classes at Wesleyan University. Despite the time I had devoted, I wasn’t able to understand TV in Spanish easily (at a comprehension rate above 80%) until I lived in Colombia for an extended period of time when I was 23. It was only until I had lived there over four months that I could understand Spanish spoken at full speed without difficulty.

At 25, I could learn Korean rather easily, but after two years of casual study, I had only reached a pre-intermediate level. However, with Vietnamese, which I began at age 30, I have had a much more difficult time. Over five years, I have only become an intermediate user, often struggling to be comprehended.

Comparing my experiences with the three languages demonstrates what a daunting task language learning is. I had eight years of formal education in Spanish followed by two years as a teacher, whereas my attempts at studying Korean and Vietnamese produced mediocre results.

To conclude, achievement in language learning can be felt when we are understood by our interlocutor and when we can enjoy media without aids. But, let’s not forget that competitive spirit and personal drive can accelerate acquisition, and demonstrating our skills develops confidence, which in turn propels further study.

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