The Practical Linguist / onward, practical linguistics!
Marshall R. Childs Special to The Daily Yomiuri
With regret, I must tell you that this is the last Practical Linguist column in The Daily Yomiuri. For me, it has been a good run, adding up to 95 columns over eight years. In today's column, I want to review my favorite topics and also encourage those readers who are so inclined to begin their own pursuit of practical linguistics.
I prefer the term "practical linguistics" to "applied linguistics" because the latter, as a discipline, travels with too much outmoded intellectual baggage. In addition, practical linguistics, at least as I define it, is more rigorous (that is, grounded in what we know about brain science and human development) and more eclectic (drawing on all relevant human experience, especially as interpreted by anthropology and history).
It seems to me that there has been a gap between classroom practices and the theories summoned up to explain language learning. If done properly, practical linguistics should promote interplay between theoretical and practical aspects of language teaching, and offer opportunities for useful extensions of our knowledge.
Past columns in this series fall into three subject areas: (1) The nature of language and language learning; (2) Practical knowledge for teachers and learners; and (3) Language policy in schools and school systems.
===
Language and language learning
Not everyone would say that a rethinking of our assumptions about language learning is due or even possible, but in this column I have presented the case for a new synthesis that I call "attractor theory."
The new theory has three virtues: It is based on behavior!al neurology and constructivism; it matches our general experience and common-sense knowledge; and it helps teachers organize and conduct classes. These may seem modest claims, but they are claims that cannot be sustained by previous theories.
Within attractor theory, a new insight turned up two years ago. The question was, how does a language come together and stay together in the mind? The answer is "mustering up," a mental process so powerful it can summon up and organize bits of language from long-term and short-term memory. A language is mustered up together with relevant situational memories.
We muster up our first language as naturally as breathing, and think nothing of it (that is why it took me so long to notice the process at all). But mustering up a second language is more difficult. Input in a second language is likely to be masked out by brain assemblies that strive to do business as usual.
But if we examine people who pick up languages extraordinarily rapidly, we must squarely face the question of how they bring it all together. Unusual cases include "xenoglots," people who suddenly speak a language they have never learned. Some "multiple personalities" belong in this category, as do people who seem to recall a strange language from a past life. I also include "ordinary" people who can quickly slip into the mood of a target language and begin speaking it.
People in all these categories, abnormal as they may seem, have the common feature that they are extraordinary language learners and we wonder why. The best explanation is not a supernatural one. It is instead that the brain has a powerful ability to muster up another language. Not suspecting that this ability exists, most of us never use it. And we certainly do not take it into account when planning how to learn or teach a language.
===
For teachers and learners
Imagine, however, what a second-language class could be like. It is possible for the instructor to assume that learners will rapidly begin to muster up the target language and, assuming that, to direct every class moment toward achieving it.
The mustering-up function is already assumed in certain fast-track teaching programs. They are rare and relatively expensive, but their existence is suggestive. All second-language teaching programs might benefit from imagining how they could help students muster up the target language, rather than, say, helping them learn about it as an intellectual object.
I have said repeatedly that the best way to become fluent in English, as well as to pass exams, is to develop a feeling for the language. Learn it from inside; do not study it from the outside like a set of objects to be memorized.
Thinking in English should be done directly, without translation. Courses are very effective when English is the medium of instruction and the content is something else. This principle is largely responsible for the success of English immersion programs, about which I have written half a dozen columns.
In the brain a set of interconnected neurons (cell assemblies) process language and become increasingly skilled at it. For each language, as we become more skilled, this cell assembly actually becomes smaller, more tightly organized, and faster. The obvious moral for second-language learning is that practicing easy materials will promote fast and automatic processing. For this reason, I encourage the students in my Reading Fluency class to read many very easy graded readers.
There are various means of getting students' minds into English. Immediacy, repetition, and concentrated blocks of study rather than scattered-out lessons are all import!ant. It is import!ant also to do something we often neglect, and that is to equip students with automatic phrases for speaking in real situations.
