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Stelle Speaks Spanish and Tagalog | ||
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| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4147 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes  Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 289 of 384 07 July 2014 at 3:00am | IP Logged | ||
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I couldn't do my weekly update yesterday because Arthur hit Nova Scotia! Of course, by the time it reached us
here up North, it was downgraded to a tropical storm. (Can anyone else appreciate the irony of a tropical storm in Nova Scotia?) Power went out early on Saturday morning and stayed out until 9:30 Sunday night. There are lots of downed trees and power lines still to be cleaned up. Last week was my first week of holidays. Well, I say “on holidays”, but what I really mean is “between contracts”. And I say “between contracts”, but what I really mean is “unemployed”. Ha! I'll be back at work in August. Being “on holidays” means lots of time for languages. weekly Spanish update speaking I managed a little over two hours of Spanish conversation this week, all of which went very well. I had my regular Sunday morning chat with my italki teacher. I also met with a new teacher for 45 minutes, and we seemed to click. We've agreed to start working together weekly, using a more structured format. We're both interested in culture, current affairs and history, so we'll read and discuss something every week. In addition to my two tutoring sessions, I also caught up with a language partner from last year. We haven't talked in a long time because our schedules didn't coincide, but now that I'm not working, we're planning on meeting via Skype twice a week until the end of July. reading I read two articles this week: children in the digital age astronomers discover a white dwarf I also read/listened to Democracy Now three times this week, and Amnesty International once. I'm a bit past the halfway point in Percy Jackson y la Batalla del Laberinto. I'm really enjoying this one - much more than the last one! Still, I'm looking forward to finishing the series and moving on to something new. listening Lots of listening this week! I listened to Buenos Dias America every weekday morning while walking the dog. Every day they talked about the current problem in the States with unaccompanied children crossing the border illegally. I finished the last two episodes of Fragiles. What a great show! I think I might watch it again in a few months. Apparently there's a second season, but it isn't available on DramaFever yet. Next on my list: Aguila Roja. I signed up for a Spanish-language course on Coursera. I was excited about it, and I really wanted to like it, but after about 20 minutes of video lectures, I threw in the towel. I understood it well, and the lecturers spoke very clearly, but it was just boring. Regular TV is both more engaging and more of a challenge for me, so I think I'll stick with that for now. As I mentioned earlier, I've been listening to a lot of Spanish podcasts on RTVE. My favourite is – by far – Nomadas (travel), but I also like Fallo de Sistema (geek culture), Futuro Abierto (general interest / current issues), A Hombros de Gigantes (science) and Un Idioma Sin Fronteras (language and literature). grammar I even managed some actual studying this week! I finished the chapters on past subjunctive and future perfect in Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses. I'm still not fully comfortable using the past subjunctive in casual conversation, but it's something that I'm working on with my tutor. general thoughts Overall, I'm really happy with my progress. It's hard to believe that I was still working on basic present tense and trying to understand Destinos a year ago! My original goal in Spanish was to be able to communicate fluently, and I think that I've reached that level. I can read news articles without difficulty, can listen to native radio shows with good comprehension, and have no difficulty carrying on one-on-one conversations at a natural speed. Of course, I make mistakes when speaking sometimes, but my mistakes don't impede communication. My next goal will be to understand groups of native speakers. Sometimes I struggle with parts of TV shows. I'm very comfortable with radio, but TV can be difficult – especially when people are arguing or making jokes. I understand most of what's happening, but there are definitely some bits that fly over my head. I'm going to focus on watching lots of TV over the next few months to improve my listening comprehension. I might have to rethink watching Aguila Roja, since it's probably not modern, colloquial Spanish. Edited because I called the storm Arnold instead of Arthur. Ha! Edited by Stelle on 07 July 2014 at 3:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4147 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 290 of 384 12 July 2014 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Not much to report this week. I've been listening to a lot of podcasts while walking and organizing the house
(60-90 minutes per day), but that's about it. I read a few chapters of my book, but for some reason I was having a hard time focusing this week. I didn't watch any movies or TV shows at all. That said, I've decided to count Nomadas once a week as listening for the Super Challenge. While I focus on listening to all of my podcasts, Nomadas is language-rich and my mind never wanders. I think that it's fair to count it as equivalent to a TV show. Most of the podcasts that I listen to are from Spain. I'm very comfortable with that accent. The podcasts from Latin America are news shows, which tend to be very well-articulated. This week I tried a few new podcasts from Latin America and I struggled with understanding anything at all in some of them! The podcasts from Columbia were easy to follow, but the Argentinian podcast that my tutor recommended left my head spinning. I couldn't follow it at all. I guess I need to vary my listening and train my ear to understand more accents and ways of speaking. Eventually. For now, I'll just stick to Spanish and Columbian podcasts. I've been overdoing my Tagalog study, which leaves me kind of burnt out and uninterested in doing anything "hard" in Spanish. I think that I need to scale back on Tagalog a bit, if only so that I have some mental energy left for reading in Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4147 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 291 of 384 13 July 2014 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've read two books on language learning this week. I thought I'd do a quick PMI overview of both of them, in the
