Fool For Language

32. A Box of Chocolates

2012-03-01T18:29:00.000+09:00

In my last blog entry, I talked about specialpeople I have met over the years who introduced me to their respective cultures(see blog entry 31). Each person became a close friend and led me into a newand seductive world through personal and positive initial contact. I soondeveloped a strong desire to learn languages in order to dive deeper into thecultures of Japan, Thailand, Bulgaria and Turkey, testing myself on the streetsof each country by trying to communicate in the local vernacular – and having agreat time doing so!

But friends,food and frolic are not the only reasons I undertake the study of a newlanguage. There are a range of motivations involved, including scholarships and exchange programs. Ilearned very quickly that, if I wanted to travel to a place where I could use alanguage, I would either have to save every cent I earned or qualify forscholarships. In the latter case, I managed to get accepted for two studystints in Quebec (see blog entry 5), as well as for one in

China

(see blog entry 23). In both cases, although I did not yet have closefriends from these countries, I was familiar with the local language thanks toclassroom studies and wanted to test my communication skills in the real world.

I becameinvolved with other tongues “by accident”. Two languages that I had nobackground in, but was unexpectedly introduced to, were Cree (see blog entry 15) and Malaysian. In the latter case, I hit thejackpot on a government studyprogram at the end of my last year in high school (see blog entry 10). The Canadian government wasimplementing a program called Canada World Youth, or Jeunesse Canada Monde inFrench, to send young people overseas on developmental education projects. The luckyparticipants spent three months training in

Canada

, six months inthe host country, and a final three months back in

Canada

with theirinternational counterparts. There were five potential destinations –

Cameroon

Tunisia

Yugoslavia

Malaysia

and

Mexico

. I chose the last country since I hadstudied some Spanish in high school and thought that, if I made friends “southof the border”, the chance to visit them would be more likely than with theother countries. As it turned out, I was assigned to

Malaysia

, a country that I couldn’t evenpinpoint on a map!

A total ofeighty participants went to

Malaysia

. Divided into groups of ten, we spent afrantic year being shuffled from state to state, paraded before the public withthe media in attendance as we planted rice, climbed up mountains, and learnedfolk dances. In our group, only two participants really made a concerted effortto learn the local language, bahasa

Malaysia

. As a result, each time the group wasmoved to a new state, we were singled out and billeted with families who spokemainly bahasa

Malaysia

. While the others stayed in cities andcommunicated mostly in English, the two of us inevitably ended up in rural settings,which meant our language skills took off. We became quite conversant and wereeven interviewed in bahasa

Malaysia

on national TV at the end of our stint.Not bad considering that we had only lived in the country for six months. As for me, I became enamored with aplace that I didn’t even know existed a year earlier and still dream of goingback, picking up where I left off linguistically and culturally. Thismotivation grew from direct interaction with the people and culture.

But suchstories are not always so positive. I was recently contacted by a friend who isorganizing an exchange program between students from his Japanese universityand counterparts in

Thailand

. Although he has gone to great lengthsto offer language training both online and in classes with a native Thaispeaker, none of this year’s fourteen participants seem interested. Hisstudents assume that, when they arrive in

Thailand

, someone will speak English or maybeeven Japanese. To me, this smacks of naivety, or worse, arrogance. Thesestudents are satisfied with being typical tourists, not willing to take alittle time to learn the language of the country they will soon visit. From myperspective, this is a truly sad condition. Hopefully direct contact with thepeople and culture will motivate them to make the effort to study some

Thai.

We shall see.

I, too, am running anoverseas program this winter. Two weeks ago, eight of my students began studying Korean online at www.sulantra.com followed by twelve hours of classroom instructionover ten days using a teaching approach similar to the one they haveexperienced online. Tomorrow we finish our classroom sessions and the next day everyone will board a plane for

Korea

where we will spend five days testingour language skills on the streets of Seoul, Taejeon and Gongju. The last place isa smaller city where we assume most people will speak only Korean. This iswhere the participants will undertake “solo tests”, including shopping forsouvenirs in a marketplace, ordering meals at noodle stalls, purchasing traintickets back to Seoul. In other words, typical activities when you are on theroad.

And as theyinteract with the locals to complete their test tasks, I hope that my studentswill become energized. Although the weather will be freezing with snow on theground, I am confident that everyone will have great stories to tell theirfamilies and friends back home. I also hope that they will develop a strongdesire to learn more language in order to return to

Korea

in the future. I want them to have anexciting time communicating and continueto develop their skills in Korean. I want this trip to be memorable andmotivating just as my trip to

Malaysia

was for me so many years ago.

It may seemlike a farfetched dream, but I am optimistic. I have been running coursessimilar to this one for over thirty years and, although each program has itsown hurdles and headaches, inevitably things work out. Most participants returnhome looking for ways to continue studying the new language they have recentlyreveled in. Still others want to tackle a different language, to open the dooron new, energizing experiences. With just a few words and phrases under yourbelt, the world becomes a box of chocolates with an infinite number of flavorsall waiting to be enjoyed. If that first taste is a pleasant one, it becomes veryhard to put the lid back on the box. There is no turning back.

Many of thestudents going to

Korea

will be heading abroad for the firsttime. Through direct experience they will form their own opinions andunderstanding of a country so close and yet so far. I hope this first “taste”will leave them craving for more. More travel, more experiences, more language.My next posting will describe the training approach I have developed for myclasses. The posting after that will most likely be from the countrysideoutside of Seoul.

Care for achocolate, anyone?

(If you are really a fool for languages, check out my language learning website, http://en.sulantra.com/, with courses from and to English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Bulgarian, Thai, German , Korean and Italian!)

31. Motivation Revisited – Friends and Food

2012-02-15T17:06:00.001+09:00

In the last posting on this blog, my Italian friend, Loris, talkedabout his trials and tribulations on the road to learning Japanese (see blogentry 30). Why does anyone go to so much trouble to learn a newlanguage? For immigrants to another country, the main reason is survival. But for many ofus, the reasons may be less obvious.

I was once asked by a professor to explain why I get so excited when Itry learning a new language. What gets me wired? I started by listing thelanguages I had had some contact with and soon discovered that my ownmotivations covered a wide range. In my earliest postings I talked about the influence of my parents on mydesire to learn French (see blog entry 1) and, later, the rapport with a special teacher in high school whichstarted me on the road to tackling German (see blog entry 2). For each language I encounter, itseems like a different fuse is lit, but often the motivating factor comes down to people.

One primary motivation for me to learn a new languageis some form of positive initial contact with someone from a country or regionwhere the language is spoken. Interacting with a friendly face – often whilepartaking of tasty delicacies fromthe person’s country (see blog entry 11) – piques my curiosity and soon I am fantasizing about a trip to some far off land.

In my secondyear of university, I shared a house with a group of students, including ayoung woman, Masako, from

Japan

. Each day we took turns cooking dinnerand, after several months,I came to realize that Masako’s meals were the best. Furthermore, not only wasI becoming familiar with her great cooking, but I was also picking up the table manners of the country I would eventually call home. I knew that I would get to Masako’shomeland – I just didn’t realize how long I would stay!

After arrivingin

Japan

, I worked for several institutions, including anational university on the island of Shikoku. There were graduate students from manyparts of the world and one day I arrived at school to find two young Thai men,Suwat and Somsak, waiting at myoffice door. They werewriting their graduatetheses in English and needed the help of a native speaker to make sure thattheir complex ideas regarding the world of Economics came across correctly.What I lacked in Economics background I made up for with my mother tongueand soon we were conducting weekly sessions in order for them to meet their dissertation deadlines. Working together for two years, we became goodfriends, sharing stories over wonderful Thai dishes they prepared and declared weren’t half as delicious as the food “back home”.That was over twenty years ago and we are still friends. And I swear that their meals were just asdelicious as anything I have had in Bangkok, a place I havevisited many times since our first encounter.

Eventually Ileft Shikoku and moved up to the Tokyo area. My jobs included a position at a smallcollege near the base of Mount Fuji, which had a program for students from

Bulgaria

. It was there that I taught and learneda great deal from someyoung women from Sofia. Each month we would get together in my home andprepare a Bulgarian meal with ingredients that I had tracked down especiallyfor the occasion. Filo dough, feta cheese, grape leaves – all hard to come by in

Japan

, but a home-cooked dinner was involvedso I found the ingredients! It has been over ten years since my path crossedthose of Emma and Tina but, again, we have remained closefriends. I have visited their homeland many times and still delight in sharing wonderful dishes while reminiscingover their student days in

Japan

. And I have learned enough basic Bulgarian tomaneuver on the streets of Sofia. Well, at least I can get to thenearest ice cream parlor!

I am also in love with

Turkey

. Once again, my contact was through mystomach. I visited a Turkish restaurant with my mother in the small city whereshe lives on Vancouver Island and wasimmediately charmed by the food and delightful staff. Could all Turks be thisfriendly? As it turns out, my answer is a resounding “Yes!”

A few yearslater, I met a young Turkish man, Özgür, at aconference in

Thailand

. He was outgoing and talked as much asme – and we seemed to become friends instantly! That was about ten years ago and, and thanks to Özgür, I now count Istanbul – and Turkish cuisine – among myfavorites in the world.

I havedescribed my connection to four languages via friends and food, but it is notjust my heart and stomach that gets me motivated. My head is also part of theequation. When visiting aforeign country, I find it extremely frustrating not to be able to communicate.Of course I can rely on the generosity of my friends to get around, see the sights and partakeof the local culture. But, being a long-term resident of

Japan

who speaks Japanese, I know what it islike to be on the other end.It’s called “babysitting” and can become quite exhausting. When visitors to

Japan

arrive and can say a simple “Hello.” or “Thank you.” in Japanese it works wonders. But this is only the first stepto truly communicating.

Phrases like“How do you say this?” or “Once more, please.” in the local vernacular can go along way when you are abroad, and they are not that difficult to pick up. Asfor language for specific activities, such as ordering in a restaurant orbargaining in a marketplace, this isalso finite and not that big a challenge if you set your mind to it. Of course, it requires some studying, ideally a little each day. But if you have themindset that when you getto where you are going everyonewill appreciate your efforts, the reality isthat you will be able to get around on your own and the visit will be much more memorable. I knowbecause this is what I have been doing for years.

It may sound selfish, but Ihave created my language training website, www.sulantra.com, mainly for myown language learning pleasure.I don’t want to waste time memorizing disconnected lists of words or repeatingaloud monotonous grammar tables. I have suffered through too many languageclasses based on this approach and do not have the energy for it anymore. I have some ideaof what I want to do when Ihead overseas and know what language I will need to help me do it. I just need a little helpgetting prepared. This isthe thinking which underlies my website.

Some readers ofthis blog have asked why I chose to include Japanese, Turkish, Thai andBulgarian among the first languages uploaded to www.sulantra.com. The answerlies above with each of the wonderful people who introduced me to their culture- Masako, Suwat, Somsak, Emma, Tina and Özgür. And there are other languages and otherpeople. Perhaps I will mention them in later postings.

In the meantime,friends and food are not my only reasons to study a new language. I will talkabout some other motivationsin my next blog.

(If you are really a fool for languages, check out my language learning website, http://en.sulantra.com/, with courses from and to English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Bulgarian, Thai, German , Korean and Italian!)

