Mango Languages

Why We Study Language

Recently, I had the chance to revisit a class where I was a former City Year Detroit tutor. I tutored third graders once a week from November to March, before leaving become a Project Linguist at Mango Languages.  The kids asked about working at Mango, and in honor of my visit, they did a writing prompt: “If you could study any language, what would it be and why?” The kids’ answers are terrific.  (I hope we get permission to post them, so you can enjoy them.)

Languages they want to study include: German, Hausa, American Sign Language, Greek, Chinese, French, Japanese, Latin, and Pig Latin.  A lot of the children are already bilingual in Spanish and English.  Most of their reasons for learning a new language are about being able to talk to the people who speak that language.   They want to impress their friends and family.  Besides, it is cool and sounds fancy.

If, when I was in high school, I was asked why I chose to learn Spanish, these would have been my reasons, too.  My school only offered three foreign language options–Spanish, French, and German–so how great is it now that I get to work with speakers from languages as diverse as Malay, Dutch, and Swahili!?  Mango Languages gets me excited because we offer many language options for increasing cross-cultural communication.

So the question is: “If you could study any language, what would it be and why?”  Who do you want to be able to talk to?  Do you want to increase cross-cultural communication, or do you just want to sound “cool and fancy”?

Affective Filter Hypothesis

In his most recent post, Learning By the Book(mark)s, one of our Mango employees, Joe Garofalo, talks about his personal experience and feelings about using online software to learn a foreign language. In Joe’s words, “There is only so much that can be absorbed during a few hours a week of instruction, but being able to, at my leisure, interact with what I’m learning gives me that much more motivation to do it.” Well, Stephen Krashen would back Joe up on this one. Krashen actually proposed what he termed the Affective Filter Hypothesis (Krashen, 1982).

Affective factors in language learning are things such as language attitudes (the feelings a learner may have toward the target language (TL), its speakers and the learning context), motivation, language anxiety, and willingness to communicate.  The Affective Filter Hypothesis tries to account for how a L2’s (language leaner’s) attitudes and emotions (affective variables) impact learning effectiveness.  According to Krashen we all have this affective filter which either lets comprehensible input (i + 1) in, or blocks it.  So, the affective filter functions to determine how receptive a learner will be to TL input.

So Joe’s assumption that, “We all know a more motivated learner is also much more receptive to what he/she is learning,” is not unfounded.   And, I agree that that it could only help the student, possibly by lowering the affective filter, to create a comfortable learning environment that will contribute to TL retention.  Mango Languages makes the learning experience as comfortable as possible.  Students progress at their own pace in the comfort of their own home (or anywhere in the world as long as they have internet connection).  Mango also helps to drastically reduce any feelings of language anxiety or nervousness about communicating in the TL by allowing the student to hear and compare their production of “real” conversations to that of a native speaker before ever speaking to a live person.

So, what could be more comfortable than learning where you want when you want?

Language or Dialect: The War of Similarities

According to ethnologue.org, there are 6,909 languages in the world, from Mandarin Chinese, with 870 million speakers, to moribund languages with one or two aged speakers.  What counts as a language though?  Let’s see some examples:

Let’s say that “language” is the standard language of a country.  This would mean that Romani, the language of the gypsies, that has more or less 1.5 million speakers, is not a language.  Neither is Kurdish, with 16 to 35 million speakers.  Let’s also take a look at the Balkan languages: in the former Yugoslavia, Serbo-Croatian was one of the standard languages, as Serbian and Croatian differ from each other as much as American English differs from British English.  In the same area today we find Serbian and Croatian–two languages.  What happened?  We realize that once new countries were established, former dialects became standard languages.  Hence, “language” cannot mean “standard language,” since what qualifies as a dialect or as standard language depends on geographical and political changes and factors, and not just on the grammar or the vocabulary of the dialect.

Another example like the one of Yugoslavia is Danish and Norwegian.  Both languages are standard languages but they are almost identical regarding grammar and vocabulary.  And so a Dane and a Norwegian can talk to each other, each speaking their own language, and be mutually understood.  The reason is that Norway was under Danish occupation for centuries and at that time Norwegian was just a dialect of Danish.

The opposite situation is happening in China: there are many dialects in China and those with the most speakers are Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese.  However, these two dialects have deep differences in grammar and in vocabulary.  The differences are like those we have between Romance languages, like Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, etc., which are called “languages.”  So again, grammatical and lexical differences do not constitute the characteristics that would differentiate a dialect from a language.  Talking about the Romance languages, it is obvious that there are many common elements in grammar and vocabulary, but based on these attributes, couldn’t one say that they are dialects of Latin?