order that I read them. Fluent in 3 Months - Benny Lewis plus This is a light, easy read. Benny is nothing if not encouraging! His book is upbeat and positive. I would say that it's aimed mainly at beginners, but that's always been his main audience. While I'm not sure that the experienced language learners on HTLAL would have very many "a-ha moments" while reading, it's still interesting and worth the read. For a beginner to language learning using more conventional methods, I could see how this book might make them completely rethink the way that they approach language learning. I really liked the breaking down of myths. Anyone who learns languages has heard variations of these: "I'm too old to learn a language", "You must have natural talent", "I obviously don't have as much time as you do", etc. I liked the focus on human beings as the best language resource, and I also liked the emphasis on the fact that you can learn a language from anywhere. I think that the importance of other resources and approaches - books, listening, writing, etc - is definitely understated in the book, but we have to keep in mind its main purpose: to encourage people to speak. Each chapter concludes with a link to a page on Benny's site with videos, interviews, resources, etc. This will help keep the book up to date, since new resources can easily be posted to the site. minus There are too many references to the blog. I understand that the blog is Benny's bread and butter, and I understand that he's proud of it - as well he should be! But if I had picked up the book in a bookstore, I would have found the constant references to both the blog and the forum a bit jarring. There's also a link printed in the book that's an automatic redirect sending readers to the italki main page, using his referral code. I think that affiliate links should always be clear and transparent, and this one is anything but. interesting I would give this book to a friend who was learning their first foreign language. I think that it could definitely encourage a reluctant speaker to jump in and have fun with the language. Edited by Stelle on 13 July 2014 at 2:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4147 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 292 of 384 13 July 2014 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately - Boris Shekhtman
plus WOW!!!! The mind, it is blown. This short, brief book is - by far - the best general language learning resource I've ever come across. While I've read lots of interesting blogs and books, none has ever made me completely reconsider my approach to teaching and learning. This stuff actually feels *new*, rather than being an interesting take on the same old topic. Boris briefly (very briefly!) describes 7 communication tools that can make a speaker sound more fluent and natural, regardless of their level. It's not about how to learn a language, but rather about how to organize what you know so that you can use it more effectively. Some of the tools I already use instinctively as a language learner and teacher, but others are new to me. It's about making communicative tools explicit, naming them and practicing them. I think that this book is a must-read for any independent language learner. minus The book is very short. I would have liked to have delved deeper into each tool. There are also lots of small editing mistakes - typos, line breaks, grammatical errors, awkward phrasing. While they don't harm the overall message, the mistakes are jarring at times. Some of the examples of how native speakers might say something made me laugh out loud because they just…weren't how native speakers might say something. This book is obviously self-published, and it would have benefited from a good editor. (But it doesn't matter! Read it anyway!) interesting I would love to be part of a professional study group with this book. Personal aside: Unfortunately, adult language teachers lead a pretty isolated professional existence. When we do share, it tends to be ideas, approaches and activities. There's very little discussion of metacognition in second language acquisition unless a teacher goes out and looks for it. This is one of the reasons why I'm considering going back to teaching children in public schools next year. It's much easier to feel *passionate* about your work when you're surrounded by other passionate educators and you're given the time and encouragement to reflect on your own teaching. That said, this book will definitely change the way that I approach teaching adults, and I'm already planning on using it to reorganize my own Tagalog study. Edited by Stelle on 13 July 2014 at 2:47pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5538 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 293 of 384 13 July 2014 at 3:44pm | IP Logged | ||
I've actually had this book on my wishlist for a while now, so your review confirmed for me how much I need to just go ahead and purchase it. Edited by Warp3 on 13 July 2014 at 3:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4912 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 294 of 384 13 July 2014 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Shekhtman is also on my "must read" list. I am already a bit familiar with his "language islands" idea, because that has been mentioned several times here on HTLAL. I've often said to myself that I need to start developing, and then using, some language islands.