30. My Japanese Language Learning Journey

2012-02-02T18:15:00.001+09:00

We have reached our 30th entry on FFL (the abbreviation everyone now seems to be using to refer to this site) and, as promised, I have asked another “language fool” to be my guest blogger. This time around it’s Loris, a good friend from Rome, who describes his adventures on the road to learning Japanese.

My Japanese Language Learning Journey

by Loris

Learning a foreign language has always been one of my major interests. The story dates back to my early childhood. I think it all started when I was a tiny Anglo-Saxon-looking kid. Blue eyes, ice-blonde hair – not so common for an Italian. I can’t remember this for obvious reasons, but my mother often tells me of an episode when I was still in a baby carriage and some American tourists approached me cooing in English. I think it all started there.

If asked why I became so interested in learning different ways to communicate, I would probably answer because of my need to know. Well, rather than “knowing” itself, I should say “understanding”, which implies the capability of gathering pieces of information from the outside, elaborating them inside your mind, letting them pop in your heart and, finally, turning them into malleable bricks in the brain. “Malleable”? Yes, because there is nothing worse than sticking forever to the same principles. At least that is how I feel.

And now comes the choice of which language to learn. I was not particularly lucky during my school years: no foreign language was offered in elementary school, while English was the only available tongue other than Italian in junior high school and, once again, throughout senior high school. Far from complaining – I actually really like English – I have always been interested in what is different or, better yet, exotic. For example, when I was 14 I woke up one day and thought it would be nice to learn some Icelandic. Unfortunately, my studies did not progress very far, but it was definitely fun!

At that time, I dabbled in many different languages, all for short periods. I was growing up, just entering “teenager-hood” and felt like I was in search of my soul. “Which rhythm suits me? What language should I speak to feel satisfied?” I was looking for the “good vibe”, that shiver down my spine. I liked my native language and always will, but I felt that it was not enough.

In this experimental period, going from Icelandic to French, from Finnish to German, passing through Norwegian, Spanish and Arabic, I finally met Japanese. This was not totally by accident since I actually had quite an interest in Japan having started reading mangas, or Japanese comics, from the age of 9. That was the first time I told my mother: “Mom, I wanna go to Japan!” Twelve years later my dream would come true.

My first formal introduction to the Japanese language was thanks to a course I found on the Internet. I got to learn some really basic grammar and kanji, or Chinese characters, together with the Japanese phonetic alphabets, hiragana and katakana. That was it but it was enough to stimulate my interest. Soon I had downloaded some applications to my computer for learning kanji, their meanings and various pronunciations. I could basically recognize – if not properly write – some 150 kanji at the age of 15. I immediately realized that THIS was what I was looking for. The rhythm of the language struck the right note in me, the visual aspect satisfied my artistic sense, and I felt pleasure in learning more and more.

This individual study period lasted about one year with long breaks in between. Then I had the chance to take part in a real Japanese evening class organized in my town with a real teacher from Japan. Was she the first Japanese I met? I think so. What I clearly remember is that thrill every Tuesday when it was time to go to class, and the feeling of pure joy when coming back home after the lesson I would look at the notes containing the new words I had just learnt. Unfortunately, the language course was discontinued after one year and for assorted reasons I had to drop my individual study of Japanese for some time.

After graduating from High School, it was time to choose a university and, more importantly, a direction for my future career, job and profession. I did not think twice, I knew already I would choose Japanese Studies. When I first entered university I had the feeling that I would be able to coast for a while because of my past study background – but how wrong I was! In four short weeks all of my grammar knowledge had been “used up” and I was on the same level as all of the other students, except for kanji. Compared to the complete beginners around me, I could understand a lot more characters.

As for my studies, the more I learned, the more complicated things became. “That is normal”, I said to myself. But the truth is that, from a Westerner’s point of view, learning a language such as Japanese really does take time. This was probably the first time I began to question whether I would be capable of learning to communicate well in Japanese someday. But I believe a strong will can survive any storm, no matter how tough it gets. I integrated flashcards and notebooks filled with ideograms into my study regimen. I attached little papers to every piece of furniture in my house. Each day I seemed to come up with a new approach to master the language. I was determined.

As graduation approached, I was growing discouraged by the amount of hurdles I met on my path to fluency. As a result, I decided to delay taking more courses. Instead, I would just make my dream come true by visiting Japan and then go straight into the workforce back home afterwards. Again, I was so wrong. During my time in Japan, I realized how much I actually wanted to continue until the end of this adventure and achieve some remarkable goals in Japan itself. I came back to Italy with a stronger will than ever, and I changed my plans for the future, entering a Master’s degree program in Japanese Studies.

I studied hard for almost 2 years, engaging both body and soul, but still I felt that I could not properly understand everyday conversations or, for that matter, silly TV programs. Once again, I felt like saying, “Screw it all!” But just when I thought everything was lost, I met a Japanese who would become my partner. This event gave me strength to hold on and keep on learning in order to better understand everything that comes with having a Japanese mate. It was no longer just a question of studying the language. Since Japan entered my life so intimately, learning the language has become an even greater pleasure in everyday life. Although I am continuously meeting new hurdles during my learning process, I approach them more as new adventures. And I feel I have enough knowledge now to put the language I do not understand into a logical frame of reference, elaborating in my mind until the new slips into the box of “Already Learnt” items. It comes without saying my Japanese has improved a lot.

On the academic side, after two years of studying for my Master’s degree, I am about to embark on another exciting experience as an exchange student in Japan for a whole year. This is nothing less than what I have always dreamt about and it is going to definitely be amazing! Or rather, should I say this is how it was meant to be? We shall see.

29. Quick and Easy - Keywording

2012-01-29T15:01:00.001+09:00

In blog entries27 and 28, I talked about a communication strategy model with three stages andspecific language. But communication strategies do not need to be complex.Often they are based on common sense and can be surprisingly simple.

After coming to

Japan

, I began to seriously investigate myown use of communication strategies as I tried to get my point across inJapanese. Whenever a communication breakdown occurred, I would step back,analyze what went wrong then try a new approach. If it worked, I wouldsubsequently create classroom activities and materials so that I couldintroduce and develop the successful strategy with my students. I will explainone incident and the simple strategy which resulted from it, as well as includesome classroom materials with this blog posting.

After my firstyear of stumbling about in Japanese, I was slowly developing my language skillsfor specific contexts. The town of Tamano where I lived was very small and therewere no language schools that I could turn to for structured lessons. As analternative, I hit upon the idea of studying assorted traditional arts inJapanese. Lessons included cooking, woodcarving and tea ceremony. My tasteswere varied but the main reason for these eclectic choices was that theinstructors would accept me. In my early days when I could barely string twowords together, each “sensei”, or teacher, went to great pains to make me feelat ease but it was obviously a challenge for everyone. As the months passed,however, I slowly but surely began to collect words and phrases for maneuveringin a kitchen or tea room.

On the otherhand, when faced with a new context I was often at a loss for words. And ifthere was an element of stress involved, as there usually is for people tryingto communicate in a language that is not their own, then the few words I didhave at my disposal evaporated as a cold sweat broke out on my brow. Yet I refused to give up andpersevered to the amusement (and sometimes irritation) of the locals.

One day, I waswaiting to buy a train ticket at Tamano’s small local station. This was theterminus and there was only one train every hour that went to the “big city” ofOkayama. Ticket vending machines had not beeninvented yet and several people stood patiently in line in front of the ticketwindow. One by one they were served by the agent then headed quickly to theplatform to board the waiting train. There were about five minutes left beforeit pulled out and the mood was tense. Japanese trains leave on time andeveryone needed to buy a ticket and board before the train left.

As I stoodawaiting my turn, I listened very carefully to the people in front of me trying to catch thephrases they used to buy their tickets. I had the key words – “next train”,“return ticket”, “one person”, “Okayama”– but was still mentally sorting outhow to string them all together into a polite phrase when my turn came. Sucking in my breath, Islowly, even painfully began to produce a polished request for a ticket word bycarefully enunciated word. “Would... you mind... giving me...?”I was sodesperate to sound polite that I ceased to realize those behind me were alsodesperate – to make their train!

Suddenly,through the fog of my phrases I heard a man mutter angrily, “Konna baka nagaijin! Shinjiraranai!”, which roughly translates as, “Stupid bloody foreigner.I don’t believe it!” I was mortified. My desperate effort to produce a refinedphrase had resulted in some very disgruntled locals. Quickly, I blurted out, “Okayama. Round trip. One person.” and tossed mymoney at the ticket agent. He hurriedly passed back the necessary ticket alongwith my change. Pocketing both, I scurried to the platform.

Once I hadtaken my seat (and noticed with relief that those standing in line behind mehad also made the train), I began to dissect what had happened. It had beenfoolish of me to try and produce a perfect, polished phrase when the “broken”language I had blurted out was more than sufficient for the job at hand. Just as importantly, the abbreviated language was what Iwould have used in a similar situation in English.

Thisproblematic desire to produce the “perfect sentence” is something I have seenfrequently over the years among students in my classes. I watch as they mentallysort out the arrangement of words, painstakingly positioning them in theirmind’s eye, taking what seems like forever. Worst of all, by the time they dofinally utter that carefully planned phrase, the conversation has either movedon to a new topic or, in a one-on-one exchange, died completely. I call thispainfully slow mental arrangement of words “overthink”. Maybe it is specific tothe Japanese learner’s psyche but I suspect not. After all, I did it myself somany years ago at the Tamano train station.

So how do youget around this problem? Awareness comes first. In class, I point out that aperfectly structured sentence produced VERY slowly ends up being incomprehensible.A quickly spoken phrase in “broken English” is often much easier to understandas long as the key words are there. For this reason, I call the strategy“Keywording”. Second, I tell my traumatic ticket buying tale, pointing out thatit can irritate the locals if you don’t speed things up. Finally, I point outthat learners themselves use such “broken” phrases in their mother tongue (e.g.when buying a cinema ticket). Why should they expect their second language tobe held to a higher, “perfect” standard?

After thisspiel, I subject my students to various activities which require they

giveinformation to others within a set time, for example, directions to theirfavorite coffee shop in 30 seconds. Given this VERY short time frame, there isobvious pressure. I start with students whom I know can pull it off and serveas a model for the rest of the class. Sometimes the atmosphere gets a littlefrantic with the “talker” blurting key words out in staccato while “listeners”clarify, hurriedly take notes or draw pictures. But this pandemonium doesn’tbother me. My goal is to have students realize that they can get their messageacross with key words and without “overthink”. If you feel adventurous, checkout this link for materials to use in your own classes : Keywording Classroom Materials

Yes, mystudents are under stress when I conduct “keywording” activities in class but,if they can cope and communicate in class, they are better prepared to face the real world. Pressure is whatnon-native speakers often face as they try to get their point across in a foreign tongue. Askany clerk at a station ticket window – but wait until the train has pulled out!

28. Changing Learner Behavior – The Proof

2012-01-22T19:44:00.000+09:00

In blog entry27, I described an awful episode where one of my students at Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding (MES) tried to bluff his way through acontract negotiation in English, nodding his consent while understandingpractically nothing. As a result, he ended up trapped between an irate foreignagent and his furious boss – and got me thinking that learners should study more than just language. I wasconvinced that they also needed behavioral training with clear models to helpthem negotiate breakdowns in communication.

I came up with a “Control” model for attacking the problem head on when you do notunderstand. It consisted of three stages: STOP the other speaker; clarify untilyou do UNDERSTAND, for example, by asking for repetition or meaning; and,finally, CHECK to confirm that you have understood correctly.

