Babelfish Requires Babbling Too

For those of you who were around then, remember the arguments for Esperanto back in the 1970's?  According to Wikipedia, "Esperanto is by far the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language in the world. "

Developed in 1887 by Polish physician Ludovic Zamenhof, Esperanto as stated in "The Decline and Fall of Esperanto: Lessons for Standards Committees"  was supposed to be  "a simple, easy-to-learn language. His goal was to erase communication barriers between ethnic groups by providing them with a politically neutral, culturally free standard language." The authors go on to say:

"... by the 1970s, Esperanto was receiving serious attention from linguistic scholars, with numerous publications appearing in academic journals.

[But] "Despite the logical concept and intellectual appeal of a standard language, Esperanto has not evolved into a dominant worldwide language."

While I agree that anything we can do to increase communication is a plus, this notion of inventing an artificial language, and then all of us acquiring a new one that we would have in common, makes no sense at all.  It has no history, no future, and no culture and these aspects of language are not only important for communication, but I believe for acquiring a language.

For many years I've proposed that technology would play a major role in our ability to communicate with one another.  And in fact, language translation capabilities are growing and getting better.  But while I would have formerly thought that we won’t need to know more than one language since given enough time, we'll have the Babelfish, an idea put forth by Douglas Adams in his book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, my recent experience with learning a new language, specifically Spanish, has changed how I view this.

I realize now that my ability to communicate effectively is not limited to just saying the right words, it’s about semantics; communicating meaning.  A Babelfish would not address the cultural contexts that are so important to communication. Acquisition as humans of multiple language capabilities involves more than technology. Technology will indeed play a role, but it will not be sufficient in and of itself.

Given that a Babelfish won't solve all of our communication problems, what can we do to make it easier and more efficient and effective for all of us to acquire more languages? My most recent experience of one-to-one instruction in Spanish is a model we all should be looking at because my sense is that it is quite scalable, effective and has many indirect benefits.

The Power of Conversation

For one thing, this method of learning a language was quite effective and amazing. Three times I started with a new instructor in three different locations.  Not once was there any discussion over the methodology or how we were going to teach me Spanish. Most striking was my experience with the first instructor Axel, because I had no Spanish capability whatsoever (not counting commonly known phrases, such as gracias or buenos días).

From the beginning, Axel and I started talking in Spanish and never stopped during our five hour daily sessions together for two weeks.  We didn't have a conversation about this, but the unwritten rule was that we were not going to use any English beyond that which was absolutely necessary. I'm not quite sure how we managed to do this, but I know we used a lot of Pictionary and Charades techniques.  Our interaction worked really well when the other person understood it was a game of "guess what I'm drawing/acting out"

Early on, one of the most important phrases I learned was "como se dice" (How do you say), but what really made it effective was how I used it as a signal for starting the guessing game. Instead of tacking on the English word at the end, such as "como se dice binoculars", what worked well was for me to have to describe binoculars in whatever limited Spanish I had supplemented with drawings and diagrams.  There's something about having to work at it more and taking the time and effort to acquire the words. Plus I had to use what little vocabulary I already had to acquire more vocabulary. That's a really effective model.  More importantly and as things advanced,what I was asking for was not a word but a phrase, a saying or a sentence that would convey my meaning rather than a translation of my words.

One reason why I think this model can scale so well is that the only real requirement of the instructors is that they are fluent in the language being learned, Spanish in this case. I don’t think instructors need to know much of the other language...in this case, English.  Nor did I find any need for the instructor to have any significant instructional skills beyond patience because for our sessions, my instructors and I were literally “just” having a conversation. Since the whole model is immersion-based, we're not going to use English, then knowledge of my language was not required.  So I've concluded that any two people can use these techniques for language acquisition.

There are some limitations or concerns within this model. For example, what if the conversation occurs between two people who do not speak "proper" English or Spanish?  To share well, all of us will need to have more consistency in the way we speak a language. Jargon and slang are always a problem in an isolated group.  But the solution is simple.  You need to get out more.  The more you expand your circle of people, the better chance you have of learning a form of the language that is understandable by many.  This is not a new phenomena: as the audience grows, so too does the need for a common way to speak a language. Take broadcasting or something like national news for example. In Canada, national radio and TV broadcasters speak “proper English” or as my mother would say "the Queen's English" that is devoid of the local color, accents, and jargon of what you would hear on the streets of any one province or geographical region.

