1988 Education Ministers’ Agreement

It’s probably a little known fact, but in 1988 the Ministers of Education in the then existing EU states agreed that every EU citizen should be expected to learn three community languages.
In the UK we haven’t even paid lip-service to this.
Interestingly, it was in the same year that we went to war in Iraq – and thereby making a mockery of the EU and the United Nations – that in the UK we stopped even one foreign language being compulsory post-14. I felt as if I’d been stabbed in the back. All those years that I taught language, friendship and the handshake across cultures- all crushed and irradiated in a few months. I’d had so much faith in Blair, too. The rifts that those decisions caused across Europe seemed to undo the good of all that work so carefully planned by my colleagues and myself. There was some relief that I, then as a writer who protested against the war, could express that by becoming involved in "The Lines in the Sand project", organised by Mary Hoffman, Rhiannon Lassiter and the publishers, Frances Lincoln.
We do make ourselves into a laughing-stock. How dumb we are if we cannot even manage to speak one language other than our own well, let alone the extra one those Ministers of Education agreed on back then. We are telling ourselves that all will be fine because of the primary languages initiative.
Now, I do agree, that primary school age is a good time to learn languages. I find the age of nine ideal – the child can still mimic well, the palate is not yet set, the student relies on their memory rather than looking up, but at that age, they are sociable enough to want to use their language in a real context. However, the signs are not currently all that good. The same mistakes are being made as last time, in the 70s, when primary languages were introduced. There are not enough experts. Primary teachers are not being given enough time or help to deliver that curriculum effectively – which will eventually be off-putting for the students.
If it were done well, with all the advantages there are of learning a language at that age, there is every possibility that students would not only want to carry on with that language right put to sixteen or even eighteen, but also that they would be keen to take on another. Then we may be able to keep to the agreement we made in 1988. Except, I expect we would be faced with a shortage of language teachers.

Disadvantaged by Having English as a Mother Tongue

You would think that being born into an English-speaking culture gave us huge advantages. We speak the tongue that everyone else has to learn to get somewhere in the world. But this is not necessarily so.
In fact, only one quarter of the world’s population speak English either as first language or first foreign language. Granted, it is important in certain significant areas of life – aviation, law and medicine for example –I’ve been told never to trust a doctor who can’t speak English, for instance.
But one of the main disadvantages of being a native English-speaker is that we give ourselves every reason not to bother learning other languages, I always maintain learning languages isn’t difficult, but it is hard work and it does require commitment. Because we are not forced to do it, not that many of us experience learning another culture through its language and as we get to know that culture, finding that learning its language becomes easier. Those people who speak out language have had that experience which many of us deny ourselves.
In addition, native-speakers of other languages revere English-speaking cultures and much which is written in English is translated into other languages. Far less is translated from those languages into English, so we are denied the riches of those other cultures. I can name a few books we are missing out on:
Adam, Olivier. On Ira Voir la Mer. Paris: Médium, 2002,
Cerdá, Alfredo Gómez. Noche de Alacranes. Madrid: SM, 2005
Feth, Monika. Das Mädchenmaler. Munich: CBT, 2005.
Kerner, Charlotte. Blueprint Blaupause. Berlin: Beltz & Gelberg, 1999.
Laborit, Emmanuelle. Le Cri de la Mouette, 1993. Paris: Robert Laffont, 2003.
Richter, Hans Peter. Damals war es Freidrich. Munich: DTV Junior, 2003.
- to name but half a dozen.

The Language Factory

Approved by www.curriculumonline.gov.uk, the Language Factory offers fun materials for primary children, including audio tracks, support material for the teacher – flash cards, flip charts and other material for the interactive whiteboard – in French, German, English and Spanish. Components can be ordered for as little as £20.00, bundles of the whole package in any one language up to £239.99. The emphasis is on the children remembering their French because of the catchy tunes.
I can endorse this. Once I used a very nicely produced BBC course for some of my work. Aunty also produced a cassette (yes it was that long ago) with just the songs. I used to play them as background music whilst the students did pair work. It did work as muzak and kept the noise down beautifully as well as making them concentrate. But in addition, by the end of the year, all of the students knew and understood all of the words, even if we hadn’t covered them yet. I guess it’s something to do with the repeated rhythm. The brain, I think, carries on decoding, evn when it’s not listening any more.