The “Control”model seemed an easy one for my students to wrap their heads around; however,the approach was radical at the time. None of the major textbooks on the marketapproached language training in such an aggressive manner. As a result, I spentconsiderable energy preparing my own materials to introduce then reinforce the“Control” model in mylessons. Students wereencouraged to interrupt and clarify me, as well as each other, when they had trouble comprehending. After someinitial hesitance, many began to do so with a vengeance.

After threeyears, I moved from MESto teach part-time at several institutions, including a national university. Icontinued to train my students in “Control” and other behavioral modelsresulting in complaints from some university professors. It seems that learnerstrained in my classes were considered “rude” since they kept interrupting andasking questions when they didn’t understand. I said that I would talk with mystudents. I did telling them that they should always clarify when they did notcomprehend the droning of their professors planted at the blackboard (referred to hereabouts as“chalk-and-talk”)

Soon I wasseriously analyzing my attempts to communicate in Japanese and most of thetraining models I came up with were derived from my own speech behavior. As myfiles of classroom materials grew, I began sharing ideas with other teachers, particularlyat meetings of the Japan Association of Language Teachers (JALT), givingnumerous workshops on training learners in communication strategies. SometimesI would come up against skeptics who complained that my approach wasn’t“legitimate” since it was not based on existing methodologies and/or research. Others argued that I wasturning my students into clarifying “monsters”.

At times it wasfrustrating to watch colleagues with questionable teaching skills being offeredfulltime positions becausethey had advanced degrees. Some would stand at the front of the classroom andpontificate while their students read comic books or slept at the back of theroom, yet they got on with their careers. Without a Masters degree, I wasrelegated to part-time teaching limbo. Finally, I decided to bite the bulletand headed to the UKtowork on a MA in AppliedLinguistics.

Why the UK?Frankly, as a Canadian I fell between the cracks in the Japanese job market.Some universities wanted British professors since they were “traditional”,which apparently was prestigious; others chose Americans who were consideredmore contemporary in sound and style. Canucks were stereotyped as friendlybarbarians who took canoes to class and cooked on campfires. At least this wasthe impression I got when I looked into positions at universities in the area where I lived. I suspected that, armed with a degree from the UK, I could get a foot in the door with the“British” schools, while my accent was Yankee enough to satisfy theinstitutions fixated with the United States.

In 1986, I headed off to Essex University intending to research the potential forchanging the behavior of non-natives as they tried to communicate in English.After some groveling to find a professor to act as my advisor, I succeeded inreceiving approval for my research. I turned out to be the only student to do originalresearch among my classmates.

For my research subjects, I used twenty Japanesestudents studying at Essex University and for mytraining model I used “Control” since both were familiar territory. I set up three stages for myexperiments. In the first stage, all of the students were asked to listen to astory and put a series of graphics in order. The visuals were impossible toarrange logically without clarifying. Most of the students listened, looked confused then arranged thephotos in what they hoped was the correct sequence. None succeeded.

In the secondphase, half of the students received an hour of “Control” training, while theother half did not, then everyone performed a variation of the original exercise. As suspected,those with training clarified and put the visuals in the correct order, whilethose without training continued to fumble about, guessing or giving up.

The third andfinal stage was much more interesting. I waited three months then had my flatmate, Jeremy, who was majoring in Law, assist me in conducting a second seriesof interviews. Ten of the original participants were selected at random, five trained in “Control”,five without training. Jeremycontacted them to ask if they would be willing to participatein a survey to determine how much the average Japanese knew about their legalsystem. All agreed, eachchoosing a time and place to meet for the interview.

The resultswere fascinating. Those with “Control” training were more assertive, clarifyingand answering Jeremy’s questions logically once they understood. Furthermore,they had “mutated” andwere asking questions not contained in the original model, as well as usingmore sophisticated strategies, such as paraphrasing what they thought questionsmeant. They had become more assertive in their efforts to understand and beunderstood.

As for thegroup without “Control” training, they were stuck in the same rut they had beenin three months earlier, pretending to understand questions then hazarding ananswer, often with amusing results. One young woman with a British boyfriend would “contemplate” eachof Jeremy’s questions by saying “Yeah, that’s a cool question. Gee, it’s hardto say. I guess so…” She said this for every question, including those whichrequired more than a “yes” or “no” answer! Listening to her bluff, I wondered how in theworld she communicated with her boyfriend.

Another subjecthad graduated with a Law degree from a prestigious Japanese university and was doinga second degree in Law at Essex. In theory, heshould have had no problem with Jeremy’s questions but turned out to be themost challenged. For example, when askedif prostitution was legal in Japan,he paused for several seconds then stated emphatically, “Yes, we have aconstitution.” Ouch!

After completing my research, I was approached not only by the Japanese students who had notreceived training, but also by other foreign students who were in theirclasses. The grapevine was alive and well, and everyone wanted to learn “thatControl stuff”. As a result, I gave anopen demonstration attended by about sixty students and professors which Irecorded, edited and submitted with my graduation thesis. I hope to uploadit on my blog soon.

I left Essex Universitywith my MA in hand, satisfied that I had done solid research and could nowrespond to critics of my training approach with empirical evidence. I was alsocompletely broke, the fate of many scholars who go overseas and pay substantially more for theprivilege of studying at a foreign institution. Thus, I boarded a plane back toJapan literally hours after being notified that I would receive my degree, ready to go towork and pay off my debts.

Subsequently, I published academic papers about the “Control” model and my research at Essex.For those who are seriouslyinto academic jargon and references, check out these links: Measuring Receptive Communication Strategiesand Control An Independent Learning Model. For language teachers who want to try“Control” training in theirown classes, check theselinks for handouts to use in your classes Control Classroom Handout and The Active Learner. As foreveryone else, suffice to say that you can change your behavior and communicatemore effectively in a foreign language with “Control”. The concepts have been built into my website, www.sulantra.com, to help you do this. Definitely check it out, too!

27. An Assertive Mindset – Control

2012-01-06T16:28:00.001+09:00

At the end ofmy studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, I left

Canada

for what I thought was a one-year workstint in

Japan

. That was about thirty-five years ago.As mentioned in blog entry 11,in1978 I passed a jobinterview with Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding (MES) by stuffing my face with sushi in Los Angeles and soon foundmyself in Tamano, a smallcompany town on

Japan

’s Inland Sea. Being the only foreigner on staff at theshipyard, I was forever being asked tohelp with a range of tasks most of which I was not really qualified for, suchas proofreading (think rewriting) technical specifications and reports.

I stillremember my first MES report, amish-mash of engineering jargon about rust and pitting on a gear tooth face. The initial page took me sixhours to rewrite – and there were twenty-one pages to go!But I eventually became comfortable with theidiosyncrasies of English writtenby Japanese and the pages of technicalmumbo jumbo gradually became decipherable.

As for the townof Tamano, it was small and even with my horriblesense of direction I could soonfind my way around. The simplest of daily activities often proved an exotic learning experience and I felt constantly stimulated.At work, I developed aroutine of consultations with engineers about their documents sandwichedbetween my classes and put inlong days doing what I hoped was a good job. I made every effort to bea model MES employee.

At weekends, I dove into company life spending time withcolleagues and students going on picnics in the surrounding hills, visiting hot springs, or picking mandarin oranges on nearby islands. Although big cities like Tokyo or Osaka had their attractions, to my way ofthinking I had made the right choice by heading off the beaten track toexperience the “real”

Japan

in Tamano. I was very pleased with mynew life.

Then onehorrible day in my secondmonth harsh reality reared its ugly head. I was sitting at my desk in the Personnel Section surrounded byabout fifty other co-workers. We had just finished lunch and, as I was slippingmy chopsticks back into their storage case, the doors burst open and a very angry foreignerglared around the room thenheaded straight for me. He slammed his fist on my desk and, in a thick British accent shouted, “What the hellare you teaching these people!?” I was mortified.

It seems the man represented an insurance firm and had just spent several hours with one of the engineersfrom my classes negotiating a contract to beused for a ship built in the Tamano yards. My student had nodded his agreementto each of the terms suggested by the British agent who then entered “final” versions on his electric typewriter (desktopcomputers didn’t exist yet). After several hours of proceeding in this manner,the agent thought that he had completed the contract and submitted it to mystudent’s section chief – who hit the roof and refused to sign the document!

It seems thatmy student had agreed to each contract term while not understanding what the British agent was saying. He had nodded, desperately hoping to grasp the essence of what was being talked aboutlater in the discussion. He hadn’t and the end result was acontract that Mitsui considered unacceptable. My student was trapped between an irate insurance agent and a furious boss, and I was suffering the collateral damage at my desk. How had things gone so horribly wrong?

To be honest, Imyself was having trouble with the British agent’s northern accent. There was noway that my student could have understood this man’s speech without clarifyingand yet my student had taken noaction. He had the level of language necessary to ask for repetitions ordefinitions but was paralyzed to do so.

As the agent ranted at my desk, I had an epiphany. What my students needed as much as language wasbehavioral training. With a clear model based on efficient behavior they mightdevelop the confidence to tackle their communication problems head on ratherthan bluffing, pretending to understand when they didn’t. In

Canada

, I had some vague ideas about what my studentsneeded to do in order to understand and be understood, but now I had a specific communication breakdown toanalyze. In doing so, I came up with a concrete behavioral model with stages and language, which I called “Control”.

The “Control” model is made up of the following three stages:

First, learners mustrecognize when they do not understand and STOP the other speaker. All they need to do is ask “Excuse me?” or “Pardon?”in a polite, firm manner. But this may be easier said than done. Interrupting mayfeel rude; however, bluffing when you do not understand can be much more offensive as my MES student discovered.

Second, learners need to identify why they do not UNDERSTAND and take remedial action.For example, if the other person is talking too fast, “More slowly, please.” should addressthe problem. Maybe there isone word that doesn’t make sense. Fortunately for English learners, key words are usually stressed and asking “Whatdoes that mean?” will elicitan explanation, as well as provide a sense of the learners’ comprehension level for the other person. As for challenging accents like that ofthe insurance agent, learners can ask “How do you spell that?” Words might berecognized if they are written down, particularly technical terms. My MES students knew the jargon for their field; they just hadn’t heard these words pronounced by someone from Manchester or Mobile.

Finally, when they think theygrasp the meaning, learners shouldconfirm their understanding, or CHECK, by asking “You mean...?” or “Are you saying...?”followed by a definition in theirown words – or gestures iflanguage is limited.

Over time I became convinced that the “Control” model was what my MES studentstruly needed to survive in the workplace. The only problem was that notextbooks I knew of emphasized this so I had to develop my own activitiesand materials to teach the “Control” model. Several years later I conducted research with Japanese students at Essex University in the

to determinewhether such behavioral training influenced their ability to communicate. I will describe this research in mynext blog posting. Suffice to say my studies showed that you could change behavior and helplearners communicate more effectively.

I have also taken “Control”online and built componentsof the model into my language learning website, www.sulantra.com. I know from personalexperience that this training model works. Whenever I begin to study a newlanguage, from the outset I learn the key language necessary for “Control”.Even at a basic level, I can maneuver in a conversation.

I have hadstudents who read dictionaries and memorize grammar tables in their free time. But if they cannot comfortably apply this language in the real world,if they allow themselves to be intimidated by the target language when they try to communicate, where is thevalue? My MES student was humiliated inthe workplace by his lack of confidence and inability to clarify. Training withthe “Control” model helps protect learners from being “bludgeoned” verbally asthey strive to use a new language.