There are many, many examples like these: think about the Arabic dialects, some of which are mutually unintelligible, or Venetian, spoken in Venice, which is cognate with Italian but quite distinct from the standard language.  Or Sicilian…

We see then that there are languages that could be dialects of other languages and dialects that could be languages.  So, what is the difference between a dialect and a language after all?

The answer can be what the Yiddish linguist Max Weireich said, “Language is a dialect with an army and navy” or simply “… a dialect supported by influential people.”  When a community wants to become independent from another community, as it happened in Denmark and Norway, they make their dialect a language.  When they do not want to become independent and their dialect has some sort of similarity with the standard language, then they say that they speak a dialect of the standard.

Can you think of a good example of what is a language or dialect?  Please share by writing a comment.

The Sounds of Silence

One of the most famous and moving stories is that of Helen Keller, a deaf-blind woman who managed to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree despite her adversities. The oft-quoted part of her story is when she managed to make the connection between the words her teacher, Ann Sullivan, was making in Helen’s palm and the objects they represented; Helen came to understand one day that every object has a name, and this was the beginning of everything.

Ann Sullivan used fingerspelling –spelling words with the fingers– and “spelled” the letters of each word in Helen’s palm in the hope that Helen would make this connection. Fingerspelling though is only a tool in the languages of the deaf, the so-called sign languages. There is a misconception that sign languages are just an imitation of oral languages, just a compilation of gestures, and that the deaf represent the letters of the alphabet with the fingers and “speak.”  However, this is far from the truth. Sign languages are not another way to represent oral languages, and what’s more, they have nothing to do with the corresponding oral languages that are spoken in a place.

For example, although American and British English speakers share the same language, American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) are different and mutually unintelligible. Sign languages are natural languages, like English and Spanish, for example, with the only difference that whereas oral languages use the sound-hearing mode, that is we pronounce them through the vocal tract and we hear them, sign languages use visual-place mode, that is we “pronounce” them by using the fingers, face and body, and we see them. One very interesting event is the birth of the Nicaraguan Sign Language: when schools for the deaf were created in the country, the deaf children, who were isolated from each other up to then, were taught lip reading. However, when they met in the playground, the children invented their own sign system (LSN).

This brings us to a characteristic of all sign languages, which makes them similar to their oral counterparts:  they follow the same phases of first language acquisition, i.e.,  the various structures of language are acquired at the same age in both hearing and deaf children, and there is a critical age between 0 and 4/5 years for both. For example, at the same age when hearing children mistakenly use “you” to refer to themselves, the deaf children point to the other person (the sign for “you”) to refer to themselves.  Nicaraguan deaf children were past the critical age and so they developed some sort of a pidgin which slowly evolved into a language (ISN).

Sign languages have their own grammars, which are far from simple.  ASL’s grammar, for example, is reminiscent of Navajo. The various grammar structures are shown with a combination of hand shapes, movements of the palm, hands and body, facial expressions, and body postures. To give an example, in ASL, to show the part of a sentence that is the subject, as in “John I really like” where we want to stress that it is John, and not Mary, that I really like, one raises the eyebrows and lifts the chin together with the sign for John. To understand what a signer signs, one has to literally have in view everything and not only the sign.

I will end this post on a personal note. Sign languages have been persecuted and forbidden as usually happens with languages of minorities. In the book by N. E. Groce, “Everybody here spoke sign language” we read that in a small town in Martha’s Vineyard, an island outside Cape Cod, for about three centuries the hearing inhabitants also knew the local sign language because the deaf population of the island was numerous and rich. In 1960, William Stokoe argued that sign languages are natural languages. From then onward much research has been done in Linguistics which has revealed many interesting things about the structure of sign languages and how similar in structure they are to oral languages. Moreover, many discoveries have been made regarding the nature of human language which would never have been made if we just studied oral languages. All this as well as the work of many psychologists and educators has helped give sign languages and signers the place they deserve in society.

Do you have a story that relates oral languages to sign language? Please share!

Stages of Language Learning

I recently read an interesting article on the Stages of Second Language Acquisition.

I found this to be really helpful to understand where I am in the different languages that I speak. I have always said that because I studied Spanish and lived in Spain for a summer that I understand far more Spanish than I can speak. I always feel a bit inept when it comes to communicating exactly how I feel in Spanish.

