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There were two occasions today when the connection between language and culture was driven home to me—with Maori and with Japanese.

In the classroom, watching a YouTube clip of Japanese being interviewed about whether they recognized various kanji or not, I could tell from their answers that a lot of language is interpolated. Spoken Japanese is a form of telegramese.

And then in Otago Museum, taking a group for a Maori workshop, for perhaps the first time I became entranced by the story-telling embedded in the carving (as originally there wasn’t a written language).

So these two things struck. 

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My work with kanji continues nicely. It’s easy to stick to. But now that I’m up to chapter 6 of HP2, and have identified 1250 unique kanji, they are getting fewer and further between.

I used to get myself to read the text from one to the other. However, that is taking too long. It’s taking away from my pace. So it was great last night to latch onto a solution. I’ll keep up with the story in German alongside.

Finally, introducing the 100-word meme to my class, I gave Japanese students newspaper articles to describe in that many words.

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A colleague has recently been asked to exhaustively analyze his language teaching. He has been given a template of a matrix to complete, with learning outcomes on one side, and resources, themes, assessment type, timing and who knows what else in adjoining columns.

As if this is what we do in the classroom. As if this is what works. As if this is what will help. As if we didn’t already have enough to do.

‘Oh, ya know. One thousand thirty-nine more days till I retire with full pension. Got me a iPhone app counting that shit down for me.’ 

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I’ve never been a fan of songs and music as an aid to my personal language-learning. However, I did use lyrics to create an activity for our combined Japanese students class. I may create another lesson today matching song’s tiles with lines from their versus or choruses.

The 3 of us at home are now up the 5^th episode of Mother. I fond it just as moving as before. And at work, we teachers are now expected to put together a booklet as our class textbooks. I have reservations about our moving in that direction, which I should really air.

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Evenings, we are onto the third episode of Mother which I had seen earlier. It’s a Japanese drama series. I even showed it to my Japanese short course class—another means of accessing English (via the subtitles) should they choose to avail themselves of it. Today, for our combined class of 27, I’ll get them into groups and have them enjoy, hopefully, a game I created around song lyrics.

As for me, my most addictive activity is still my kanji code collection. I’ve demonstrated it too to my class.

Learning instruction, yes. Language instruction, no. How it ought to be.

689

I am starting to anticipate the end of these 2 years of dedicated journal entries on language learning. It’s been a great habit—a keystone habit—and I mean to continue it in another, or other, areas. But with language, I’m ready to move on.

I’ve reached some conclusions. I’ve touched upon them here, but 100 words are really too few to develop those ideas. Not unless I string a series of them together.

Perhaps 6 or 7 languages, where I spend tag each to a day of the week. That’s for myself. And I haven’t forgotten about Maori either.

688

You know, you put yourself under a certain amount of pressure when you try and improve many languages at once. You may end up avoiding all of them—which I have to some degree. So here’s what I’ll do.

I’ll spend a decent amount of time on each, one at a time. That’s the answer. I’ll finish a book in Dutch, then in German. And if not an entire book (for the ‘lesser’ languages) then a week at a time on others.

That way, I’m not overwhelmed. That way, I’ve only the one or two resources to remember and organize.

687

I was speaking with a friend about the state of society. How the system sucks you up—you time, energy and focus. How does anyone work full-time and have a life?

They say: ‘this only requires an hour a day’, as if everyone has that time to spare, on languages, say. Is that true? Do we really have that resource? Hmm. 

We ‘waste’ a lot of time, certainly. But we need it to unwind through TV, music, reading, surfing. Therefore, if by participating in an hour of language learning activity we recuperated to a similar degree, then perhaps it’s doable.

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Literally the last thing of the day, the last line I read, from Rewire Your Anxious Brain by Catherine Pittman and Elizabeth Karle, gives me linguistic food for thought. It has very much to do, it seems to me, with affective filter. I quote:

You can overcome fears if you give your amygdala experiences that teach it to feel safe in related situations. This is the power of exposure.

That’s very interesting, no? That’s why light, wide and shallow exposure is so important, and why we need to understand the need to make mistakes freely. Another arrow in the quiver.

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From Sachi’s accident 2 days ago, she learned that Mami can’t pronounce the vowel sound of ‘bone’. It comes out as ‘born’. 

With my Japanese students, I’m trying to tackle one vowel sound at a time. Day 1 was ‘cat’. Day 2 was ‘bird’. We look for 20 words with that sound, and then I ask students to make a sentence with as many of those words as they can.

Of course, all of this is just intuitive. I’m not sure if it is effective, or ‘sound’ pedagogy. But it’s a start. It’s worth a try. Today’s sound is schwa.