The Topic Doesn’t Matter at All; It is All that Matters!

For this model of language learning to be really effective though, I think the two people need to feel that there is a value in both of them doing so. In the case of the instructor, it's about getting paid.  But also, having something in common other than the language is a huge factor in effective language learning. All of my tutors said how much they were enjoying the teaching because the conversation itself was interesting.  I think it's because we had a real conversation...they were interested in WHAT we were talking about.  What might have made it more valuable too was that I took the lead.  While I was interested in learning Spanish, I also had an ulterior motive. I had a zillion things that I wanted to talk about because I was interested in learning more about them, their culture, their city and region such as "What's family life like?" "Do you have a computer at home?" "What kind of music do you listen to?"  So it took some of the pressure off of the instructor to provide topics of conversation and also engaged the instructor in some authentic conversation that was interesting, relevant, and engaging to them irrespective of the language.

Following along with the theme of Off Course - On Target: how effective is it to get to a goal indirectly? Obviously I wanted to learn Spanish.  But by just having a real conversation, we approached this goal in an indirect sense.  A conversation about the importance of authenticity in musical performances for example, in one sense, has nothing to do with Spanish.  It just happens to be that we agree that the only way we're going to talk about music is in Spanish.  No stilted arbitrary "Look, look! See Spot run" or "today we're going to turn to Chapter 3 and talk about what clothes to wear in the morning."  In fact, during our informal sessions, we used no books other than a dictionary, and we talked very little about grammar. Instead we were both actively engaged in a conversation of mutual interest.

One-to-One is a Scalable Model

So, if two people were to share a common interest in a work project, they would already have the context and content of the conversation. Now, can we add language to it?  Can we say, "I need you two to solve this work-related problem, and oh by the way, one of you only speaks French so you’ll have to do all your communicating in French?"

So how is this method of language learning scalable?

1) It isn't limited to people with instructional capabilities. If everyone of us can be a teacher as well as a learner, here's a wonderful example of it happening.

2) It can be applied to any situation so long as both individuals see a shared value in having the conversation.

3)  It leads to higher performance as the choice of people increases dramatically and we are able to get just the right people matched up with just the right jobs, roles and teams.

IF we really are living in a global economy or a global existence where our location doesn't matter so much anymore and our work is more conversationally related, more idea related, then here is an opportunity, if not a need, to be able to communicate more effectively.  Think of the richness of our experiences and our ability to communicate if we were all acquiring the ideas and concepts that come with using words or phrases that do not have equivalents in other languages...words like gestalt, zeitgeist, schadenfreude, or phrases like joie de vivre, crème de la crème, or c'est la vie which English speakers have adopted to convey ideas that were not originally part of the language.

So here's what I’ve learned from my recent language learning experiences and want to leave you with:

• Words are a means to an end, and the end goal is the ability to effectively communicate our ideas, concepts and opinions.  Therefore, it is all about semantics, meaning, and common understanding.
• Phrases, sayings, references are key to conveying meaning.
• If a common language is removed from the requirements of choosing team members, this dramatically increases the ability to find “just the right people to pair up or to have on a high performance team.
• Language helps us learn more about each other, broadens our awareness of other cultures, models, metaphors, stories, and perspectives.
• Common understanding leads to less conflict from misunderstandings.
• Almost anyone can be a language instructor in this model since there are very limited teaching or language skills needed.
• Authentic conversation, relevant to all involved, is key to language acquisition.

Unfortunately for you I’m just warming up on this overall topic of languages, learning, and living, so stay tuned for more of what you’ve come to expect from OCOT: unexpected paths that lead to great discoveries!

Comments

[Scott Sheppard]

To quote Pablo Picasso:

"Computers are useless. They only give you answers."

[Polish lessons]

Well, the Internet can certainly help us to master our languages in an entertaining way. I stumbled on this post http://www.lifeclever.com/learn-35-languages-for-free-in-itunes/ which points to numerous free language course podcasts. Granted, podcats are just one-way conversations, but a good one can be quite entertaining :-)

[Christian Louboutin Slingback]

Hundreds of famous celebrities the world over are huge fans. Oprah Winfrey has described the shoes simply as “pieces of art”. His ethos is to "make shoes that are like jewels" and each unique design demonstrates unparalleled quality and an innate sultriness.

[generic viagra]

It has no history, no future, and no culture and these aspects of language are not only important for communication, but I believe for acquiring a language.