Stelle, if you have the time, I'd love to hear more specifically what you found so mind-blowing about the book. What specifics are you planning to bring into your own teaching and language study? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4147 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 295 of 384 13 July 2014 at 7:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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My expanded thoughts on How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately by Boris Shekhtman
Warning: this is long! Shekhtman outlines 7 communicative tools. When you think about them, they all seem very obvious - it's just that they're so rarely verbalized. I equate it to teaching reading. Good readers use a variety of strategies and skills instinctively - strategies like determining importance, asking questions, inferring and visualizing. But they're often unable to verbalize how they read and understand a text - they just do. Some kids will naturally pick up these strategies and become good readers. But some struggling readers never will, unless someone names them, teaches them explicitly and helps them practice them. And even the best reader will be able to dig deeper into a text if they can name the strategies and understand how they help them read. I think that this is what Shekhtman does for speaking a foreign language. He names strategies and skills that good communicators use, and then provides ways to practice them explicitly. And it just makes so. much. sense. Here are the seven communicative tools that he lays out in the book: 1. show what you know Expand answers to questions so that a conversation doesn't become an interrogation. So if you get a question like "Do you have any brothers and sisters?", instead of answering "Yes, I have a brother." add as many details as you can (within reason): Yes, I have a brother. His name is Jason. He's a technician and he lives in Toronto, the biggest city in Canada. (etc. etc. etc) This allows you to "show off" and actually let people see what you can do. It also makes the conversation much more comfortable for both speakers. my take-away as a teacher and learner: this is something that I do naturally, so it's not something that I have to focus on as a learner at this point. Some of my students also do this naturally. Others don't. I've always prompted them to add more details, but giving this strategy a name and practicing it explicitly makes so much sense! There are a few exercises suggested in the book to practice this tool. 2. build islands This is probably the most "famous" part of this book, at least on HTLAL. The idea is that learners build "islands": fluency around a particular theme. Shekhtman describes these as "well memorized and frequently used monologues". The idea is to become fluent within particular narrow themes using short monologues, which give you a place to "rest" in conversations. A new learner might have islands like "my family", "my job", "my hobbies", "my favourite movie", etc. An advanced speaker going off to China as a diplomat might build islands like "Canadian-Chinese relations", "Chinese immigration to Canada" or "differences in political systems between China and Canada". So, as you can see, islands can apply to any level of communication. This leads to very fluent communication around common topics of conversation, creating a much more comfortable and rewarding experience for both learner and native speaker. The really cool thing here is how it can link to "show what you know". In my description of my brother, I could easily slide onto an island about Toronto, or about my family, or about my opinions on small towns vs big cities. Shekhtman really emphasizes that islands have to be practiced over and over again. my take-away as a teacher and learner: While I've never had a name for this, I definitely do it with my students when practicing interim oral tests or for the official languages exam, a high-stakes test that evaluates their command of the French language. But I've never thought of using islands explicitly with beginners in a non- testing situation, or of using them myself as a learner. I had a real "well, duh" moment when reading this chapter. It's just so obvious when you think about it! I've already written to my Tagalog tutor and we're going to start working on islands tomorrow. 3. shift gears When the conversation starts getting too complicated, use this strategy to change the subject and bring the conversation back to one of your islands. Again, this makes so much sense! It's uncomfortable for both parties when communication breaks down. Shekhtman shares some strategies to sidestep a topic, change the subject with a link, change the subject with a question or introduce a new topic. While the goal is to do so gently and naturally, I found that some of the example conversations were a bit abrupt or awkward (like saying "To be perfectly honest, I'm not very interested in that." Yikes! There are gentler ways to change the subject!). But the general idea is very clearly described in the book. my take-away as a teacher and learner: While I might naturally change the subject in conversations, I've never thought about it as a strategy - and I've certainly never taught it as a strategy to my students. And yet it makes so much sense! When I stop to think about it, I actually think that changing gears is one of the most important tools that a foreign language speaker has in his or her toolbox. Why haven't I ever taught or practiced it before?!? 4. simplify, simplify While you can shift gears and swim back to an island during a casual conversation, sometimes you need to discuss or relate something specifically - and changing the subject to your favourite food just won't cut it. I like that Shekhtman differentiates in this way between casual conversation and conversation with a specific purpose. In this chapter Shekhtman emphasizes the importance of thinking in your foreign language and using structures and vocabulary from your foreign language. If you think in your first language, you'll tend to think in complicated structures that you can't yet use in your foreign language. The idea is to use simple vocabulary, simple sentence structures, and simple grammatical structures to get your point across. my take-away as a teacher and learner: Nothing really new here for me. I think that most language learners and teachers are familiar with this strategy - although it's much easier to describe it than it is to actually use it! Still, the idea of explicitly teaching this as one of seven specific communication strategies would make it all the more powerful. 