Category: Language stuff

Last week at lunch my Mom’s best friend said to me, “You can help me very much!” I figured she was going to ask me to fix something on her computer. Not my strong suit, but I can do all things with Google and YouTube. Turns out, she wanted help with something that I actually know something about.

A new American from Turkey has been meeting with her once a week for conversational English practice. She’s bright, has a degree in physics, and is not a beginner in English by any means. She can read and write well, but wanted help understanding and speaking. Mom’s friend needed advice on how to help her beyond just chatting, which only gets you so far when you’re growing into a new language and culture.

I was going to write her an email summarizing my suggestions, but then I realized this might be helpful for other people too, so here you go!

I call this technique unpacking a text. I did things like this when I lived in France, but the nice step by step procedure comes from my mentors and heroes, Greg and Angela Thomson. You can check out their blog here, brand new website here, training videos here, and their Facebook page here.

It all comes down to playing a game like Taboo, with a few variations.

The first variation uses a short story, Mom’s friend R suggested Sherlock Holmes.

Here’s how the game goes:

1. R has a copy of the story, her new American friend (A) does not. This keeps the game focused on listening instead of reading, as A requested.
2. R reads part of the story aloud to A, about 5 minutes’ worth.
3. A can record this on her smartphone to listen to later if she wants to.
4. Then R reads the same part again.
5. A stops her whenever she doesn’t understand or something sounds funny to her.
6. R gives examples of other places this word or whatever is used.
7. If it’s a new word, R makes a note of the new word for herself.
8. A tries it out herself- trying it in new sentences. She asks, “Can I use it here? How about here?”
9. If A doesn’t ever stop R and say she doesn’t understand, which happens with some people, R will stop every sentence or so and ask A to tell her what it said in her own words. If that retelling shows a misunderstanding, R will explain as above.
10. If there’s a cultural thing that R thinks A might be missing, she stops and explains it.
11. This continues until they get to the end of the section of the story.
12. R reviews all the new words, referring back to her list, explaining them and using them in sentences.
13. A can record this explanation to listen to at home.
14. The next time they meet, A will tell back the part of the story to R, in her own words, not memorized. R will help her out when she needs it.
15. Then they’ll repeat the process with the next part of the story.

I remember doing this with my language parent Soeur Agnes with an article from Paris Match-good thing too! It referred to Roissy, and I would have had no idea that that referred to Charles de Gaulle Airport!

The second variation goes like this:

1. R tells a five minute version of her life story.
2. A records it on her smartphone. She might need a small external speaker for playing back the recording so R can hear it well.
3. A plays it back, stopping it whenever there is something that she doesn’t understand.
4. R explains it, giving examples. Sometimes this will just be a matter of repeating herself more slowly, and that is ok!
5. R makes a note of any new words or phrases that A asked about.
6. Again, if A doesn’t ever stop the recording and say she doesn’t understand, R will stop the recording every sentence or so, and ask A to tell her what it said in her own words. R will explain and give examples as necessary.
7. This continues to the end of the recording.
8. R goes back over the new words giving examples and explanations again.
9. A records this to listen to at home.
10. A listens to the life story recording at home, and picks out some things she wants to know more about that R mentioned.
11. The next time they meet, A retells R’s life story in her own words, with R’s help.
12. Then A asks R about one of the things she wanted to know more about.
13. A records R talking about this expansion of her life story, and the process of listening together and unpacking repeats.

I had a lot of fun doing this with a new American friend from Iraq. One of the things I mentioned in my life story was working on a milling machine in my first job after college. Of course I had to explain that. I felt funny doing it, since it’s a little obscure, and I didn’t think it would be relevant for him. The next time we met, my friend was all smiles! He’s a dentist, and had gone on an interview in an office that had a computerized system that made crowns…on a milling machine!

These examples are mostly of people learning English, but this game will work in any language, of course. There are many possible variations, be creative! The rule of thumb is that if you’re hearing 4-8 new words per hour of working with your conversation partner, then it’s the right level of difficulty. Less than that it’s too easy, more, it’s too hard for now.

Have you used this technique? How did it work? What questions do you have about it?

I got this Go Fish game at a thrift store in a bag with other cards. I was about to redonate it, because I don't think I particularly need to learn how to say "guppy." But then I realized that playing Go Fish and describing the fish would be a great game!

As always I am cutting off the text, so we're not limited by it. I need practice on colors, so this will be strategic to play right now.