Power to the learner!

26. Improving With Age

2011-12-26T18:13:00.000+09:00

There is one final teaching story in

Canada

that I almost forgot to mention, which is ironic given that it deals with memory and older learners. My volunteer work with immigrant women through Vancouver’s Immigrant Services Society (see blog entries 17 & 18) caught the attention of the University of British Columbia’s Language Institute and, in my final year at UBC, I was asked to participate in an experimental project to research long distance learning. Participants living in isolated communities were expected to watch a series of soap opera-style TV shows developed by the university, then take part in a 2-hour class on Saturday mornings using study materials based on what they had watched. Subjects were divided by age and/or ethnic community then assigned to a “para-instructor”.

When it came time to assign the classes I was taken to the coordinator’s office and informed that my students were a group of senior citizens living in a Mennonite colony about three hours drive from Vancouver. I was told not to get my hopes up and not to be disappointed if (when?) my students’ progress was minimal. Given their advanced years, the assumption was that, no matter how much effort I put in, the results would be negligible. What a dismal way to start a course.

My first Saturday, I got up early and began the 3-hour drive to the colony determined to be on time for the 10:00 a.m. lesson. I had done my homework and was dressed in a somber black suit in an effort to be culturally sensitive. After what seemed like an eternity of driving through fields of vegetables and fruit groves, I finally found the community center where the classes were to be held near the small rural community of Clearbrook. I parked my car and nervously entered to discover a group of fifteen elderly men and women all dressed in brightly-hued shirts and dresses. I felt completely out of place! Later, when I got up the nerve to ask about their rainbow colors, one of the older members, Agathe, proudly replied, “We are a progressive colony.” They certainly were.

During class break I asked many questions. The colony was obviously self-sufficient and functioned almost entirely in Low German, or Plattdeutsch. I couldn’t understand why they had agreed to be part of the university’s experiment. Why did they feel the need to learn English?

As it turned out, the core reason was the same for each person. Many of their children had left the colony and were working in nearby towns or Vancouver. When they visited with their grandchildren the latter were using English to communicate. It was this desire to stay in touch with their grandchildren that fueled the group’s eagerness to tackle English in their senior years. The youngest students were in their mid-60’s while the eldest, Heinrich, proudly informed me the moment we met that he was 84 years old.

Every week when I arrived, the group would be seated at long tables waiting expectantly for the lesson to begin. Spirits were high and study sessions were filled with joking and a constant stream of questions. Each lesson was a social occasion with everyone having a great time, including me.

But there were some awkward moments, too. At the beginning of my third class several participants fingered Maria, one of the more jovial members, for not having watched the weekly TV show. The one television set on the colony was located in the community center where we held our lessons and, if someone missed a session, everyone knew about it. Maria’s absence was verified by fourteen heads nodding solemnly and, despite my assurance that it “wasn’t a big deal”, she apologized profusely – and never missed another communal TV viewing session.

The “Clearbrook gang”, as I had come to call them, taught me many things about learning a language. First, having a specific, PERSONAL goal in mind is crucial for motivation. Mindlessly memorizing unrelated word lists for an examination may work for some students who want good grades, but I suspect percentage points are not a true incentive for the average learner.

Second, group-based study can be much more productive, especially if the group gets along well together. Lessons become a social event, which was certainly the case in Clearbrook. When learners have fun studying together, they look forward to the next class.

Third, a little psychological pressure can go a long way, particularly if it is applied by peers rather than the teacher. Knowing that all eyes would be upon her, Maria never missed another TV show. And perhaps for the same reason, the Clearbrook gang had the best attendance record of all other groups that participated in the UBC study. The peer pressure may have seemed a little draconian, however, it worked to everyone’s advantage.

Which brings me to my final revelation. Despite the university coordinator’s limited expectations, the Clearbrook gang achieved the greatest level of improvement in the study. I was so proud! And I realized that, if the need is there and the learning environment supportive, age is irrelevant when it comes to language learning. Sure, younger people may have an edge in the memory department; however, the seniors of this Mennonite colony clearly demonstrated that the brain could still function effectively despite advanced age.

When I did my MA in Applied Linguistics in the

years later, we were told that after puberty the brain goes through chemical changes and “hardens” making it impossible to really learn a language well as we grow older. I didn’t believe this to be true but the only evidence I had to refute my professors was the tale of older learners on a Mennonite colony outside Vancouver, which flew in the face of the accepted academic knowledge of the times.

A few years ago, I was delighted to stumble across more current research that refutes this “hardened brain” premise. The mesh surrounding the brain remains plastic throughout one’s life and neurons keep firing into our senior years. In other words, as long as your brain is healthy, you can learn a language at any age. Furthermore, in doing so, we reduce the chances of succumbing to cerebral diseases, such as Alzheimers. This is a story for another blog posting.

I made one final trip to Clearbrook in early summer to say good-bye before heading overseas for employment in

Japan

. The class held a “picnic” outdoors at a long table and everything we ate was homemade – the bread, the cheese, even the wine. Each person explained in English what they had brought to the table, as well as what they had gotten from our language classes. It was a wonderful send-off!

As for me, I told them that I had learned much more than they could ever imagine. The Clearbrook gang members were not an aberration – seniors can learn a language – and I only hope to have half of their intelligence and energy when I reached that age. I told them this when my turn came to talk. And I made my speech in white linen pants and a bright blue shirt. I had become more progressive, too.

25. When in Rome… learn some language!

2011-12-10T13:38:00.001+09:00

As those following this blog know, I have talked about my various language learning and teaching adventures in Canada, including tutoring the family of the Malaysian Deputy High Commissioner in Ottawa (see blog entry14), working as a summer school instructor for Cree children in northern Manitoba (see blog entry 15), training Punjabi women to survive at the Immigrant Services Center (see blog entries 17 & 18) waiting tables at my Chinese instructor’s restaurant (see blog entry 24) then knocking on doors for Healthiest Babies Possible, a multilingual, perinatal nutrition counseling service provided by Vancouver’s City Health Department (see blog entry 22). But there is still one last tale to tell from my homeland.

While working part-time as a sound technician in the University of British Columbia’s language laboratory (another job picked up because of my interest in languages) I heard from a coworker about short term guide positions at Habitat, the United Nations’ conference on human settlements held in Vancouver in 1976. With a rather taunting voice, my friend said that she had applied the previous week and, since the application deadline had passed the day before, unfortunately, I would be unable to join her in the interview line. I immediately rushed to UBC’s job placement center and pleaded for an application form. Since the completed applications had not been picked up yet, I was given one – much to my friend’s chagrin.

As things turned out, after a stressful hour-long interview in English and French with three interrogators firing questions at me, I was offered a plum position at the Habitat Media Center. My job was originally to cater to the needs of visiting news reporters from around the globe but, after a week of training, the manager approached me with a new job offer. How would I like to become one of the three supervisors responsible for coordinating the Center staff? Although my shift would be the late night one, she mentioned a substantial pay increase. Frankly, I would have done the job for nothing!

The Habitat Media Center was a language lover’s dream come true. Staff rushed about assisting an international assortment of media personnel in no less than twenty-five different tongues. We had been warned by the manager that, given our direct involvement with the scribes, radio announcers and TV personalities who were covering Habitat, one misstep on our part could adversely effect the image of the conference. As a result, we made tremendous efforts to fill our visitors’ every whim, always with a “Center smile” glued in place as we babbled away.

Although there were no major mishaps, “mini-emergencies” were ongoing and with events happening all over the city, the media people seemed to be forever asking for directions, especially those from overseas. The night shift was a particularly busy one since, after a long day of Habitat activities, reporters needed to file stories with deadlines set according to the time zone of their home countries. Most people functioned on a steady diet of Center coffee and almost no sleep!

When someone approached the long Media Center counter with a panicked look in their eyes, the first step was to remain calm, flash a Center smile, and try to figure out which language we had in common. After that, I would identify the person’s need then assign a uniformed media assistant to sort things out. I started by checking the person’s media badge to determine which language might be understood. “English? No. Vous parlez français? Ah... Italiano.” Somehow we would manage to communicate.

But there were glitches in the routine. The first night, a young couple arrived looking disoriented and distressed. I glanced at their badges and realized that I could not pronounce the names. I had no idea what language assistance they needed. Their coloring was very fair and I assumed they came from northern Europe, but the pair had no apparent knowledge of English and my halting German drew no response. There were three other assistants on duty but none of us had a language that worked. We all sat down with cups of coffee and I started drawing a primitive map of Europe on a paper napkin, calmly repeating “Where? Où? Wo?...” The young man suddenly took my pen, stabbed the napkin in an area I was not very familiar with, and said something that sounded like “Hell...”

Ah! Helsinki,

Finland

. Several napkins and a lot of gesturing later, we established that they had just arrived and needed an inexpensive place to stay. Within minutes we had their accommodations lined up and, given their subsequent daily presence in the Media Center, had also made some grateful friends. Or maybe they were just afraid to venture out into the city.

Based on observation of visitors to Habitat, as well as my own subsequent journeys, I quickly realized how vital it is to be able to communicate in the local language, even if only at a rudimentary level. But many travelers don’t bother making the effort. Perhaps the worst offenders are English speakers who assume the world functions in their language. Once leaving the safety of their foreign hotel lobby, they are often dismayed to learn that this is not the case.

But speakers of my native tongue are not the only offenders. In Bangkok, I have watched Japanese tourists being waited on in Japanese in a souvenir shop for obvious commercial reasons, leave the shop and proceed to ask for directions on the street in Japanese from a local who doesn’t have a clue what they are talking about!

When journeying overseas, joining a tour group with a flag-toting guide who speaks your mother tongue is simple and safe. But stepping outside of your comfort zone and making the effort to learn some local language will give you much more freedom and definitely increase the potential for a more exhilarating, personal travel adventure.

And it really doesn’t take that much effort. If the material is focused around functions and the language is recycled, I estimate it takes approximately 10 to 15 hours to have the average traveler functioning in a foreign language at a basic level. In my next blog posting I will talk about the classroom research that I have conducted for over thirty years which has lead me to this conclusion. As for online study, I know from personal experience that using my website, http://www.sulantra.com/, for an hour of study each day starting one month before heading to the airport is sufficient for me to get by on the streets of a foreign country. Not fluent but certainly functioning.

Attempting to use the language of the country you are visiting has many benefits. Most locals will be delighted that you are trying to speak their tongue and will reciprocate with kindness and patience. By making the effort, you are sending a message that you want to get to know the local culture on a deeper level. Your journey will be more memorable and special. Honestly!

24. Learning the Words You Need

2011-11-27T17:08:00.001+09:00

In 1977, I returned to Vancouver from

China

disillusioned with my studies in Mandarin (see blog entry 23). I had translated the Chinese constitution and could talk about the valiant effort of workers in the fields and factories but had almost no language for day to day activity. Frustrated, I approached my Chinese teacher, Mrs. S for help. She suggested that I get a job in a Chinese restaurant, specifically HER Chinese restaurant!

I started working part-time in Mrs. S’s restaurant in the third year of university. Although I was nervous in the beginning, it was exciting to learn and apply language in “the real world”. Many of the customers were Asian immigrants and were startled to see me stroll out of the kitchen to take their orders. To complicate matters, the kitchen turned out to be staffed with Cantonese-speaking cooks from southern

China

. At first, there were bewildered looks on both sides when I delivered my orders in English and/or Mandarin then received a clipped Cantonese acknowledgement, but gradually we grew to understand each other using a pastiche of all three languages.