5. break away This is almost an extension of "simplify", except that it's much more focused on grammar. And I love this! So many language "gurus" talk about how they just throw grammar study to the side, because it's not important. But I think that's disingenuous. Everyone learning a foreign language *has* to learn grammar - even if that's not what they choose to call it. For instance, if you're learning French and you use a structure like "Je veux + infinitive", then that's grammar. Grammar doesn't mean working your way through a textbook - it means figuring out how a foreign language works and then applying it in new situations. Here Shekhtman emphasizes the importance of using grammatical structures from your foreign language - and breaking away completely from your first language when communicating. I found this particularly interesting: "It is also important to note that there is an inverse relationship between the number of structures a foreign speaker knows and the influence of his or her native language on his or her use of the second language." In other words, learning (and drilling) grammatical structures is important for developing natural language. Shekhtman also describes a few activities that teachers can do with students to help them "break away" from their native language. Culturally, some of these seemed a bit abrupt to me, but they could easily be adapted to fit both a teacher's teaching style and a student's learning style. my take-away as a teacher and learner: Grammar is important. No matter what anyone says about it being "old school", it is, always has been and always will be important. When a person has internalized sentence structures, they will speak more fluently, confidently and comfortably. I do think that it's important to learn (and teach) grammar as part of a larger whole (the whole being communication) rather than as isolated skills. 6. embellish it In this chapter, Shekhtman talks about learning devices specific to the target language in order to make your speech longer, more expressive and more natural. It was this chapter that made me giggle a few times, because some of the examples of “more natural” speech were anything but: “Oh – you undoubtably are surprised that I haven't said anything about my morning exercises. Just imagine – I do not like to do morning exercises. I do not do morning exercises. I do not think it's healthy at all. I'll tell you directly that I consider them to be harmful to one's health. Really, is it good, right after your sweet dreams, to be doing such abrupt moves – running, jumping, sitting, standing, turning, and so on and so forth?” Is it just me, or is that very much *not* the way that a native speaker would speak? But I do like his overall point: learn exclamations and repetitions (Oh! Right. etc), expressions (You know,... In my opinion,... Of course,... etc) and other modifiers and expressions to try to sound more colloquial – and to give yourself some “breathers” in speech. All of my French students are very good at stalling for a few seconds with “That's a very good question...” before jumping into their answer. Ha! Shekhtman suggests a few activities to help students practice embellishing their monologues. my take-away as a teacher and learner: I've always taught and used expressions like these as a student and as a teacher. Expressions like “on the other hand” can provide sentence starters that will help you feel (and sound) more fluent, while also giving you the opportunity to slow down and collect your thoughts. Hesitations are also specific to each language – while they serve the same purpose, “umm...” sets you apart immediately as an English speaker, while “euh...” sounds natural in French conversation. That said, I think that you have to be a bit careful with really colloquial expressions. While they can make you sound more like a native speaker, poorly used (or overused) they sound very strange. 7. Say what? This chapter is basically an overview of the skills that you can use if you don't understand a conversation. Rather than dissolve into panic - ask questions, ask for clarifications, infer meaning from known words, ask the speaker to slow down, repeat or reformulate a thought. my take-away as a teacher and learner: I think that this emphasizes the importance of learning the “help me” sentences right from day one. Yes, basic greetings are important for beginners, but so are sentences like “I'm sorry, could you please speak more slowly?” Self-study students who aren't interacting with native speakers might not realize just how important these sentences are – until they find themselves drowning during their first conversation, despite their confidence when responding to prompts during a course. Final thoughts If you made it this far – I'm impressed! Haha! Sorry, I'm wordy. Writing this out has been really helpful for me, since it let me reflect on the book, as well as how it applies to my own experiences as a teacher and a student. I think that the power in the seven communicative tools lays in them being named, taught explicitly, practiced in isolation, and used in conjunction with one another. They're a system for organizing what you already know so that you speak more confidently and fluently. With enough practice, I imagine that it would become easier and easier to consciously choose the right tool for the right situation. While I probably won't be using the book as a teacher next year (since I'm probably moving back into elementary French Immersion), I absolutely plan on adapting it to fit my needs as a student. I find the whole thing very exciting! (But of course, I am a huge dork, so “exciting” needs to be defined based on that fact. Ha!) Edited by Stelle on 13 July 2014 at 11:02pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4850 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 296 of 384 14 July 2014 at 8:17am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm glad I bought my copy of "How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately" last year. Just the chapter on islands was worth it, and I incorporate that into my language learning. (I would like to incorporate that into my language teaching as well, but I don't think my high schoolers are quite ready for that yet.)
But as you alluded to, most of the seven tools he talked about are best practiced in the classroom or with a tutor. I can do Islands on my own; write up something, get it checked on Lang-8, then start memorizing it. I can also work on #7 and probably #1 in the same way. But for the rest of the tools, you need situational speaking practice, and for that you need a native speaking tutor. That's a problem for us that are not in a situation to have a tutor or do language exchanges online. But I definitely recommend it! 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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