Montana Lingua

The Montana Lingua is an interesting method which combines learning languages with outdoor activities. The students have a real purpose for understanding and being understood in the target language. The project obtained Socrates funding. Language levels go form A1 to C2 of the European Language Passport.
The students practise the language needed for each activity before they have to use it for real. An example activity is “Blind Cow”, going from language levels A2 to C1. One blind-folded student is lead by two seeing students. The blindfolded “victim” has to ask questions and the others have to give instructions.
Vocabulary includes branch, ground, hill, tree, trunk, stone, root, hole, moss, low, steep, thick, slippery, smooth, pointed, high, damp, and deep. Commands include:
• Take a step to the right
• Take a step top the left
• Go on
• Hold tight
• Tale a step forwards
• Take a step backwards
• Stop
• Give me your hand
Exclamations include
• Watch out!
• Stop!
• Well done!
• Careful!
• Great!
• Fantastic!
• You’ve made it!
The project has produced a book, available in several languages, which outlines 24 exercises. A DVD is also available and extra material can be downloaded form the web site. Definitely worth a look. ( I have a copy of the book if nayone would liek it - written in German though. Yours for the asking - I'll just charge P & P. -£2.50)

Making the Most of Your Contacts

So, now you’ve finished the course, what do you do next? Time to take a look at the goals that you set yourself. Did you achieve what you wanted to? Have you got further than that? Have you now got some new ambitions?
We often up our game. So, now we can manage all those little transactions we want to make in shops and restaurants, but perhaps now we want to be able to have in-depth conversations with our neighbours.
Just occasionally, we may not have achieved everything we set out to do, and may want to make plans to get there.
Whatever happens, now is the time to take stock and make plans. You need to go through a similar process to the one you went through when you first decided to learn a foreign language.
One decision you may make is that you don’t want to go any further but you don’t want to lose what you already have. But more about that another day.

Torrents

A problem frequently occurs as you become more fluent in your chosen language. As you manage things quite well, the native speakers all begin to think you are quite fluent and good at their languages and they answer you in a torrent.
Number one rule: do not panic. Anticipate what they might say and work out your reply. Take your clues form others around you – in the shop or café, for instance.
If you really do not understand, insist and insist until they speak slowly enough and / or simply enough so that you can understand.
One day, this will stop happening and you will get the upper hand.
Until that day comes, practise as much as you cane.
Team up with someone form your class and practise dialogues met in class. Try saying them with different moods and emotions for variety. And keep on anticipating those turns and torrents.

Making the Most of Your Holiday Abroad

Make the Most of Your Time Abroad
Do you know just how many opportunities you have of acquiring more language when you go abroad on holiday?
Consider what you might learn:
1. At the petrol station.
2. In the cafeteria.
3. In the shop.
4. From the local radio
5. As you look at street signs.
6. At the tourist information office.
7. At check-in at your accommodation.
8. In the supermarket.
9. From the junk mail left on your windscreen.
10. When you talk to the native-speaker family next door.
And what about when you go on a business trip? See “The Complete Guide to Learning a Language”, Chapter 10.

The Backbone of Language

Grammar is sometimes a dirty word. A whole generation went without it, and during a fair amount of my teaching career, the Foreign Language teachers knew more about it than the English teachers. Our American cousins frequently put us to shame. That is changing, and that may be a good thing about the Literacy Strategy.
The point is, grammar is the backbone of any language. And I do mean grammar, not usage. There are five major parts to grammar – verbs, word order, parts of speech, prepositions, number and gender. Okay, “verbs” is a big section with tense, person, voice and mood to worry about. Chomsky recognises that each language has a way of expressing al those components. We fill our languae acqusition device with our mother tongue.
Master the grammar of a language, and you can do anything with that language. The cloning and adapting strategies mentions in my previous blog are good up to a point and can be used until you acquire full knowledge of the grammar. In fact, they even help you to get to that stage. In the end, though, you do need to master all of these things.
I recommend acquiring the grammar as quickly as you can. Then all you have to do is practise your skills and pick up more vocabulary. No pressure then! 
See The Complete Guide to Learning a Language Chapter 9. (How To Books Ltd) Selbstbedienung (ZigZag)

Thieving is Good for You

There are patterns of language all around you – especially when you’re in the country which speaks your language. Proactively study them and adapt them as your own. When you’re in the shops, listen to what the person in front of you in the queue says.
You can easily change one sentence into another by changing the noun. Or the adjective. Beware of genders and plurals. Verbs are a little trickier, but the pattern may be the same for the new verb.
Look at this for instance.
The cat sat on the mat.
The dog sat on the mat.
The dog sat on the sofa.
A dog sat on the sofa.
A dog slept on the sofa.
Etc. etc.
The fun comes in with “An elephant trod on the house”.
See “The Complete Guide to learning a Language” Chapter 8.

Reading Made Easy

You don’t need to struggle with reading in a foreign language. It isn’t quite the same as reading in your own language, but you can makes it easier or yourself. Here are my top tips:
1. Read the passage three times.
2. The first time, pencil in all the words you understand.
3. The second time, read it out loud, or imagine you are reading it out loud. Do some words now sound like English?
4. During the third reading, some other words will now become obvious.
5. Now, check any sentences where you don’t understand a word. Try to isolate the key word – often a noun, the subject of the sentence, or the verb. Look up just that word.
It becomes a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle. The meaning of the whole gradually becomes clear as you uncover the meaning of individual words.

