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.
I wish to learn Shangaan. Can you help?
Japie, thank you for your enquiry about Shangaan. I wil most probably be able to help you, especially if you are in Gauteng. It would also help if you could get a group of friends together who want to learn. Everybody in the group can learn a different language as long as it is spoken in the area.
I also have a few other enquiries so depending on where you are, we might be able to arrange something. I sent you an email with more details as well as my contact details.
Andries
Hi, I am in the SAPS and stationed in a Shangaan area. I am really battling with the language and needs to learn it from scratch.
Can you please help me?
Elize, if you can get a group of about 5-10 language learners together we could probably arrange something. I sent you an email. If for some reason you didn’t get the email, please drop me a mail: learnmylanguage at gmail dot com (replace ‘at’ and ‘dot’ with the relevant signs).
Andries