Revisiting Language Learning 5 of 5 (Dr. Brent Lindquist)

Hello again and welcome to my last, my fifth part of a 5-part series on Revisiting Language Learning. I want to talk about incidental language learning. Now I'm playing with the word incidental. I really mean incidents. Situations. Points in time in which and around which language learning occurs. If you've been listening to these other programs you know that I make a bit deal about relationships in language learning and friendship development and overcoming the barriers. It's all about communicative events. A communicative event is an interaction in which there is a speaker and a listener. It's basically summed up by the 2-way interaction between the speaker and the listener. The speaker says something, the listener hears something, the listener says something, the speaker hears something. Everything works back and forth like that and as you can see that is a tremendous interpersonal event that develops language. It's very hard to see language developing outside of an interpersonal event.

I want to talk about the environment around this communicative event. First of all there are attitudes around the event about all who have come and gone before you. You're not learning language in isolation. You're learning language in a context and these people have seen language learners come and go. They have seen lots of good examples, lots of bad examples. They're categorizing you as to how you're going to come across. Wow, some of you were shy before and now you're thinking – 'they're comparing me to all of this! I don't know if I can do this'. Sure you can. That's the way it is with everything. Even in your home culture everybody is comparing you to the experiences or people that they know in their past. I'm sure you've been in the situation where somebody says, 'Well you're not who I expected,' and you say, 'Well, what do you mean?' ... 'Well I expected you to be this way...' 'How did you get that idea?' 'I don't know. You just remind me of somebody from before'. So, since we know that this goes on, don't be too upset about this. People are doing all of this. The attitudes of all who have come and gone before you have an impact. If somebody who was learning language before you had a very condescending attitude, you may never know that but over time people will tell you that you are much friendlier than that other person. That's just something to keep in mind.

The second issue is your feelings about what you're doing. I talked before about perfectionism and shyness and all of that, but there are many other feelings that we have about what we're doing. For example, we may say to ourselves, 'I don't want to do this but I have to because my organization requires me to do this'. Guess what? That attitude is going to come through. You may not think it will, but it really will. It may not be anything that you say in particular but it may be something that people pick up. One of the problems when you're doing this because you have to, is that you can really come across as condescending. You can be very blunt, brusque and not have a lot of patience. It will really come across that you don't like what you're doing and therefore the next step is for the person that you're practicing on to think, 'He doesn't like what he's doing; therefore he doesn't like me'. They're going to respond in kind, unfortunately.

A third arena or issue is their receptive attitudes and feelings. Guess what? There are some people out there right around you that don't like you. They didn't like you before you came and it didn't really matter who came. Whether you or anybody else, they didn't like you. Now, why is that? Maybe you're a threat to them, maybe they were hurt by people like you before, or maybe they just don't like strangers. There are a lot of groups in which there is a fear or dislike of outsiders. Strangers are looked at with a lot of suspicion. You have to overcome a lot of that.

Now, guess what? There's not a lot of this you're going to know right off-hand. It's not written in a book, but it's something that you're going to have to figure out. How do you figure that out? Well, I've got a few ideas to think about. One of the things is that you have to recognize that just as there are people who like strangers at home, there are people who like strangers where you are now. You've got to find those people. Well, how do you tell who they are? It's not just because they smile. In certain countries, everybody smiles at you and a smile doesn't mean 'welcome friend' it means, 'hmmm. I'm sizing you up' or if I smile at you as I've smiled at all other outsiders, you go away. A smile doesn't necessarily mean anything, but sometimes people will genuinely smile. Sometimes people will make an extra effort to help you when you're lost. Sometimes people will help you when something is broken. Those kinds of issues are ways to think about things and look at people. Sometimes you need to ask somebody 'Is there anybody that was really helpful to you when you were new here that was patient with you, that helped you figure things out, that wasn't afraid to tell you some of the things that needed to be said, and with whom I could practice language with?' Those people are wonderful resources. They're there. They are everywhere. I know they are because I've seen it happen time and time again. Sometimes they're not easy to find but they are there.

First of all, when you're dealing with negatives look for positive people or people who are interested in making strangers feel welcome. That may mean you have to do some things like join the local equivalent of the welcome wagon or the newcomers' club if they have such a thing around where you are. I don't know if they have such a thing. You may have to make up your own, but the point is that you look for ways in which newcomers become aclimated. Sometimes the equivalent of a community college adult learning program has things like basket weaving or local folklore and culture for beginners or something like that. Those are nice places to start off trying to find people who are interested in helping. Here is a scenario. You go to a place that explains local culture to outsiders, to expats. You go up to the teacher and you ask the teacher if there is anyone that he or she knows that is helping people with language, for example. Guess what? Those people often know people and you can really make progress on that.

I'm coming to the conclusion of my Revisiting Language Learning. I've enjoyed talking about it with you and I've been doing this for a few years. I think the thing that I keep coming back to is – language learning is an interpersonal communicative event. Don't separate it out. Secondly, language is part of the normal developmental cycle you go through. The process you go through, becoming acceptable, an acceptable outsider in that new place you're in. Don't see language learning as just a burden that you have to get through - a horrible burden but you're going to make it through anyway. Look at it as a series of small, comfortable events, at the end of which you will probably have more acquaintances and friends. Sure, that's overly positive but it's certainly a lot better than the negatives. I'd rather have a somewhat naïve, positive attitude than an overly, insurmountable negative attitude, but that's just me. If it works for you, great. Have a lot of fun with this!

Talk to you next time!