My experience in Mrs. S’s restaurant taught me that we learn the words and phrases we need. It wasn’t long before I could apologize to customers in Cantonese and/or Mandarin for my limited speaking ability before rattling off the daily specials in one or another of the languages in my new workplace. Today I surprise myself with how many of the dishes I remember when eating at “dim sum/dian xin”, the ubiquitous brunches found wherever there is a sizeable Chinese population. The menu is apparently burned into my brain since I recollect the names of most of the delicacies being wheeled past me on carts.

Years later I observed this “learn-what-you-need” principle with eight of my Japanese students. They had completed a 12-hour training program in Thai before flying off for onsite testing in Bangkok and Ubon Ratchathani in the northeastern region of

Thailand

. In Bangkok, the students worked in pairs to successfully complete a series of tasks they had been trained for, such as bargaining in the marketplace or purchasing tickets on the overnight train to Ubon. They were delighted with their ability to communicate and everyone’s level of confidence was soaring. But it was in Ubon where they truly blossomed.

Through friends, I had made contact with a local university where students were studying English and Japanese. Upon our arrival, the Japanese and Thai students got to know each other over formal activities, such as a welcoming luncheon and campus tour, then were left to their own devices. Each day the local students would meet us at the university dormitory where we were staying and outline a tentative plan for the day. Sometimes they would disappear in one large group, other times they wandered off in small “teams” venturing into the Isan countryside.

I should mention that my group was comprised entirely of young men, while the Thai group was made up mainly of young women. Over the course of their three days together they developed a unique lingua franca, a mixture of Thai, English, Japanese – and the local Isan dialect. At the end of each day, my students would return to the dormitory and regale me with tales of their exploits, such as rafting down rivers or singing karaoke in local shopping centers. They all had become very adept at getting around on “songtaew”, the ubiquitous covered pick-up trucks with benches in the back for passengers, and had tasted exotic local delicacies, such as fried scorpions.

For me, the most interesting aspect of their outings was that they were picking up local Isan slang and teaching the Japanese equivalent to their Ubon counterparts. They would sit in the dormitory lobby at the end of each day, throwing the phrases they had learned back and forth, squealing with laughter, as I stared, an outsider in my own group. By the third day, the Japanese students were developing a colorful assortment of phrases in Isan and I had no idea what they were talking about.

The Ubon students had picked up their own Japanese slang as well and it was obvious that all participants were having a great time communicating. As we boarded our train for the long ride back to Bangkok, there were many tearful good-byes accompanied by phrases that would not soon be forgotten. My students had learned the words they needed, that they found interesting or useful, and had made new friends along the way.

How do you go about getting the language you need for a specific context? There are a number of ways, including the obvious one of going online and searching for words and phrases which meet your anticipated needs. There are a seemingly endless number of dictionary-style sites, particularly for English speakers, where you can find language and, in some cases, even hear a sound model for you to imitate. But these sites present language in isolation and do not lend themselves to real communication. On the street, words produced at random do not make a conversation.

Perhaps one of the most useful phrases you can learn in any tongue is something along the lines of “What’s that?” or “How do you say this?”, which can be used as you point at a concrete object in a clear context. The natives around you will give you the local equivalent of the words or phrases in the regional accent, another important aspect often ignored by generic “dictionary” sites. You pick up the language YOU need, not the phrases dictated by a text or website. I call the process of picking up language from a local “eliciting” and have talked about it in blog entry 12. It is also incorporated into my website, http://www.sulantra.com/.

Occasionally I get together with the students who travelled to Ubon. Some have continued to study Thai, some have not, but all would love to return and pick up where they left off. One young man, Shunsuke, has even developed skills in a new language.

During a job interview just before graduation, Shunsuke regaled his interviewers with tales of his Ubon experience but left the room crestfallen, certain that he had talked too much about his travels instead of his technical expertise. As it turned out, the managers were impressed by his upbeat narrative. The company had acquired an important contract with a firm in Hanoi, but no staff member wanted to go there. Shunsuke seemed to be the perfect candidate.

Four years have passed since Shunsuke was hired and, although he uses Japanese or English in the workplace, he has gone out of his way to pick up some Vietnamese, too. I believe his positive experience in the provincial town of Ubon when he was a university student prepared him with a mindset to tackle new languages and enjoy the process. He understands the importance of communicating with others in their language. He recognizes that the effort creates a good impression and that learning does not have to be an ordeal. As long as you are picking up the language that you really need, the value is obvious and the process can be a pleasure.

23. A Glass of Water

2011-11-18T16:01:00.001+09:00

Life is like a ladder. Well, at least mine is. Each step taken leads to the next level, the next adventure. Sometimes you slip and go down a rung or two, but inevitably you continue climbing. Tutoring a Malaysian family in Ottawa (see blog entry 14) lead me to work as a volunteer in Vancouver with female immigrants from India’s Punjab (see blog entries 17 and 18); my work with these women, as well as my Chinese studies, helped me land a position promoting Healthiest Babies Possible (HBP), a perinatal nutrition counseling program offered by Vancouver City Health Department (see blog entry 22). With my Chinese gradually improving, I was on the lookout for ways to get to

China

and test my skills on the street. Once again, earlier experiences helped me take the next step.

One day in my Chinese class, an announcement was made about a short-term study program to

China

being sponsored by World University Services of Canada (WUSC). There was only one drawback: applicants needed to have a unique research topic with a practical focus that could be completed in the limited time frame. The program was open to candidates from across the country and I would have to come up with something special if I was going to catch the attention of WUSC’s selection committee. I wracked my brain but couldn’t think of anything.

While pondering the problem at HBP one day, I was accosted by a colleague, Penny. She caught me mumbling to myself over lunch and her look suggested that she had serious questions about my mental health. Penny demanded to know what I was so preoccupied with and I told her about the WUSC program with its “unique and practical” topic requirement. The deadline was days away and I was at a loss for a topic.

Penny gave me a withering look then blurted out, “You are such an idiot! Look around you. Why not propose a study on how Chinese society deals with working women and their babies?”

Ever the woman of action, Penny quickly organized a meeting of our supervisor, health nurse and international nutrition counselors. Soon the group was bouncing ideas off each other faster than I could write them down. What kind of leave do women get before and after delivery? Are special considerations made for their diet at company canteens? What about daycare in the workplace? What age do children have to be before mothers can use a daycare facility? I had my research proposal drafted in minutes!

As for credentials, although my academic background was rather limited (I had taken one course on nutrition problems in developing countries to fill the VERY eclectic requirements of my Southeast Asian Area Studies program), I did have an impressive reference letter from my HBP supervisor emphasizing the importance of my research topic, not to mention my budding proficiency in Chinese. Several interviews later, I found myself at Vancouver’s International Airport boarding a plane for

China

When we landed in Beijing, our group was greeted by the sight of workers marching in a line across the tarmac, hoes slung over their shoulders. They had just finished working in the cornfields positioned between the runways! It was the time of

China

’s Cultural Revolution and, frankly, we were all starry-eyed and seduced by the social experiment taking place before us.

But there was a darker side to all of the change. Chairman Mao had just died and his wife, Jiang Qing, was attempting to take control of the government with three of her cronies – the infamous “Gang of Four”. People were on edge and foreigners were off limits. A baggage handler talking quietly with us in very fluent English at the airport, turned out to be a former university professor who was now being “re-educated” to empathize with the masses. He hurried away when our official handlers appeared.

As for proficiency in Chinese, only two of our group could really say anything. Disembarking from a bus to visit a local facility, our handlers would inevitably point us out, warning locals not to say anything near “the two tall ones” since we could “tingdedong zhongwen” - understand Chinese. Yet minutes later we would be paraded out to make a short speech and entertain the locals. Speaking the local vernacular turned out to be a double-edged sword.

On the road, our group of Westerners “stuck out like a sore thumb”. Foreign travelers were almost unheard of in some of the cities we descended upon. We could literally cause a traffic jam (perhaps I should say “bicycle jam” the primary means of transport at the time) if we stood in one spot for too long, particularly in the north. At one Friendship Store in Harbin, the army was called in to escort us off the premises because we could not get through the crowd that had gathered at the entrance! After my stint in

Malaysia

(see blog entry 10), I was used to being stared at; however, for the others it was unnerving. To view a short movie taken at the time, check out this link http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/ngZ1yvbMPa8/.

Given the nature of the materials used for my studies at university, I had a bizarre, limited vocabulary. This fact was brought home to me when I gave an eloquent thank you speech at an official dinner, commending our hosts for a valuable experience that would strengthen the ever-growing friendship between

Canada

and

China

. I was sweating bullets as I spoke but apparently did an impressive job ending to a warm round of applause from those in attendance.

I hastened back to my seat with a parched throat and desperate for a drink. I made eye contact with a waiter who began to approach, then was mortified to realize that I had no idea what to say! I sat there dumfounded while the waiter looked at me expectantly. Having just heard my flowery phrases praising the mutual admiration of our two countries, he had no way of realizing that I didn’t have the language to ask for a glass of water!

I am amazed how course designers and material writers lack the ability to put themselves in the learner’s shoes, to recognize what a person REALLY needs to function in a language. Perhaps the situation today is not as depressing as when I studied Chinese; however, it still surprises me how much fodder gets into print or online masquerading as “useful” for the learner.

An hour spent with new immigrants to a country is enough to provide even the most dim-witted of course designers with a practical perspective. Instead, what often appears in print or online is disconnected (think lists of words without a context), even bizarre. One major foreign language software provider advertises its wares on Japanese TV using the phrase, “The hedgehog is curled up.” What in the world are they thinking?!

When I study a language, I want to end each class with something that I can take away and use on the street. This is how I plan my own lessons. What do the students leave with that they can apply to their own reality? This is why I designed my website, http://www.sulantra.com/, with a functional focus. Frankly, I have little use for grammar-based academic exercises in the early stages of learning a language. I understand how “rules” can be useful when refining how I speak at a more advanced level, but not when I am just starting out. It’s brain numbing.

If the language I am learning does not have an immediate application in the real world, I lose patience. I have a ladder to climb and little time to waste as I reach for the next wrung.

22. Healthiest Babies Possible...?!

2011-11-11T18:23:00.001+09:00

As I mentioned in my previous blog, while studying at UBC in Vancouver Iworked at a number of part-time jobs to make ends meet. With tuition fees topay, books to buy, rent to cover, etc., I never seemed to have enough funds andwas always on the lookout for extra work, especially positions where I coulddevelop my language skills. One day between classes while perusing theclassified ads, I came across an intriguing position at the Vancouver CityHealth Department. They needed someone to help promote a new service beingoffered in a range of languages. The program was called “Healthiest BabiesPossible”. I had no idea what was involved, but I caught the next bus downtownand filled out an application form.

HBP was preparing tooffer pre-natal and post-natal nutrition counseling to women in a range ofethnic communities. They had a head nutritionist and public health nurse toadminister the program, had hired counseling staff fluent inEnglish, French, Cantonese, Mandarin, Punjabi, Greek and Italian, and were now lookingfor two part-time staff members to promote the service. The first position wasalready filled by Penny, an outgoing young mother who had a public health background and wasstudying for an advanced degree in nutrition at UBC. Now they wanted someonewho was at least conversant in some of the languages they offered.

