What Is The Most Important In Learning English

1. Leave English behind. During the 20 hours per week that masters and apprentices will be working together (or however many hours you commit yourselves to), aim for communicating only in your language; try not to use English at all. At first there will be difficulties because the apprentice will not be able to understand or communicate. You can enhance communication with mime (gestures and actions and facial expressions), objects and pictures, context, and rephrasing what you are trying to talk about it.

(a) Basic questions. Early on as an apprentice, you should learn how to ask things in your language. You should learn how to ask 'What is this?" and 'What is that?" (Remember, in most languages there will be lots of different words that translate into English as "that" or "this," depending on how far away something is or what kind of thing it is.) Or ask, 'How do you say X"? (If you were trying to learn Spanish, and wanted to know the word for table, the sentence would be "¿Cómo se dice 'table' en español?" In Karuk one can say simply, "piipi 'table'?") Other questions to learn might be, "What are you doing?" or "What am I (or what is he) doing?" Or maybe, "Tell me a story." (But see also point 5.)

(b) Reminding each other. Another important thing for the apprentice to learn early is how to communicate the idea: "Now say that in our language" Whenever one of you says something in English, it would be a good custom for the other to ask for it to be resaid in your language.

(c) If you lapse into English, get right back into your language. Think of English as a habit you are tying to break. Some of us have gone to weight-loss programs where the staff says, "If you go off program and binge, don't think of yourself as awful, don't decide you can't do it and give up; just put it behind you and get back on the program again." Do the same for your language.

2. Make yourself understood with nonverbal communication.

(a) Actions. At the workshop, Nancy Richardson and Terry Supahan demonstrated the enormous value of acting out what you are trying to say. If you are the teacher, your apprentice will understand better; if you are the apprentice, you can help your teacher understand what you are trying to communicate even when you don't know the words. More importantly, research suggests that we learn much better if we learn words embedded in actions.

Examples: Think about a basketry lesson. As Nancy Richardson demonstrates, she is able to teach not only words for basketry materials, but also action words, commands like "Sit down" and "Pick up the sticks," and words like "under" and "over" making us learn by doing the actions. Or if you don't know the word for a man swimming, for instance, perform the actions of a person swimming in order to get your teacher to understand what you are asking. Teachers can also mold apprentice actions to get them to understand; when Steve Thorne was teaching us the Hindi gesture for "come here," he went over to the person he was working with and took his arm and actually brought him over, to show what it was he wanted the person to do.

(b) Gestures and facial expressions. Point to things you are talking about, do facial expressions that illustrate what you are talking about. Remember that the appropriate gesture for something differs from language to language, and gestures themselves can be what you try to teach in a language lesson. In Karuk, for example, it is impolite to point with the finger---one points with the whole hand, palm up. In Havasupai, one points with pursed lips instead.

(c) Pictures and objects. If you have the things around you that you are talking about, you can use them to help convey your meaning. Use books and magazines and talk about what you see in them.

At the training workshop, Matt and Agnes Vera told us of one thing they do, which is to watch TV with the sound turned off, and just talk in Yowlumni about what is going on.

3. Teach in full sentences; teach in conversations. Even though often you will be trying to teach or learn specific words, the real lesson comes by embedding the words in sentences and conversations that are in your language.

Example: If you are trying to teach the word for door, don't just say "door," and don't use English to translate the word or explain it. Instead, speaking always in your language, say things like, "This is a door." Ask, "Where is the door?" Say, "Now I am going to open the door. Now I'll close the door. I'm knocking on the door." Tell the apprentice, "Open the door." "Close the door." Extend communication further using gestures to help in your communication say, "It's hot in here! Let's open the door." Or tell the apprentice, "Go out the door." Then say, "Now, close the door." Then, "Now, knock on the door." When s/he knocks, say, "Come in!"

It is very important for the apprentice to hear a word or sentence many times before s/he learns to recognize it, and then to say it. Through varied sentences, including commands, along with the physical activities elicited by the commands, the apprentice hears a given word (in this case "door") many times in different contexts, and will be able to pick out that word in the future when s/he hears it, and later on be able to use it in his or her own speech. The teams should remember the adage used by language teachers that comprehension precedes production -in other words, an apprentice should focus on learning to recognize and understand the words and sentences. Being able to actually say the words and sentences will naturally follow.

4. Aim for real communication in your language of heritage. Aim at doing every thing in your language. Once the apprentice can do some basic communication, don't start your sessions by saying in English, 'What shall we do today?" Say it in your language. If you need a break, say, "Let's have some coffee" in your language, not in English. If you know how to greet each other in your language, never do it in English. As we advised at the workshop, if you get sick and tired of each other, get angry in your language, not English. Don't think of your language as something you do just during lessons, but as the language of communication between you two always, and with other people too who know the language or are trying to learn it. Someday, even if the house caught fire, maybe you would be so accustomed to speaking your language that you would yell

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