Now, would I haul these cards with me to a developing country to use? Nope. But I'm Stateside now, and have access to my glorious bins of thrift store treasures. 

I did play go fish in mmmBELLYmay land, though. We were using a lot of food and other things that we got at the market, and the pile got overwhelmingly huge, and the fruit got rotten. So, I took a picture of each object separately and printed them in color. We played go fish, or as our language parent said, go look – boki n bani.

Have you played Go Fish in your new languacultural world?

A few people had a great question after they read about me finding a language parent (helper, friend) with a flyer. What about paying them? Do you? Why didn't you mention it on your flyer?

Yep, I pay.

Because let me tell you, helping someone take their first (or millionth) steps into a new languacultural world is WORK! My language parents are so patient, watching and listening to me slaughter their language, repeating a word for the kazillionth time…they deserve to be paid. Being the language parent for a class myself showed me that really fast. 

And, helping me grow in language is a big time commitment-we're talking 10-20 hours a week. Since I am taking my first steps into the Deaf American world, I don't have any local Deaf friends yet besides my language parent (that's normal!), so I don't have anyone saying "I'll help you for free!" That will come later, maybe, but now at the beginning I need one super patient, super committed person to help me every day.

I didn't mention payment on my flyer-I didn't want to start there. I wanted to start when I met people just seeing if we clicked, seeing if they seemed like they would go along with the Growing Participator Approach. 

How much? 

Depends. I talked to another coach who works on ASL with the Deaf using this method, and went with what he's been paying. When I met my language parent for the first time, and we decided that it would work out for us, I floated that number, and she was happy. We added on a little bit for gas this time around because she's coming to me now.

Here's one way Greg Thomson, the compiler of the Growing Participator Approach and my hero, suggests figuring out payment overseas. Talk to a local person, not another foreigner, and ask them how much they pay a student to come tutor their kids. That's a good place to start.

Now, I have coached people that weren't allowed by their organizations to pay language helpers. They still succeeded, it just took a lot of tenacity and flexibility, and they got off to a slower start than people who were allowed to pay. They were also focused full time on language, had no other responsibilities, and were highly motivated, that's why it worked. 

What's your experience paying or not paying for help growing into a new languacultural world?

Someone just asked me what I meant when I said in my blog post The Four Things You Need to Learn Any Language that I have found language parents by sending out flyers.  Let me tell you how that worked!

Last year I had about a month where I could concentrate on learning American Sign Language near South Bend, Indiana. I knew there was a school there, Bethel College, that had an interpreting program, and I knew there was a good sized Deaf population there. But, I didn’t know any Deaf people! So, I asked a friend who works at Bethel if she could send this flyer to people she knew that had Deaf contacts. Another friend who is an ASL interpreter helped me word it so it communicated clearly.

This is the exact flyer I sent, very specific to my needs.

Friend Wanted

Looking for a Deaf person to be my ASL Language Helper

Needs to be:

Very patient

Available for 10-20 hours a week in September

Willing to use a specific method that I’m testing for my job

Does not need to:

Plan or run our meetings, I’ll do that.

Be a teacher, I’m looking for a friend!

We will:

Play language games with toys!

Stay in ASL for 95% of our meetings!

Laugh a lot at my silly mistakes!

Interested?  Text Nora at XXX-XXX-XXXX

The things I really wanted to get across were:

1. I wanted to work with a Deaf person, not a hearing person. Learning from someone who is a mother tongue user of their language is really important. I can learn from an insider about her culture in a way that is honoring, and in the context of our relationship. Really powerful!
2. I was looking for a FRIEND (parent, helper), not a teacher. A teacher would come with their own ideas of how I should learn language. My goal was to use the Growing Participator Approach, and see if it would work for me in a signed language. (Spoiler, it’s working great!)

Friend one’s contact sent this around to her contacts, and I got texts from about 5 people. I chose the one that clicked, and off we went!

The flyer approach has worked well for me as well on a college campus. A great advantage of circulating flyers is that people you don’t know yet can respond. When my coaching clients get somewhere and say that they have to build relationships before they can find language helpers, they’re already in a bind. How can they build relationships without language? In addition, the longer I live somewhere without growing into that language and culture, the more I develop habits of living that keep me out of the language. Does that make sense?

Now, flyers are not the solution for everyone. One person I was coaching couldn’t put flyers around, because she needed to keep a low profile in the city where she lived.

How have you found those special, patient, gracious people that help you grow into a new language and culture? Please comment below!  And, keep those questions coming!