In fact, they were rather shocked when I applied. I had experienceworking in the Punjabi-speaking community of Vancouver (seeblog entries 17 and 18), was studying Chinese at UBC (see blog entry 21), was conversantin French and, combined with my background in Spanish, could more or less readItalian. I was presentable and comfortable discussing the needs of the programwith the women in charge, getting just as excited about their service as theyobviously were. There was only one barrier to my being hired: theyhad not expected a man to apply for the position.

During my HBP interview, there were somewary glances between the three women interrogating me. I could tell they likedme, but they needed proof that I would work comfortably with their team.Suddenly Penny got up and left the room returning a few minutes later with avery unhappy baby girl who was crying loudly. It was her daughter, Vanessa, whoobviously needed a diaper change. Just at that moment, a secretary popped herhead into the office and said, “Penny, your husband is on the phone.”

Looking hurriedly about, her eyes rested on me. Saying, “Couldyou hold her for a second?” she dropped the squirming bundle of baby poop in mylap then turned and left the room. A little startled, I continued answering the questionsbeing asked by the two interviewers as I tried to dealwith the now hysterical little girl squealing in my arms.

What the women of HBP did not know is that my mother’s extended familyis very large and I have spent many hours babysitting mycousins. I made frog noises, played hand games, stood up and walked Vanessaabout the room, rocking her gently and singing little songs, all the whileanswering the questions from my interrogators. By the time Penny returned fromher exceptionally long phone call, her daughter was smiling from ear to ear andseemedto have forgotten about her messy diaper. Nods of approvalwere exchanged by the women and, yes, I got the job.

HBP was an amazing experience. The women I worked with were foreveranalyzing my lunch, lecturing me about what I should be eating then stuffing mewith ethnic treats they had prepared. They would carefully explain how to make the “homecooked” dishes of their respective cultures, and I still have Greek, Indian and Italian cookbooks on my kitchen shelfgiven to me at HBP. There were “field trips” to pass out HBP brochures at multi-culturalfestivals and visits to factories, for example, to confirm the dairycontent of gelato and taste test the products. I seemed to be forevereating!

But it wasn’t all fun and frolic. Health professionals in some of Vancouver’s ethniccommunities were less than thrilled to find Health Department staff knocking ontheir door even though our service was meant to assist their clients, whileexplaining the benefits of breastfeeding in French live on community TV can bea harrowing experience. But I couldn’t complain. I was using my assortedlanguages and learning something new every day. Best of all, I gotto know HBP’s international counselors well and dreamt of visiting each person’s countryto experience the culture firsthand.

My HBP experience helped me to realize that one of the key motivators for meas a language learner is interacting with someone from that culture. Places that I knew only as a colored squareon a map were no longer abstract. They were now Kamlesh’s

India

,Maria’s

Italy

orLily’s Hong Kong – and I wanted tovisit them all!

I am envious of young people today. They take so much for granted intheir online world. Need to find cheap airplane tickets? There arenumerous websites to do it for you. Want to meet someone from a village on theother side of the planet? Search through a social networking site. Theopportunities are endless and increasing by leaps and bounds each day. Knockingon someone’s online door has never been easier. But as I tell my students, itshouldn’t end online. The real world is waiting to be explored.

Today in my university classes in

Japan

, I havestudents from

Nepal

Vietnam

and

Cameroon

among othercountries. These are all places I have yet to visit with languages I have yetto study, but I intend to. This may sound overly optimistic to the uninitiatedbut the amount of language you need to head out on the road is surprisinglysmall. Greetings, asking for directions, ordering in a restaurant – if youfocus on carrying out a function, the basic words and phrases you need areobvious. Add strategies for communicating, such as asking someone to repeat orspeak more slowly, and you are ready to explore.

At the end of each blog, I mention my website, www.sulantra.com. I have spentseveral years working with many friends to create this site. The focus ispractical with material based around getting a job done; the study approach isstraightforward without the usual academic gobbledy-goop called grammar; theinterface is designed for “non-techies”, those peopleintimidated by turning on a computer – like me.

To be honest, my reasons for creating Sulantra.com are completelyselfish: I wanted a place to go where I could, in a very short time, learnenough language to strike out on my own and travel to the places my friends andfamily are from. There are still dishes to taste, dances to learn, horizons to view.

The next language in www.sulantra.com will be Italian.The women of HBP would approve,especially Maria from Milano. Until next week – ciao!

21. Stay in the Target Language

2011-11-07T18:42:00.001+09:00

While atuniversity, I held down several part-time jobs to make ends meet, including arather challenging position as a tour guide for UBC’s Information Services.During one summer stint, I conducted five bus tours a day for tourists fromaround the world. Given my interest in languages (or perhaps the otherstaff members lack of interest), I was assigned the non-English speakinggroups by default. As the bus slowly moved around the campus, I was expected to brieflyintroduce the 312 buildings that we passed in a language I was vaguely familiarwith. Each tour lasted about one hour and visitors got offthe bus in a state of amused bewilderment.

The Japanese tours, in particular, were frenetic since I didn’t speakthe language and ended up giving the entire tour in broken English accompaniedby wild gesturing to get my meaning across. The “audience” was entertained andinvolved as they shouted out the words which I lacked in their mother tongue. Soon I began to inadvertentlymemorize exotic words and phrases, such as “shinrinkohgakka”, Japanese for Forestry Department. (I got tiredof karate chopping imaginary trees down!) Given the repetitiveness of thetours, I found this approach an effective way to pick up specialized vocabularyand recognized the importance of recycling when studying a language, an aspect which is built into mylanguage training website, www.sulantra.com.

Having lived in

Malaysia

(see blogentry 10), I dreamed oflearning bahasa Indonesia/Malaysia, but this language was not offered atUBC. In its place I took Mandarin to meetmy Southeast Asian Area Studies program requirements. Initially, I wasn’tthrilled by the prospect of studying Chinese, particularly since the textbookswere from mainland

China

andhorribly dry. Frankly, talking about production quotas on the commune or theenviable output of the Daqing oil fields was not that electrifying. But in the end, my language studies opened up awhole new part of Asia for me, so I stopped rolling my eyesand rolled up my sleeves instead.

Each morning before classes started, I would go to the university’slanguage lab, put on my headphones and endlessly “repeat after me” in Mandarin.Although the material was quirky (wecalled each other “tongzhi”, or comrade), I wasdetermined to master the language of the “Middle Kingdom” and I wasn’t alone.There were always other classmates sitting in nearby cubicles droning away asthey tried to mimic the week’s vocabulary and improve their pronunciation. Slowlybut surely we began to say words then comprehensible phrases, albeit of limiteduse.

The main reason I persevered with the study of Chinese was obviouslynot the course content, but my instructors. Once again, I was willing to jumpthrough hoops because I liked the professors who taught our classes (see blogentry 2). One instructorwas especially memorable, Mrs. S. Originally from Beijing, shecame across as a “lihai tai-tai” (tough cookie), but we soon realized that shewas a softie, keen to help us improve and quick with a smile when we teasedher. At lunchtime, many of us congregated in her office attempting to speak aswe sipped tea from exoticcups with lids.

In initial classes, Mrs. S put on an intimidating mask scaring us intoshowing up on time and getting our homework done. In her first lesson, shewrote three sentences on the blackboard – “Stand up.”, “Sit down.” and“Repeat.” – saying each loudly in Mandarin as she pointed to it. Then sheerased all three phrases. This was the first and last time English was used inher class. Her lessons were conducted entirely in Chinese. In the beginning, Iwas petrified but, thanks to Mrs. S’s efforts, the entire class couldcommunicate at a basic level in the target language by the end of the first term.

At the same time as I was studying Chinese, a close friend was takingJapanese. She was amazed at how the students learning Chinese seemed to beconstantly babbling in Mandarin, whereas the students in her Japanese classcould barely get a greeting out comfortably. Could the languages be sodifferent? (They are.) Was Japanese really so much more challenging? (It’snot.) I decided to investigate for myself.

Using the pretext of wanting to check out a Japanese course beforeenrolling, I sat in on one of my friend’s classes. The instructor, Mrs. M, wascharming with a lovely, gentle manner. She had amazing patience, writing theword or phrase under study slowly and carefully on the board in Japanese thenexplaining it just as slowly and carefully... in English.

For me, this was the crucial factor that explained the difference inprogress between the students learning Chinese and those learning Japanese.Mrs. S was loathe to speak English and would go through a wide range ofcontortions to get her meaning across rather than use it. Mrs. M,on the other hand, was very conversant in English and had no problemsexplaining, particularly with regard to classroom materials. In her soft voiceshe would describe the nuances of the grammar, how the Japanese word order wasalmost the exact opposite of English or how the subject was often dropped. Shewanted the students in her classes to be comfortable and to understandcompletely. This is why she used English to explain. The end result was thather students were unable to use Japanese to communicate.

Looking back, this revelation has had a strong influence on mylanguage learning and classroom teaching. When teaching, I do my best to keeplessons in the target language, training learners to ask for repetition ormeaning in that language. When I am studying a new language, I insist uponlearning key phrases and questions, such as “More slowly, please.” or “How doyou say this?” from the outset. This is what I need to maneuver, to understandand be understood.

In class, I can be a “monster student”, asking the instructor NOT touse English since it will not really benefit me. Some short term pain is worththe long term gain. For the same reason, I prefer to be a part of languagecourses that have a mixture of nationalities. This increases the odds that thelingua franca of the group will be the one which we are learning.

In retrospect, I should have taken Japanese at university since

Japan

iswhere I ended up. But my Chinese studies were not a complete waste. I could readmany things when I arrived in

Japan

becausetheir characters were borrowed from Chinese. Furthermore, several of thestudents in my classes now are from

China

andoccasionally we use their mother tongue to communicate. As they compliment meon my strong Beijing accent,I remember Mrs. S and smile. I owe my ability in Mandarin to her poor English!

20. Somchai, the Good Language Learner/User

2011-10-28T13:10:00.001+09:00

When I started this blog several months ago, I wasn’t sure how far I would get before my brain fizzled. This week marks the 20^th entry – and I have about 30 more outlines in my laptop! It looks like “Fool for Language” will be around for a while.

Having made it this far, I would like to add some other voices to my blog. In fact, my plan is to ask friends – other fools for language – to tell us their stories in every 10^th entry, starting with this one, Fool For Language 20.

My first guest blogger is Paul, another foreigner based in

Japan

, who hales from

New Zealand

. Paul and I have been friends for over 25 years and I suspect he is a bigger “FFL” than I am. He is certainly more methodical and better organized! Enough banter. Time to read his story about “Somchai, the good language learner/user”.

Having been a language teacher for over twenty-five years, I have developed a nasty little habit, a kind of occupational illness. I listen to everyone who comes within range and analyse their speech – the vocabulary, the accent, the volume. In a nutshell, I do in public what you should really only do in the classroom.

Actually, when I said ‘language teacher’ I was being posh. At heart, I’m more of a language learner than a teacher. Teaching is the way I earn my living (and I quite enjoy it), but my main thing is looking at, thinking about, listening to, buying books, CDs, DVDs, films on and in, and travelling to places where I can see, try out and hear other languages. Yes, if someone said “Shall we study Turkish and then go to Istanbul and be tested on it?” I would say “Oh yes, let’s!” And in fact, did.