Here are the stages she discusses in the article:

1) The Silent Period: in this stage, most students understand more than they can produce. They can understand when someone speaks to them but they cannot express their ideas in the same way. They can answer “yes” or “no.”

2) Early Production: learners can answer some “yes” or “no” questions.  They use repetitive language patterns to express ideas and they try to express concepts by using one or two words only. They cannot find the words to make complete sentences.

It is important to bear in mind that comprehension precedes production. This is especially true in Second Language Acquisition. You can always understand more of a language then you can produce.

3) Speech emergence: In this stage, learners can communicate with simple phrases and sentences.  They will ask simple questions that may or may not be grammatically correct. It is common to see that they will start some short conversations.

4) Intermediate Fluency: at this stage, learners are using more complex sentences when speaking and writing. They can express opinions and share their thoughts. They also have the ability to formulate questions in order to ask for clarification.

5) Advanced Fluency: a student at this stage will be near-native in their ability to perform in the second language, although there may be some gaps,  especially when it comes to idiomatic uses of the language.

First, I should say, I am not a native Spanish speaker, but I want to be able to communicate exactly how I do in English. I know…this is asking a lot. The great thing about Mango is that we teach conversation right away. I really enjoy the practice I get from using our conversations to help maintain my language skills. In addition, I watch Spanish television and movies. I love Spanish music and even read an occasional People magazine in Spanish.

What stage are you at in your language learning journey and how are you getting to the next stage?

Learning By The Book(mark)s

I think, naturally, that there is a dichotomy in most peoples’ minds between the quality of traditional, book-based education in schools and that of newer online instruction–but is this separation really merited? I argue that it is not. More and more, schools which still continue in-classroom education are moving toward online instruction, yet there is a stigma as to the quality of online instruction when compared against traditional methods of learning.

Online instruction, as opposed to what you may be inclined to think, doesn’t necessarily replace book-based learning, but it does greatly enhance a student’s experience by offering supplemental materials and up to date content that books or CDs simply cannot.  Still being a student myself, I have been lucky enough to experience the educational system both before and after the emergence of online resources.

For example, while studying Japanese, I had the pleasure of receiving a book this year through my class which was accompanied by an online component. Aside from everything I would learn inside of the class time and through the text, I was also able to log in to the book’s website and watch videos or print off supplementary materials that  pertained to the subject matter. Being able to access any of these materials at any time soon opened the door to the best semester of Japanese instruction I’ve had yet. There is only so much that can be absorbed during a few hours a week of instruction, but being able to, at my leisure, interact with what I’m learning gives me that much more motivation to do it.

We all know a more motivated learner is also much more receptive to what he/she is learning, so it follows that creating an environment in which the student feels most comfortable is the most conducive to actual retention. This is where the popularity and effectiveness of online learning lies, and is precisely the reason that interactive methods of learning are quickly becoming the favored method of many educational institutions.

Have you had any experience with online learning, whether in school or on your own? Do you prefer learning by the book or by the bookmark?

Practice Makes Perfect

This week I will keep with my current trend of analyzing the Mango language learning approach from different second language learning (SLA) perspectives, theories, and hypotheses.  In this blog I will adopt the skill acquisition theory of SLA, specifically McLaughlin’s (1987, 1990) information-processing model and Anderson’s (1983, 1985) Active Control of Thought (ACT) model and see how and whether Mango Languages takes in to account this theory of SLA.

The skill acquisition theory of SLA views language learning as similar to learning other skills (i.e., math, driving a car, etc.). This means that it requires practice. It is through practice that the information being learned moves from short-term memory (STM), where it begins, to long-term memory (LTM), where it is said to be stored once learned. Second language (L2) input is initially stored in STM. According to McLaughlin’s information-processing model, the initial input is retrieved from STM for production by what he refers to as “controlled processing.” This simply means that learner must make a controlled effort to retrieve the information, i.e., vocabulary, grammar, sounds, etc., from their STM in order to produce the desired response. According to this model, repeated activation of this ‘knowledge’ in the STM moves it to LTM where it becomes available for rapid retrieval with minimally controlled effort by the language learner. McLaughlin calls this shift from controlled to automatic processing, automatization.

