Shake your body to learn a new language

Matthews helping Ansie memorise her core sentence

“Emelela!”, “Dula fase!”, “Bula puku!”, “Ngwale ka pukung!” Does that sound like Greek to you? Well, it’s actually Sepedi, also known as Northern Sotho – one of South Africa’s elevn official languages. While Matthews was giving these commands this morning in Alexandra, Ansie was responding by standing up, sitting down, opening a book and writing in it.

Ansie was in a small group of language learners, some learning Sepedi and others Zulu. Matthews was one of the language helpers – mother-tongue speakers who assisted the learners in acquiring a basic language proficiency.

As promised in my previous post, this post is about the TPR technique, i.e. Total Physical Response. The learners really had a great time doing this and there was lots of laughter as the helpers tried to catch them out with some commands.

Rita and Esther responding to Mdu's commands

What makes TPR such a powerful language-learning technique is firstly that it helps you to think in the target language rather than in your own. So you avoid translating but instead learn to think in the language you are learning. Secondly it helps you to focus on listening before you speak. The better you listen the better you will speak.

Later in the day the learners proceeded to learn one basic sentence from the TPR routine. Ansie’s sentence was “Ke bula puku ke ngwale ka pukung.” She memorised it and then wrote it on a piece of paper. She then asked Matthews to change that sentence into the past, then into the future, into a question etc.

That illustrates another amazing feature of TPR. It allows you to start discovering the grammar for yourself without studying complicated grammar rules. You almost learn like children and we all know that children are the best language learners.

If you want to learn this technique in more detail plus a whole lot more yourself, why don’t you join us on the next Vulavula Language Encounter in Pretoria & Soshanguve, starting 5 October. There are many flexible options available, starting from a 2 hour introduction to a full 16 hr course. Click here for all the details and to register.

My next post will be about the photo book technique, another exciting technique for language learning.

Congolese learning Zulu and Tswana in Pretoria

I have just returned from Pretoria where I spent the day helping a group of church leaders from the Democratic Republic of the Congo learn either Zulu or Tswana on the streets. There was one person from Congo-Brazzaville and another from Cameroon. So my language learners were all French-speaking. I teach a self-directed approach to language learning which implies that learners usually need a so-called bridge language, i.e. if you want to learn Zulu you need another language that both you and your Zulu-speaking language helper can understand.

Thus my French-speaking language learners had a challenge. Most of them can’t really speak English and only one or two out of the eighteen are fairly fluent in English. Also, in the four or five years I have been teaching this course at Missions Exposure and Training, I have never encountered a French-speaking Zulu or Tswana person in the inner-city of Pretoria.

So here’s what we did: I made sure that all of them could at least greet in English which was not a problem at all. I then asked if they were comfortable asking the following question in English: “Could you help me to greet in Zulu/Tswana please?” They were happy with that and then added that they would form small groups around those in their midst who could speak some English.

We were ready to hit the streets. Their assignment was to obtain a simple greeting in either Zulu or Tswana. They had to ask anybody on the street to write them a simple dialogue they could use in most communication situations. They also had to make a recording of two native speakers reading the dialogue if possible.

The results were phenomenal. The language learners were far from perfect but within about 3 hours they went from knowing nothing about Zulu or Tswana to practicing a simple greeting with real speakers on the streets. Bear in mind that they had the added obstacle of not being able to communicate in English with their language helpers.

After some feedback and reflection we went out into the streets again, this time requesting people to repeat the greetings dialogue a few times. First the learners had to simply listen without repeating after their helpers. Then they had to listen and repeat, asking the speakers of the language to correct their pronunciation.

It was amazing to witness the learners’ excitement grow as they returned after each session. One of them remarked “If we continue these exercises we will learn the language in 2 or 3 weeks!” During their third practicum they had to see how many people they could greet within 30 minutes.

At first glance this might appear to be an unintelligent parrot-style type of learning that doesn’t allow the learner to think and adapt his/her speaking. This is however just one of many different language-learning techniques to be found in the LinguaLinks Library, developed by SIL International (formerly known as Summer Institute of Linguistics).

The aim of this technique, known as the dialogue technique, is to get a language learner talking with real people. Not only is it a great confidence booster, but here’s the real benefit: It sets you up for further learning because it connects you to speakers of the language. Watch this space for more about relationships and language learning in the near future.

In future posts I will also explore other techniques, some of which are geared towards more “intelligent” language learning if you want to put it that way. My next post will be about TPR, Total Physical Response, which is what we did in today’s afternoon session. TPR is a very poweful technique and one of my personal favourites.

You might have wondered how I taught this course to a group of French-speaking people. I was able to conduct some of the course in French but yes, I did have an interpreter. I love working through an interpreter because that way I also get to improve my French!