never get motivated to learn Latin at school because I could not listen to ordinary people using it. Modern research on how we learn is showing that listening comprehension is at the core of language learning and language improvement. The ability to hear words, to listen and understand, is essential not only to developing speaking fluency, but also in order to become a good reader.
The ability to read well , in your own language or in a foreign language is usual y the best indicator of success at school or in the work place. That is why literacy is such an important social issue in most countries, for native speakers as well as for non-native speakers of that language. And literacy is greatly influenced by the ability to understand what we hear.
Interesting research by Dr. Paula Tal all, co-director of the Center for Molecular and Behavioural Neuroscience at Rutgers University has established that poor readers are usual y people who have trouble decoding sound effectively.
The international y-recognized expert on literacy Thomas Sticht has written that 'oral comprehension typical y places an upper limit on reading comprehension; if you don't recognise and understand the word when you hear it, you also won't be able to comprehend it when reading. This tel s us something very important: oral comprehension general y needs to be developed in our youngest readers if we want them to be good readers.'
Teachers have traditional y focused their efforts on teaching learning skill s, reading skill s, inferring skill s, decoding skill s, grammar skill s, writing skill s etc. Stephen Krashen was one of the first foreign language teachers to point out that an emphasis on comprehensible input leads to better language learning results than an emphasis on grammar and correction. Krashen has long championed extensive reading as an essential tool for increasing language skill s.
CHAPTER XII: CULTURE AND POLITICS
When we learn a new language we learn about its culture. That is one of the main attractions and rewards of language learning. We get involved with a new world, with a new way of looking at things, with new events and stories. However, people remain people, and the differences between people should not be exaggerated. Having learned 11 languages, and now being able to enjoy these different cultures, I am even more convinced of the similarity of people wherever they live.
I attended a conference of the Canadian Council for the Americas yesterday. I am, in fact, a director of this organization, the goal of which is to promote relations between Canada and Latin America. There were presentations by diplomats, and there were some 200 or so business people and academics in attendance.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I have been much more involved with Asia in my career and it was fun to start to know more about the countries and people of our common hemisphere.
One of the people I chatted with is completing a PhD in intercultural communication. She explained to me how important this was. I replied that language certainly made it much easier to understand the point of view and the culture of other people. She insisted that one needed to learn how to communicate with people of another culture, with or without the language.
I have never understood all the fuss about communicating with people of another culture.
Am I supposed to behave differently, become a different person, try to take advantage of some knowledge of this person's culture to gain some advantage? It all sounds a little manipulative to me.
As I speak another language, some aspects of my behaviour change. But I do not think
'this person is Chinese, or Brazilian therefore I will behave differently.' I am just me, trying to figure out if I like the person or not. Usual y our true personalities will come out and we either get along or we do not, regardless of culture.
I think that anything useful in the way of intercultural training for dealing with people from a particular culture can probably be written down on one sheet of paper. The rest is just part of people interacting. I cannot see how this can be the subject of a PhD study.
I sometimes hear language teachers talking about cross-cultural communication as if it were something that the language teacher needed to learn in order to be a more effective teacher.
I do not believe this to be the case. It is the learner who must learn, not the teacher who must teach. The will ingness and ability of the learner to cross into another culture is vital to success in language learning. The learner needs to be good at cross-cultural communication, not the teacher.
Marcelo in Brazil asked me the fol owing questions:
1. If you are bilingual - does your character change with the language you are speaking?
2. How closely are cultural and national identities defined by language?
3. And what impact will the ever-increasing domination of English have on the way the world communicates?
1. I do not feel that my character changes with the language that I am speaking. Superficial y, many things change. After all in speaking another language I have to imitate some of the behaviour patterns of that culture. At the very least I am using another language. Then I may gesture more, or less, or differently. I may bow more or use different sign language. I may be more direct and argumentative, or more conciliatory, looking for agreement, all depending on the language I am using, and what is the norm of communication in that language. But this is superficial. My values do not change. My opinions do not change. My core character does not change.
Yet for every language that I learn I add to my personality an additional dimension, an additional level of understanding of what it means to be human. But all of that is with me, no matter what language I am speaking. It is something I acquire when I learn an additional language.
2. Our identities are defined by many things, ancestry, family upbringing, socioeconomic status, profession, history, culture, education and of course language. Despite these influences, we can, today, to a large extent decide what we want our identity to be. Insofar as the influence of language on identity, it is mostly your first language that is important in determining your identity, not the additional languages that you learn.
3. The present domination of English, and with it the influence of English-speaking culture, will affect how people of certain classes behave. How it affects them is not so predictable. I believe the 9/11 bombers spoke excellent English, for example.