The process of automatization is also important in Anderson’s ACT model. According to Anderson, it is through automitization that declarative knowledge, i.e., knowledge that something is the case, shifts to become procedural knowledge, i.e., knowledge of how to do something. To understand the difference between declarative and procedural knowledge, imagine you are learning to drive a car. For example, you will be told that if the engine is revving too much that you need to change to a higher gear. You will also be told how to change gears. This knowledge of the indicators that it is time to shift to a higher gear and knowing theoretically how you should do this is an example of declarative knowledge. However, when it is time to actually perform this task the student driver will most certainly not perform well, at least not their first time. That is, simply knowing what to do does not necessarily mean that you will know how to do it successfully. In order for a skill to be automatic, or proceduralized, you must go through the declarative stage before acquiring the procedural knowledge needed to perform the task successfully. However, for any of you that remember driver’s ed or have teenagers currently taking driver’s ed. (God help us! I’m one of this bunch!), you know that while learning you have to practice, practice, practice. That’s the idea behind McLaughlin and Anderson’s models. Practice is the key! Therefore, declarative knowledge of the L2 is necessary but not sufficient for successful language acquisition.

Mango Languages recognizes this and applies the skill acquisition theory to our language learning software. The Mango system is programmed to request output from the student on newly presented vocabulary and phrases, as well as perform automatically generated quizzes throughout the course at certain spaced intervals in order to implement the concept of automatization through repeated activation of material. The student is also able to repeat any slide, lesson, chapter and, even entire course, any number of times.

So, what do you think? Are you willing to hand your car over to a 16 year old who has only read the operator’s manual? Or, do you agree with McLaughlin and Anderson that practice makes perfect? Or at least almost perfect?!

Why is that a Syllable?

Why do some sound combinations form words while others do not?  Why can some sound combinations only be found at the beginning of words whereas others can only be at the end?  The answer rests in the sonority scale.  This discussion follows along with Kelly’s post on “What is a Syllable? Rhyme and Reason”.  Syllable structure, what makes a string of sounds a syllable, is based on the principle of sonority. Sonority is the openness of the vocal tract that corresponds directly to loudness of a sound.  Consonants are divided into obstruents and sonorants based on how they are articulated.  They are called obstruents because the airflow is being obstructed.  Say a sound like [t] compared to [n]; [t] is an obstruent and stops suddenly whereas [n] is a sonorant.  The sound of [n] is more open and can be stretched out.   The more like a vowel a sound is the more sonorous it is.  Think of a syllable as a mountain: there is a climb up to the top and then a descent.  Vowels are the most sonorous so they are at the peak or the nucleus of a syllable.  The consonants preceding a vowel increase in sonority; this is the onset.  After reaching the nucleus, the consonant sounds decrease in sonority; this is the coda. The sonority scale from lowest to highest is obstruents, sonorant consonants, and then vowels.

For example, in a word like Atlantic, which is written syllabically as at.lan.tic, the first syllable starts with the nucleus [a] and in the coda when sonority decreases it falls to the obstruent [t].  A new syllable is necessary because [l] is more sonorous than [t].  It violates the sonority principle to have [l] follow [t] in the coda.  In the second syllable, [l] is in the onset, rising to [a] the nucleus, and falling to [n] in the coda.   The third syllable cannot begin with [n] and then be followed by [t] in the onset because this would violate the sonority principle.  So the sonority scale is the reason we can have the word ant but not *atn or *nta.  If *nta is a word often a vowel is inserted into the pronunciation [nata].  Can you think of any exceptions where sounds in syllables violate the sonority principle?

Guest Post: Is there such a thing as THE method to learn a second or foreign language?

It is my pleasure to introduce Henrick Oprea as our guest blogger. Henrick is a teacher, teacher trainer and Director of Studies at Atlantic Idiomas in Brasília, Brazil. He’s been teaching English for about 13 years and is currently taking his MA in TEFL/TESL from the University of Birmingham.  Like any good Brazilian, he’s a football fan and supports Vasco da Gama, the best football team in the world (or so he thinks).  He’s also a blogger and you can read his thoughts on his blog.  You can also find him on twitter.

How do you study languages?  Many different methods and approaches have been used, and they all seem to come and go from time to time.  Actually, they all seem to come and refuse to leave.  If we think about the aged Grammar Translation way of teaching/learning a second or a foreign language and all that came after it, it might be shocking to see it’s still there.  In regular schools in Brazil (where I live), for instance, it’s still the mainstream.  Why is that?  Well, for the very same reason that different approaches and methods have been created.  Were we still living in a world in which there were very little chances to travel abroad, we’d probably be happy with such an approach.