One fantasy tour of mine is ‘The Dialects Tour’, a trip visiting places well-known for interesting accents. Along with fellow aficionados, I have thought wistfully about being guided by locals to some windswept pub in Cornwall, or some out-of-the-way ryokan inn in Kagoshima to try to decipher what the locals are saying. I jest not. Only three vowels in an Okinawan dialect of Japanese? Off we go! No declensions in the verb “to be” in Devon? I be interested in that trip!

So when I encounter special people, especially when travelling, I listen. One of these was a guy I shall call Somchai, a vendor at the market near my hotel in Chiang Mai,

Thailand

. His usual banter is very familiar to travellers. “Special for you, my friend.” “Very cheap today.” etc. Somchai was not an educated English speaker. He did not concentrate on anything other than selling things at his stall, but could he talk! Along with his mother, he would encourage passerby’s to buy his knick-knacks and Thai delights, such as sticky rice with mango, sweet orange juice and coconuts.

What fascinated me was Somchai’s ability to convey his message so clearly with atrocious grammar and a very limited range of vocabulary. I observe hundreds of ‘institutionalised’ students every week. Ninety-nine percent of them would lose out to Somchai. He didn’t care about accuracy of grammar. He was in a rush. He just wanted to communicate. As long as you understood QUICKLY, he was happy.

Somchai was the complete inverse of many language learners I know. Students and teachers in school focus on getting the sentence, the word, the spelling, etc right. Somchai did not. All he wanted to do was to tell you something. I was intrigued and made copious mental notes, which I will now share with you.

Somchai could REALLY get his point across! He was a great chatterer, what is known as a ‘naturalistic learner’. I asked him how he learnt English. At school? Somchai looked at me as if I were mad. “No,” he said. He slept in school at the back of the room with his twin brother. He learnt from speaking. Although I suspect his actual phrase was more like, “School? You dream! I hear. I speak. I remember.”

I soon became fascinated by Somchai’s ability to communicate. He had no awareness of English grammar, but knew quite a few words. He simply plonked those English words into his own first language’s grammar. Not pretty, but understandable and succinct. “I no like new car he.” I made a note of how many words I heard him use. The total was 538 so I imagine he had an active vocabulary of fewer than 1,000 English words.

If Somchai didn’t know a word, no problem! He would ask for the word and then repeat it, or ask to have it repeated. He got quite angry if the word was repeated at a “teacherese” speed (think ‘slowly and carefully’). He also wanted it in a sentence. He would then repeat the word back in a new sentence of his own making to check if he could use it successfully or not, and then ask “You think good, not good?”

How do we “sum up” a good language learner/user? Somchai could get a new word and made it stick by repeating it, and then using it. He could get new words from speakers of the target language. But in the four years that I greeted Somchai and his mum at that market, he never really made any progress. His weak point was a great “busy-ness” that stopped him ever learning to read any English beyond very simple short words. In all the time that I knew him, I only once pointed out something to him that he valued enough to remember.

Somchai always used ‘he’ for both men and women. In Thai, (and many Asian-Pacific languages, such as Chinese, Thai, Indonesian or Maori) there are no separate words for he and she. Anyway, to Somchai’s ear, English he and she would have sounded almost identical. (Thai has no sh sound, so I think it would have been hard for him to distinguish between them). He would say things like, “My mother he sick now”, which could be confusing for listeners. But I did point this problem out to him, and he took it to heart. It was the only ‘improvement’ he made in four years.

Somchai’s need was to communicate, not to read or write. His lack of attention to detail was woeful. If I tried to drill him, like a teacher, he would tire immediately saying “I

Thai.

I cannot!” Yet, as a communicator in his second language, he was a master. He could out talk them all. I even saw him hold his own with fellow Thais who were university English professors.

When my students ask what is important when trying to communicate in English, I think of Somchai – his essential vocabulary of 1,000 words, his repeating new words, his lack of fuss about not being perfect all the time, and his woeful, but generally communicable, grammar and stories.

In a sense, he had the same kind of affliction I wrote about in my confession at the beginning of this essay – he obsessively listened to the people around him and took in what interested and impressed him. And he made his life more enjoyable by trying out other languages and having fun while doing it.

19. Show me!

2011-10-21T15:37:00.001+09:00

In my earlyyears in

Japan

, my mother and youngest aunt decided topay me a visit. These were“prairie girls” who hadn’t really traveled much and certainly not to some placeas exotic as the land of cherry blossoms and Mount Fuji. For them the trip was a fantasyfulfilled, particularly since I was living off the beaten track on a smallisland in

Japan

’s Inland Sea.

But for me, thevisit was a potential nightmare since I would have to work most days during their visit. What would they doin such an isolated place? How would they get around without any languageability? What if I lost them during their two week visit? The pitfalls were as deep as my imagination.

Of course, Ineedn’t have worried. A small island is hardly a dangerous place to visit and,being from ranching country near the Rocky Mountains, eating large bowls of noodles whiletraveling here and there on ferrieswas as exotic as it gets! Each day we would ride a boat into one of the cities where I worked,planning our itinerary as we sailed past seaside hamlets.

When would I be with them and when would they be on theirown? What time would we meet at the dock and catch the ferry home? As we partedcompany, I felt like I was abandoning them to the fates, but they always seemedto find ways to amuse themselves and returned with exciting tales of theadventures they had had without me.

On oneoccasion, I left them at the gates of Okayama’s Korakuen, a park which is considered oneof the three most beautiful in

Japan

. I said that I would return in 90minutes after my lesson saying “Try not to get into any trouble.” as we partedcompany. But when Ireturned at the appointed time, they were not at the entrance to the park.

I waitedexactly five minutes then went into panic mode. Paying the admission fee, I began to rush around Korakuen in search of my lostfamily members while imagining a growing number of morbid scenarios. It waswhile trying to recollect the local phone number for “Police/Fire/Ambulance”that I suddenly spotted the wayward women surrounded by a group of elderly Japanese.What had they done now?

I approachedthe group to find everyone apparently having a great time in a party-likeatmosphere. There was no bottle of saké in sight to explain the joviality – what was going on? Sauntering up to thegroup, I bowed and smiled at the Japanese seniors then quickly switched to a glare as I faced my mother and aunt, demanding toknow why they were here andnot waiting for me at the entrance gate as planned.

“Oh, chill out.We are in a park and can’t go anywhere. Besides, we were having a great time.”was the rebellious reply from my aunt. How could they be having “a great time”? They didn’t even speak the language.

As it turnedout, they didn’t need to. Bothmy aunt and mother are friendly folk who enjoy the company of people from other countries.My aunt, in particular, is VERY outgoing and communicative. She will stand onher head if this gets her meaning across and helps her understand others. This isapparently what she did inKorakuen.

I was still alittle testy from the imagined horrors of losing them a few minutes earlier anddemanded to know what they had been “talking” about.

“Lots ofthings.” responded my aunt.

“Such as...?” Iasked with a hint of sarcasm.

My aunt’s eyesnarrowed then she went into her monologue. “This is Shige and heretired five years ago from the post office. And this is Mi-chan. She has three children, fivegrandchildren, and one great granddaughter born last month. And this is...” One by one shewent through the group gesturing, pointing and referring to a bizarreassortment of sticks and stones to recollect details for each person. All the while my mother was nodding herhead, adding a back-upchorus of “Mm-hmm.” and “That’s right.”

As she gave the personal details for each person, I did a quick check inJapanese. Amazingly, my aunt’s information was more or less correct! Using acombination of gestures and the objects at her disposal (think pebbles on apark bench), she had been able to elicit information from the elderly group andthen remember it. Another interesting aspect of the encounter: as she talkedabout each person, my aunt’s gestures and the objects she used to convey meaninghelped cue the person being talked about. Each senior was nodding his or herconfirmation when personal details were being explained.

It never ceasesto amaze me how many of my students practically sit on their hands during classrather than use them to explain what they want to say. I have also had locals wave the right hand back and forth in my face, an action which denotes “no”, while declaring, “We Japanese do not use gestures.” The truth is thatevery culture has its own way of expressing meaning with hands, arms, eyes, allbody parts. Some cultures gesturemore than others (think Italians) but we all do it.

As for using objects to clarify meaning, in my world travels I have seenpeople position tableware or move cups and dishes to reinforce the details of astory while enjoying a meal. As for me, I have drawn pictures on a steamy trainwindow in winter to help a fellow traveler better understand what I am talkingabout. There are many ways we can illustrate and convey our meaning.

Illustrating meaning is not without its hurdles, particularly when usinggestures. Non-nativespeakers should recognize there is a difference between gestures which have a genericinterpretation, such as“tipping” an imaginary glass of water to your mouth to indicate you arethirsty, as opposed to gestures which carry a specific meaning in a particular country orculture.

For example, inJapan putting your index fingers on either side of your head like horns on abull indicates that your partner or spouse will be angry. The same gesture in

Sri Lanka

means a person is crazy (see my friend,Chandima, below). These variationscan be fundamental; for example, in English-speaking countries, nodding up and down indicates “yes”, while moving your headfrom left to right means “no”. In the Czech Republic or

Bulgaria

, the opposite is true.

But culturaldifferences should not stop youfrom using your body to communicate. If you are using a gesture that has adifferent meaning in the local culture, chances are you will find out quicklyas eyebrows raise or peoplebegin to giggle. Your attempts to communicate will not soon be forgotten! Gestures are important because they not only convey meaning but make information more memorable. They add “flavor”to your attempts to communicate.

18. A Family Affair

2011-10-14T13:21:00.002+09:00

I worked at Immigrant Services Society (see blog entry 17) for two years and learned as much from my students as I hoped they learned from me. Once we settled into a routine and the women in my classes got used to working with a “foreign” man, things went smoothly and the number of students increased as participants brought friends and family members to join our sessions.

Sometimes a woman would come to me and ask for assistance with a personal challenge or goal, including headaches with immigration documents or employment forms. These could be daunting, although I never really appreciated the hurdles they faced until I moved to

Japan

and was required to wade through similar documents in Japanese.

One day two women came to me with a special dream: they wanted to get driver licenses. We began to study training manuals and take mock tests. They were getting behind-the-steering-wheel experience from family members. The written exam was my domain.

The big day came, the women took their driving tests, and both passed! They announced their achievement in class and we had a party to celebrate. All of the women were thrilled by what their classmates had achieved. What had seemed impossible was now within the grasp of anyone in the group. The atmosphere was electric!

The next week I arrived at ISS to find only a single student, Achirkaur, the oldest woman in the group. Something had gone horribly wrong.

Through broken language and gestures, I began to understand that, upon hearing that two of our members had gotten driver licenses, the men pulled their wives/daughters/sisters from the class. My lessons were perceived as too radical.

Wary of my comprehension of Achirkaur’s explanation, I called in a translator. After some serious discussion, we decided that the only way I could get my students back was to go to the Sikh temple on Saturday and plead directly with male members of each family. I was nervous but Achirkaur said she would go with me. End of discussion.

When Saturday rolled around, I got up early and put on my best suit. I wasn’t sure what to expect but at least I looked presentable. I drove to Achirkaur’s house to find her waiting on the sidewalk dressed in traditional garb and a big smile. At least someone was confident.

We arrived at the Sikh temple – a tall gangly Caucasian man and a small, ancient Indian woman – then sat at the back until the service was over. As people were leaving, Achirkaur waved to specific men asking them to stay behind. They did not look happy but all agreed. (Besides, there were just two of us and about fifteen of them!)

