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I haven't written anything for a while, but I haven't been idle! I've recently started teaching another course for Level 2 students. There are about 8 of them. 

I'm also listening to Stephen Fry read Harry Potter. With Mami and Sachi, we listen to a chapter per evening. They just listen, but I follow along in Japanese. It requires some concentration, but I can manage. We're up to book four. Yesterday's chapter was not one of my favorites. It had too much Elf talk at a high pitch!

I've set Polish study aside for the meantime. Japanese is more important.

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Have I written about Language before, here? Well, yes, obviously 'language'. But possibly not 'Language', although over the years my thinking has moved in that direction.

I envisage the creation of Language as an area of study. And so at school you might do Maths, English, Science but now also a subject called Language (in the singular).

Languages like English, French, Japanese would then belong to the realm of Applied Language. 

'Language' would consist of what? 

In my opinion: general principles, acquisition methodology, and blue sky research based upon the thinking of people Stephen Krashen, Frank Smith and several others.

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Borrowing from Freddy Mercury: “I want to be free” (from false dichotomies).  

I’ve come to the conclusion that Krashen’s ideas, while sound, do exist at the end of the pendulum’s range. We must place them there to be able to discuss them as separate and new. 

But in reality, there’s a spectrum of thinking. There are points of balance that each person must decide about themselves. 

So it’s not between No grammar or All grammar. It’s some grammar. It’s not word lists learned consciously or unconsciously. It’s a mix of the two.

Therefore, it’s about figuring out where one stands.

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My bed-time reading last night was Hold On to Your Kids co-authored by Gabor Mate. In it, I came across something interesting relevant to language learning. 

Attachment provides power-assisted learning - how delightful it is, many people have found, to study a new language when in love with the charming instructor! Whether we know it or not, as parents and teachers we rely heavily on attachment to make models out of us.

 So perhaps them premise of Maeve Binchy's Evening Class was not as far-fetched as I originally thought. Perhaps I ought to work on attachment starting the new semester.

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In India, I once read M.M. Kaye’s Far Pavillions. Yesterday—36 years later—I  pick up her autobiography (part 2), Golden Afternoon from a Lilliput.

Kaye returned to India after 9 years of English public boarding schools. She describes her dismay at having lost the language that she had expected to retain like knowing how to ride a bicycle.

She descibes Hindustani that the populace spoke as being a mixture of Arabic, Pushtu, Farsee (becoming Urdu) and Hindi. Ah, what memories this observation evokes!

Time to delve once again into my own stew of languages that I wish to stir.

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I spent a couple of hours on the first day of the year – 2019 – trying to find logs, journals and diaries kept by people about their own language learning experiences. There aren’t many. Most are commercial in nature. They want you to join their list. They wish to sell you their product. They are convinced that they have the secret, and that they know how to share it.

In short, there ain’t no fraternity out there on the Internet along the lines of language learning mutual support. Which only goes to show that the (a non-commercial one) opportunity exists!