The chief problem is to teach students how to behave when they cannot say all they want to say, and cannot understand all they want to understand. We have been implicitly teaching them to react to these situations with polite silence and a vague look on their faces. That is exactly wrong; they need to develop aggressive habits of grabbing meaning and returning it.
===
Language learning policies
A lot of policies need improvement in Japan. Much newsprint has been lavished on criticizing teaching English for entrance examinations, but that practice is entrenched economically, organizationally and culturally. We cannot expect a rapid reorientation toward teaching English for practical use and personal pleasure.
The national goals for English in Japan do not seem to be settled yet. The uncertainty seems to reflect differences of opinion within the Education, Science and Technology Ministry. My only comment is that the nation that created an entire education system during the Meiji period (1868-1912) could, if it were determined to do so, achieve its professed goal, "Japanese people who can speak English."
I strongly criticize the habit of blaming teachers for systemic problems that are neither their fault nor within their power to fix. That is like blaming footsoldiers for losing a war. Were I to continue writing Practical Linguist columns, the next one would have been about the fact that teachers are under siege for no fault of their own.
Teachers are sadly overworked, and no amount of training in teaching techniques is going to touch that problem. In the absence of supervisors who monitor and limit teachers' workloads--common in all industries including education in most countries--no improvement in teaching methods or results can be expected.
In the 95 columns since 1999, I have written about 130,000 words. These will be the central materials for books on the subjects I discussed above. With my new-found leisure, I plan to write the books and begin a search for publishers.
I thank the many readers who encouraged and shaped this series, and those who, by criticizing, sharpened my pencil. I am especially grateful to my farseeing editors at The Daily Yomiuri.
My colleague Jack Wendel once commented that he could always depend on my columns to be "lively and cheerfully provocative, if not outrageous." I would like those words to serve as the epitaph for The Practical Linguist.
Childs, EdD, teaches TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) and other subjects at Temple University, Japan campus. Send e-mail to childs@tuj.ac.jp.
(Aug. 3, 2007)
Marshall R. Childs Special to The Daily Yomiuri
With regret, I must tell you that this is the last Practical Linguist column in The Daily Yomiuri. For me, it has been a good run, adding up to 95 columns over eight years. In today's column, I want to review my favorite topics and also encourage those readers who are so inclined to begin their own pursuit of practical linguistics.
I prefer the term "practical linguistics" to "applied linguistics" because the latter, as a discipline, travels with too much outmoded intellectual baggage. In addition, practical linguistics, at least as I define it, is more rigorous (that is, grounded in what we know about brain science and human development) and more eclectic (drawing on all relevant human experience, especially as interpreted by anthropology and history).
It seems to me that there has been a gap between classroom practices and the theories summoned up to explain language learning. If done properly, practical linguistics should promote interplay between theoretical and practical aspects of language teaching, and offer opportunities for useful extensions of our knowledge.
Past columns in this series fall into three subject areas: (1) The nature of language and language learning; (2) Practical knowledge for teachers and learners; and (3) Language policy in schools and school systems.
===
Language and language learning
Not everyone would say that a rethinking of our assumptions about language learning is due or even possible, but in this column I have presented the case for a new synthesis that I call "attractor theory."
The new theory has three virtues: It is based on behavior!al neurology and constructivism; it matches our general experience and common-sense knowledge; and it helps teachers organize and conduct classes. These may seem modest claims, but they are claims that cannot be sustained by previous theories.
Within attractor theory, a new insight turned up two years ago. The question was, how does a language come together and stay together in the mind? The answer is "mustering up," a mental process so powerful it can summon up and organize bits of language from long-term and short-term memory. A language is mustered up together with relevant situational memories.
We muster up our first language as naturally as breathing, and think nothing of it (that is why it took me so long to notice the process at all). But mustering up a second language is more difficult. Input in a second language is likely to be masked out by brain assemblies that strive to do business as usual.