Talk the Hind Leg Off a Donkey

We are talking about talking, the most basic form of communication. Even the cats which wail at night are doing just that, though in a far less sophisticated way than we humans. Talking is a mixture of listening and speaking. One person speaks, the other listens, and then responds in speech. Effective communication happens when speaker and listener create the same pictures in their heads. For this to happen the listener really tunes in to what is being said, and the speaker chooses their language carefully.
This may seem really hard in your new language. But there are two things you can do which will really help:
1. Listen carefully for patterns of language that speakers are using and mimic and adapt.
2. Learn to make the most of what you do know. Some of that is to do with gesture and expression, rather than actual words.
Practice makes perfect, and if you can practise with another member of your group, great. Take a basic conversation form your course book, and go over it hundreds of times. To break the monotony, do it with different voices and in different moods. Then change a few words which are easy to change – ask for a kilo of pears instead of a pound of apples.
A problem sometimes occurs. You say something really well, so they come back at you in a torrent. Don’t let them! Insist, insist and insist again that they speak slowly and that they make their meaning clear. The Spanish, incidentally, are very good at this. See how they deal with tourists. They only use a few words of English, French, Dutch or whatever else. Then they use mime and gesture. You can request your native speaker to do that too… possibly by miming and gesturing.
All is possible of you really want to communicate.
(See The Complete Guide to Learning a Language, “Talk the Hind Leg Off a Donkey”)

Making the Most of Your Contacts

Making the Most of Your Contacts
There is no substitute for working with a native speaker of the language you are learning. Some towns are twinned with ones in other countries. This can provide a really useful way of finding a friend who shares your interests. There will be plenty of opportunities to visit the other town and play host to people from there.
When I was in full-time teaching, I often took my students on exchange visits. It was probably one of the most important aspects of my work. Even those students who didn’t go on the visit benefited form the renewed enthusiasm of this who had been. The students were so motivated to learn, I hardly had to teach them. They lapped up new language.
If you work with a native speaker, you have a constant accurate pattern of language. If you build up the right relationship, your exchange partner can correct your attempts without you feeling in adequate.
A system called tandem learning takes this a step further. You work with a native speaker who is learning your language. You work on agreed tasks and also agree how much you will correct each other’s work. You should work about 50% of the time in your on language and 50% of the time in your target language. Thus, you mix practice with learning new patterns.
These days, all of this becomes much easier and cheaper with email, Skype and mobile phones. There is no end to the possibilities.
(See The Complete Guide to Learning a Language, “Go Native”)

A magpie instinct for learning

Whichever language you are learning, it's a good idea to start a collection. Start looking for words that you need and make sure you use them. Have a notebook that you love and keep it in your handbag or your pocket. Don't be too ambitious about how many words you write down to elarn each day. Keep it manageable. And dos spend spend time learning. Always, always, always jot down a few things while you're in the country that speaks your new language. And a little tip for while you;re at home: once a day, take a look around. Note down three objects or ideas you don;t know in your new language. Make an effort to learn those ones.

Getting Organised

So what do you need? Well, your course book for a start. That is one of the most useful components of your language course. I often used to reflect that if students knew everything that was in their course book by the end of the year, no matter how unexciting the book was, they would actually know a lot of French, German, Spanish, or whatever.

Then how are you going to organise any work? Do you need a place to keep polished work and a space to record rough work which can be thrown away later? What about a good grammar book? And of course a dictionary. But which one? A mall one to fit in a handbag or pocket? or a larger, comprehensive one for the study? What about one for the laptop?

Should you be thinking of other equipment? Something for the computer?

CDs / DVDs? Ipod? MP3?

And that all important notebook that goes with you everywhere for "collecting" language? See The Complete Guide to Learning a Language, Chapter 3

Finding the right course.

Most people fail at learning languages because they fail to find the right course. You have to decide exactly what you want to learn and how you want to learn it. What you want to learn depends on why you are learning your language. How you want to learn depends on individual learning styles and the type and amount of time you can commit to it. Working out what might be reasonable aims and objectives first is always a good idea.
There are so many places you could learn your language:

• at home
• in the office
• adult eduction centre
• lifelong learning centre at a university
• private one to one tuition
• residential course abroad
• homes-stay course- where you live in the home of your tutor
• on the phone via the computer
• a combination of all of these

Really spend some time deciding what you want to learn and how - then start looking for the right course.

The Language Expert

Hi, to any of you out there who are keen on learning languages. I'm hoping to post daily to this blog on tips for language learning and observations about things to do with languages. I am the writer of "The Complete Guide to Learning a Language" which contains all the wisdom that I've gathered in over twenty-five years of being involved with language learning. Maybe some people who have read this informative tome might like to join in a discussion.