L2 spoken production

While watching the Mint company video sell its money management software this afternoon my mind took on a sudden trip to language learning land, a recurring thought due to the nature of my job: language teaching. ( Mint video? Has teaching got anything to do with software or time management. Games of the mind, I suppose)  

Two interesting things followed up my initial thoughts: one was how I decided to tackle the thought processing, and two, what the content of my thinking was. The first one focuses on an approach to representing my ideas as I processes them. Anyone who comes across these lines may think it is foolish to write about it, but hey, these are my reflections. As far the as the second aspect is the result of an impulse to articulate my beliefs in what I think happens when an L2 beginning learner goes through at the moment of speaking.

THE APPROACH

My decision to represent my thoughts on paper by drawing lines and words as I was able to think them was the result of an initiative that had been cooking a few days ago back. Somehow I had begun to allow within me, some mental and emotional readiness, to justify trying this new idea on. There was in fact a video in TED I found that based much of its content on notes taken by computer scientists. The naturalness of these notes called my attention. These guys had no respect for form. Content was everything. Form for me has always been in the way of substance. A very disappointing fact, I´m afraid.

Where might it all have started? I can go back to the early years of school when my teachers, most of whom were priests, emphasized accuracy over everything else.  Writing on the board, let alone on paper, was an issue. Latin learning was a matter of knowing its grammar well. Our notebooks were revised and graded on the basis of its good presentation. How much of that had a strong influence on me? At least, some, I recognize. With the years, I´ve found myself rebelling against those principles of aesthetics.

When I stopped to “line” my thoughts, as shown in the image, I did it with the very intention of focusing on the what of the information with little regard of how it was put on the paper.

THE CONTENT ANALYSIS

How does second language spoken occur? And how is related to acquisition? This is the question or questions I attempt to answer that is contained in the representation. It goes like this:

An L2 learner always struggles to be coherent, especially if it is only recently he has been involved in the learning process. He seems to self ask: “How do I make myself understood? This implies that the learner is very much aware of the message s/he wants to convey. He knows the WHAT.

He goes on saying to her/himself: “Now what do I do?” And wonders: “What knowledge do I possess of the target language that I can use to make sense of what I want to say?“ In other words, the learner (or if not as learner, then a language producer) seeks for ways, for linguistic resources that can help her/him. These resources are represented in the basic components of any language, mainly words.

Words are, in my experience as a second language teacher, the life of the learner, especially for those who experience second language learning for the first time. And so, their first reaction to a problem/solving situation such as looking for ways to express their ideas is to ask themselves about the words that are part of their database, if any.

One … we need to explore here before we go any further. If words is what learners refer to when they have the WHAT, how do they identify them? The most obvious answer is their native language words. So, what we are saying is that learners’ most natural reaction to the situation above is to relate (the concept of relational database comes to mind), or translate the words. By translating, then, language producers intend to transfer the condition of something to something else. This fact, translating, must be recognized  ………………………

(to be continued)

alan kay

Alan Kay´s presentation at TED reminds me of the theory of experiential learning with some minor differences, especially at the start of the cycle. One tends to believe what one initially sees, and that must cast some doubt. However, it is the feeling through the senses that triggers the curiosity to observe attentively whether there is a pattern in the dynamics of phenomena. The learner then parts from the emotions and enters the world of the abstract. It is here where s/he conceptualizes, where s/he interiorizes knowledge. So do his learners in his experiments: they touch the balls and feels the weight. Then they go through observation of movements, use Mr Kay´s software to conceptualize while at the same time link the behavioral patterns observed.

What I personally find fascinating about Alan Kay´s samples of learning is the effectiveness of its simplicity. In fact, his argument is that the old traditional way of teaching physics, in the case of gravity for example, is absurd. No wonder most grown ups find the issue too hard to understand, including me. Children, as it is very apparent in the video, reach to their conclusions in a very logical manner. It is as if to say that we are born with the ability to solve problems if the right environment is provided. Traditional teaching denies the individual the opportunity to train for thinking.

Alan Kay is the cofounder of Viewpoints Reserch Institute a research group dedicated to improve education in children through computing. The areas covered are four: Teaching and learning powerful ideas, powerful ideas content and how to represent it, UIs that help learning and doing and inventing fundamental new computing technologies. A little into his biography and one can´t help but admire him: he in fact comes a long way, from the 60´s when he worked at XeroxPARC and was part of changing inventions, such as the graphical interface we find in computers today, the object-oriented programming which makes it easy for programs to incorporate subprograms or modules, etc. For more information check his profile. 

A few phrases: 

• “We see things not as they are but as we are” ( Talmud )
• “We go to the theater in order to be fooled” ( Shakespeare )
• “We do more. We like more. Complex means more”