But the world has changed (and has been changing).  When people started feeling the need to actually speak foreign languages rather than simply being able to read a couple of disconnected sentences, it was clear that Grammar Translation wasn’t going to be of too much help.  Hence, other methods came, and new ones kept emerging over the past 100 years or so.  As our need for collaboration and communication grew, people started taking second language learning more seriously.  Some people tried comparing it to learning your first language; some methods advocated the use of music; yet others claimed that mistakes were to be avoided at all costs.  As usual, the many different methods rose and fell in popularity over time.  Yet, they’ve all contributed something to the way we see Second Language Acquisition (SLA), and in particular English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL).

Nowadays, at least in the Western civilization, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is considered mainstream. If you meet an English teacher and ask him or her about his teaching practices, you’re likely to hear something like, “I teach according to the principles of CLT.” Unfortunately, many of these teachers haven’t got a clue about what CLT means in terms of approach, design, and procedures – they’re just doing what they were trained to do: repeating something. But this isn’t really the focus of this post…

In addition to CLT, the “modern” English teacher is likely to mention other methods as TBL (task-based learning), the Lexical Approach, and Dogme, which, by the way, has just turned 10 years old. If you add to these all of the other methods and the myriad language institutes which claim to follow methodology A, B, or C, you may wind up with a very big question mark floating over your head:  what is the best methodology for one to learn a foreign language?

Methods (or methodologies) are created – hopefully – based on principles of SLA theories. There isn’t much we know about the way the brain works, but based on current research, we can attempt to take some guesses to answer the question. We’ve got three main views of SLA theories: behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. Each one of these views presents different perspectives towards language learning and teaching, and none should be discarded. Is there a better way to learn a second or foreign language? The answer can only be, “No, there isn’t.” If our answer is any different, we’re saying that we are sure all people learn the same way. We’re actually stating that we aren’t all unique and that one size does fit all. I’m one who does not share this view – an opinion formed both from personal observation and experience and from research.

There’s still no magic pill or microchip that will make you speak a language instantly. However, there are things we believe will help you learn a foreign language. For instance, Krashen mentioned the hypothesis of comprehensible input (what is known as i + 1), and Swain mentioned the comprehensible output hypothesis. In terms of learning, any kind of learning, we tend to do better on tasks we learn by doing than the ones we learn by passively observing others. In language learning, we value input, and we know exposure is a necessary condition, yet definitely not the only one. And then comes learning strategies. The more you know about how you learn, the easier it will be for you to learn a foreign language.

To answer the question asked on the title of the post, I don’t believe there is such a thing as the method for language learning. There isn’t only one way for us to learn languages. But there are things I believe will always help. Interaction, negotiation of meaning, exposure, and authenticity will never, in my humble opinion, get in the way of your learning. Next time you wonder what method can help you learn a second or foreign language, start thinking about how you learn. This might lead you to the right answer.

Declining Nouns – My Attempt at Learning Linguist Stuff

Recently I have tasked myself with learning more about linguistics. This is most likely due to my desire to expand my global literacy, and has nothing to do with the great, fun, bright, energetic group of linguists that we employ. ☺

Following today’s work session I learned about cases.  “Cases?” you’re wondering.  “We know about cases: court cases, briefcases, containers…” No, I’m talking linguistics; I’m talking about the case system. If some of you are wondering “huh?” it’s because in English we don’t have a case system. Well no worries, because you’re about to learn.  (Editor’s note: English actually does have a case system for pronouns)

Without a doubt there are a lot of languages out there.  The general populous is aware that many languages have different letters and that most have different words.   But there are other differences.   Some languages have declining nouns.  These are nouns that change just like how some of our verbs change.  Nouns can change based on what they are doing, or what is being done to them.  Yes!  Verbs conjugate, and nouns decline.  Some sentences in some languages might involve the same noun with different declensions.  Sometimes you can even know the proper declension based on the case.  There are several cases: nominative, genitive, accusative, verbative, dative, etc., etc., etc.  Some languages have even more! vThese languages include Latin and some of the Romance languages and maybe even Romanian.

These languages (along with a handful of others) rely on the declining nouns to make sense in the same fashion that the English language relies on word order.  So while “the boy ate the dog” is clear to us based on the word order, some languages may extract the exact same meaning from “Boy dog ate” due to the amazing declining nouns.   I know…crazy stuff but very interesting!

What other declining noun examples can you think of?