Quelle langues parlez-vous?

What languages do you speak?

French 

I have now been living in Paris for over a week, so obviously I have been picking up on some essential key phrases. Like I've mentioned before, I can get myself through the subway, order at a restaurant, and introduce myself on the street. But up until this point, my most common phrase has actually been "Français juste un p'tit peu," which quite ungrammatically explains that I only speak a bit of French.

Luckily to my linguistic rescue, my course instructor has offered to set us up with some free French lessons while we are here. Today after class, three of us students met with Anton's bubbly intern, Samara. She has lived all over the world since she was a young girl, but really considers herself from the United States, so she has an experienced understanding of what it is like to learn new languages. It was nice to finally receive a lesson based on our own personal needs. Going through online courses and ordering activity books have been helpful in a basic way, but a lot the lessons cover material I don't necessarily need during my summer stay.

Rather, Samara started us off with conversational greetings, not the greetings you read in workbooks and sound uptight actually using in the streets. The mini-class then became ours to guide. We were able to stop her at any moment and ask for a couple practice rounds. We were also comfortable to stop her at any moment and ask for variations and similar phrases of anything we have learned. We even got some slang terms down! It is especially helpful to receive these lessons from someone who seems to be a similar age, and understands that we may spend some additional time exploring the bars, restaurants, and shopping, so she doesn't waste our time teaching us about colors.

Overall, I am really excited for this authentic linguistic opportunity and and am appreciative of the learner-centered environment.

Interested in seeing if you can decode my French Notes?


Italian

Ultimately, the one aspect that was throwing me off during my French lessons was that we had just finished Italian lessons moments before.

Why Italian? Why in France?

Well, as teachers know, the best way to teach is to lead by example. In order to help us understand the fundamentals of teaching English as a foreign language, our instructor has decided to teach us our own foreign language. Italian is the only common language that is not spoken in our course group. During instruction, Anton does not speak a word of English to us. The directions, the questions, the responses are all in Italian. I remember in high school this approach seemed so frustrating and unsuccessful, however, after an hour, I felt like I really picked up some Italiano!

Some skills I have learned from the Italian lessons:

• The order in which you introduce the phrases should match the order in which they would happen in a conversation. 
• Repetition along with gestures and movements help instill the meaning of the word as well as the pronunciation. 
• Give example situations, even if as the teacher, you have to play multiple roles. 

My Italian Notes are a bit different than my French, because I have to focus on the skills that Anton uses as well as the language immersion. 

A lot of these skills have actually helped me in the past when I taught English to a school full of Swahili speakers, but the reminder is essential as I move closer to my TEFL teaching pracitcum! 

Swahili 

Speaking of Swahili, my previous experience being surrounded by a foreign culture, and therefor language, has really helped me assimilate to this culture. I haven't felt flustered in a crowded room of non-English speakers. I haven't been nervous about approaching somebody for help on the street or to ask a question in a shop. I really haven't been nervous about this major language barrier at all! 

I also think my time in Tanzania was a perfect transition for this trip. In Tanzania, I also lived with two native Swahili speakers who helped me when I got stuck or felt defeated. They very much so practiced the "I do- We do- You do" method in teaching me how to survive in a foreign culture. 

Now, in this new country, I believe I owe a lot of my confidence to my previous learning experiences. 

Spanish

You would never guess by my lack of fluency, but I actually studied Spanish for four years in High School. It eventually dwindled away and my only practice since has been speaking with the chefs at the various restaurants I have worked at for summer jobs. Basically, I just really know what my friend Amado is asking when I hear, "Mi puoi fare un cappuccino, por favor." I fluently nod and hand him his favorite caffeinated beverage. 

However, as I experienced with Swahili, my Spanish tends to magically reappear when I am trying to learn a new language. I'm sure there is some PhD certified explanation for this, but I think I have captured the reason on my own. Basically, my brain is diligently trying to categorize any foreign language in the same sub-folder in some filing cabinet in the back of my head. It is frustrating, yet also a very strange feeling of having some foreign phrase be on the tip of your tongue for the first time in seven years. 

Embarrassingly, I even automatically replied, "Si" the other night to a waiter. We all just shared a strange look and little laugh as a I corrected myself with, "Oui!"

Hopefully some of this hidden fluency can help me out when Lindsay and I head to Barcelona in a couple weeks!

American

Just as a little fun fact, Europeans do not consider our language English. Since our dialect varies from actual English speakers, our language is simply referred to as American. Back in the states, I can only imagine the reactions if, as an English teacher, I stated, "I speak American!"