But if we examine people who pick up languages extraordinarily rapidly, we must squarely face the question of how they bring it all together. Unusual cases include "xenoglots," people who suddenly speak a language they have never learned. Some "multiple personalities" belong in this category, as do people who seem to recall a strange language from a past life. I also include "ordinary" people who can quickly slip into the mood of a target language and begin speaking it.
People in all these categories, abnormal as they may seem, have the common feature that they are extraordinary language learners and we wonder why. The best explanation is not a supernatural one. It is instead that the brain has a powerful ability to muster up another language. Not suspecting that this ability exists, most of us never use it. And we certainly do not take it into account when planning how to learn or teach a language.
===
For teachers and learners
Imagine, however, what a second-language class could be like. It is possible for the instructor to assume that learners will rapidly begin to muster up the target language and, assuming that, to direct every class moment toward achieving it.
The mustering-up function is already assumed in certain fast-track teaching programs. They are rare and relatively expensive, but their existence is suggestive. All second-language teaching programs might benefit from imagining how they could help students muster up the target language, rather than, say, helping them learn about it as an intellectual object.
I have said repeatedly that the best way to become fluent in English, as well as to pass exams, is to develop a feeling for the language. Learn it from inside; do not study it from the outside like a set of objects to be memorized.
Thinking in English should be done directly, without translation. Courses are very effective when English is the medium of instruction and the content is something else. This principle is largely responsible for the success of English immersion programs, about which I have written half a dozen columns.
In the brain a set of interconnected neurons (cell assemblies) process language and become increasingly skilled at it. For each language, as we become more skilled, this cell assembly actually becomes smaller, more tightly organized, and faster. The obvious moral for second-language learning is that practicing easy materials will promote fast and automatic processing. For this reason, I encourage the students in my Reading Fluency class to read many very easy graded readers.
There are various means of getting students' minds into English. Immediacy, repetition, and concentrated blocks of study rather than scattered-out lessons are all import!ant. It is import!ant also to do something we often neglect, and that is to equip students with automatic phrases for speaking in real situations.
The chief problem is to teach students how to behave when they cannot say all they want to say, and cannot understand all they want to understand. We have been implicitly teaching them to react to these situations with polite silence and a vague look on their faces. That is exactly wrong; they need to develop aggressive habits of grabbing meaning and returning it.
===
Language learning policies
A lot of policies need improvement in Japan. Much newsprint has been lavished on criticizing teaching English for entrance examinations, but that practice is entrenched economically, organizationally and culturally. We cannot expect a rapid reorientation toward teaching English for practical use and personal pleasure.
The national goals for English in Japan do not seem to be settled yet. The uncertainty seems to reflect differences of opinion within the Education, Science and Technology Ministry. My only comment is that the nation that created an entire education system during the Meiji period (1868-1912) could, if it were determined to do so, achieve its professed goal, "Japanese people who can speak English."
I strongly criticize the habit of blaming teachers for systemic problems that are neither their fault nor within their power to fix. That is like blaming footsoldiers for losing a war. Were I to continue writing Practical Linguist columns, the next one would have been about the fact that teachers are under siege for no fault of their own.
Teachers are sadly overworked, and no amount of training in teaching techniques is going to touch that problem. In the absence of supervisors who monitor and limit teachers' workloads--common in all industries including education in most countries--no improvement in teaching methods or results can be expected.
In the 95 columns since 1999, I have written about 130,000 words. These will be the central materials for books on the subjects I discussed above. With my new-found leisure, I plan to write the books and begin a search for publishers.
I thank the many readers who encouraged and shaped this series, and those who, by criticizing, sharpened my pencil. I am especially grateful to my farseeing editors at The Daily Yomiuri.
My colleague Jack Wendel once commented that he could always depend on my columns to be "lively and cheerfully provocative, if not outrageous." I would like those words to serve as the epitaph for The Practical Linguist.
Childs, EdD, teaches TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) and other subjects at Temple University, Japan campus. Send e-mail to childs@tuj.ac.jp.
(Aug. 3, 2007)