Some of the men began making angry comments almost immediately in a mixture of Punjabi and English. It seems their women were changing too rapidly with expectations that could only lead to trouble (think driver’s license). The mood was aggressive and I wondered if I had done the right thing by coming.

Then something amazing happened. Achirkaur stood up and told the men to sit down – and they did! She began to wave her finger at the men and several looked at the floor. To this day, I am not sure what she said but I know they listened. She was obviously defending our classes (I kept hearing my name pop out of the stream of Punjabi) and demanding the women be allowed to return. It suddenly dawned on me that I was with the strongest ally possible in this community: an old person who was respected and who respected me. I wanted to give her a hug but, of course, didn’t dare!

In the end, an agreement was reached. Once a month we would have a “family night” where I would explain to the men the syllabus for the coming weeks. If they didn’t like what was planned, they could suggest changes. I was even willing to drop topics altogether. This seemed to keep everyone happy and my students were allowed to return to class. It was also a blessing for me since I got to know the men better and not one suggested I change our study program.

This ISS experience helped me to realize a critical need on the road to language learning and life: if possible, involve friends and family members. Over the years I have made a concerted effort to include loved ones in my travels, language adventures, even classroom training. This effort has been for selfish reasons: to create a “common experience” and help me keep my sanity.

Compartmentalizing your life into blocks based on people and locations consumes energy and is stressful. I learned this when I returned to

Canada

from

Malaysia

at the age of nineteen (see blog entries 10 & 13). I had experienced so much that my friends and family had not. My new reality was not theirs and we had grown apart. Endless talking was not going to include them in this exciting new world I had discovered. Only by bringing them into this world would I create common understanding and find some inner peace.

I brought my father to one of our “family night” affairs. He had a great time and his presence seemed to validate my efforts in the eyes of the men, while the women were delighted to discover that he enjoyed eating their dishes as much as I did! Best of all, for my family, my volunteering was no longer some mysterious ritual but something that at least my father understood and was proud of. He was now part of my students’ world and, more importantly, mine.

I have dragged my youngest aunt to

Thailand

and my mother to

Mexico

; my Mexican friends to

Canada

Wales

and

Japan

; my Japanese friends to

Hungary

, my Hungarian friend to just about everywhere. My Bulgarian students have joined me at conferences in Bangkok; my Thai friends have been part of my language research in Istanbul. And so on and so on. I think you get the picture.

The result of this intricate weaving of worlds means that many people in my life share a common reality. My aunt Gwen asks about Suwat in Bangkok. Judit in Budapest asks about the Tanaka’s in Okayama. Humberto in Merida asks about my aunt Ada in Calgary, while Emma and Tina in Sofia want to know what Apisak is up to in Ubon Ratchathani. I answer the questions with delight, content in the knowledge that my life is less compartmentalized, that the walls are crumbling between the worlds I walk in.

17. The REAL World

2011-10-09T17:35:00.002+09:00

After high school, I flourished for a yearin Canada World Youth’s Malaysia program (see blog entry 10), struggled for another year in Ottawamaking ends meet both physically and mentally with the help of a Malaysianfamily (see blog entry 14), and discovered a new world in my own countrywhile teaching Cree kids in northern Manitoba (see blog entry 15). In the autumn of my twentiethyear,I changed my studies from Journalism at Ottawa’s Carleton University and returned to the west coast to major inSoutheast Asian Area Studies at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver. Although not as multi-cultural as Ottawa, Vancouver had its own ethnic flavour, particularly Asian, which suited meperfectly. Or so I thought.

As it turned out, UBC’s “Department of Southeast Asian AreaStudies” wasn’t really a department, but a pastiche of courses glued togetherfrom various faculties in an attempt to offer a cohesive study program. Theresults were very mixed. One term I was dismayed to learn that of the ninepossible courses only two were actually being offered. No one had thought to coordinatesabbaticals between different departments! As for the two courses I could take,they were scheduled at the same time!?

Frustrated by my academic pursuits andmissing the warmth of the Malaysian family that had adopted me in Ottawa, I was wondering if my move to UBC was a mistakewhen Bev, an older student in my Chinese class, approached me about volunteering with a programshe had developed. It involved “moms-and-tots” classes conducted through anorganization called the Immigrant Services Society. Once a week groups of womenwould have a one-hour English lesson while their children were entertained inan adjoining room. At the end of the hour, the moms and kids were united for a final hour of activities beforeheading home.

The ISS program was well-organized andpopular with the women it served; however, there was one problem: they neededmale volunteers. Depending on where they originated from, some of the womenwere unused to interacting with men who were not family members. It was unheardof. Now they were in

Canada

and, if a male bus driver asked if they needed a transfer, some women would panic. Bev’s solution was tolook for a local, non-threatening guy to work with licensed female teachers inthe study sessions to help the women adjust. Apparently I fit the bill.

When Bev asked me about volunteering, Iimmediately said “yes”. It seemed like a great way to learn about anotherculture, as well as to help me get over the frustration of my hodgepodge studyprogram. I soon found myself facing an eager crowd of women of various ages,all dressed in the traditional baggy trousers and tunics of their homeland, thePunjab in India. This was my ISS class. I suspect these women thought me as exotic as I found them but soon we were getting along justfine, particularly since I was a sucker for the sweet treats they would taketurns bringing to class. My favorite was gulab jaman, round donut-likeballs soaked in orange-flavoured syrup. Delicious!

The women in this class were verymotivated but there was almost a sense of desperation to their eagerness. Someweeks I would find a new student who had left her village in

India

for the first time and arrived in

Canada

just a few days before. She was now expected to takepublic transportation, shop for groceries, buy clothing for her children, andfill other domestic tasks in a foreign land and tongue. I couldn’t begin toimagine how frightening their world must be.

To complicate matters, many of these newarrivals were illiterate in their first language so a typical textbook was oflittle use. The bottom line was that they needed linguistic strategies and localknowledge ASAP in order to navigate in the greater society. The cozy coursesthat I had experienced up to that point in French, German and Spanish didlittle to prepare me for the needs of my volunteer work at ISS. And although my Malaysian family in Ottawa had gone through comparable struggles adjusting,they were sheltered by the refined diplomatic world they lived in. The ISSwomen had been thrown into the deep end of a swirling pool.

At ISS, everything we studied had to be practical and for immediate use. For example, we wouldscrutinize the meaning of clothing label icons then head to a department store to inspect the realthing, mortifying clerks as our entourage went through the racks identifyingwhich garments would cost the least and last the longest. Bus drivers wouldbegin to roll their eyes as student after student requested the same ticket andtransfer for an identical journey. Dressed in traditional garb, the women stoodout. But they tried their hardest to communicate with what little language theyhad, and most locals reciprocated with patienceand encouragement.

For this is what good people do when they see a non-nativemaking a valiant effort to communicate in the local vernacular: they becomepart of the process, clarifying, encouraging, suggesting words that the visitor or immigrant needsto understand and to be understood.

To this day, my approach to learning alanguage, as well as teaching in my own classes, is one of practicality. Howwill I apply the classroom material in the real world? Can I adapt the languageand strategies to work in a range of contexts? My eyes glaze over when a teacher begins to drone on about sentenceconstructions, or introduces ridiculous phrases like “This is a hedgehog.”Where is the application in reality?! At such times, I remember the ISS womenand understand how much they have colored my attitude toward learning alanguage. And I remember their gulab jaman, too!

16. Whining About Wine

2011-09-30T10:33:00.002+09:00

This week’s blog entry will stray off the language learning/teaching path but it does involve a large dollop of cultural conundrum. I spent a good part of this summer overseas in several countries working on my language training website, www.sulantra.com. On the way home to Japan, I had a rather messy journey due to a well-meant present received from friends in Sofia, Bulgaria. Later, I wrote a message with words of warning about future gifts for overseas visitors which I e-mailed to a few select friends. They all enjoyed my effort and suggested that I upload the adventure tale to my blog; thus, I present the story below. Enjoy!

LETTER TO A FRIEND IN SOFIA:

Just a quick note from the Narita Express train. I am almost home after living out of a suitcase for six weeks. But before I arrive and the memories subside, I want to spin you a cautionary tale. You really, really must tell everyone in Sofia NEVER to give a present of Bulgarian wine to someone heading to the airport. No matter how delicious the contents, it may sour considerably on the road. This is my sad story.

I packed the precious bottle of wine that Mitko and Beti gave me very carefully in my suitcase – in a mailing tube surrounded by a cotton sweater then tied in a Japanese wrapping cloth for added effect. At first, things seemed to go relatively well. Upon my arrival in Istanbul, I claimed my excessively heavy suitcase (32.4 kilos!) and proceeded to my hotel. So far, so good.

The next day, I bought a few more things (several kilos of olives, CD’s, the usual evil eye trinkets) then carefully repacked my suitcase so that the new purchases would fit in perfectly. I carefully placed the “wine tube” at the bottom of my suitcase to balance the weight and, armed with my passport and a printed version of my online ticket, confidently headed to Istanbul’s Attaturk Airport to check in for my flight. Upon arrival, I was smiling my way through the security check when an official abruptly stopped me. It seems something had shown up on the scanners. Was I carrying a bottle of wine perhaps?

I had to completely unpack my suitcase in front of many curious official Turkish eyes then repack it as a crowd gathered. Everyone was particularly impressed by my wine tube creation. One young female Customs official even nodded her approval and complimented me on my incredible fussiness.

The entire process felt like a form of public humiliation (“Do you tourists really need to take pictures?”) and took forever. I now found myself dashing about lugging a horribly overweight suitcase as I faced more lines, more officials, and glares from other travelers as I tried to jump assorted queues. Still I managed to check-in without being charged for excess baggage so I shouldn’t really complain.

Next stop: Doha, Qatar. This time I was a tad stressed crossing the border since it had occurred to me in-flight that I didn’t have a visa and wasn’t sure if I needed one. I dreaded the official interrogation which obviously lay ahead. As I stood in line for Qatari Immigration, the sweat beads began to form on my brow. Would I be detained, held in custody in a small windowless cell? I’ve watched a few too many inflight movies...

As things turned out, the procedure was relatively painless – a few questions followed by a credit card payment for 100 lira. But wait. Could that be a bottle of alcohol in your suitcase?

Once again, I had to unpack EVERYTHING in front of curious eyes and produce the notorious bottle of Bulgarian wine. This time they confiscated the contraband and provided me with a receipt, all the while chiding me that alcohol was illegal hereabouts. I was told that, if I left the country within a two-week period, I could pick up my precious bottle; otherwise, the goods in question would be destroyed as all evil things should be. The entire process took about an hour, which meant my good friend, Ozgur, was forced to wait outside for over an hour in the Arrivals area uncertain as to whether I had missed my flight – or worse – in Istanbul. Welcome to Qatar.

My time in Doha was short and busy with visits to Qatar University’s women’s campus and a surreal interlude at a shopping center that resembled a Las Vegas hotel without the alcoholic trimmings. Before I knew it, I was heading once again for Doha International Airport. I left plenty of time in order to pick up my elusive bottle of wine but I wasn’t exactly sure how I would go about retrieving it.

At the check-in counter for my flight they said that I could pick up the bottle after I checked in my suitcase and cleared Immigration. I dutifully did both then wandered about looking for a “Confiscated Alcohol and Other Wicked Items” office. It turned out to be hidden in the back of the terminal with a mountain of contraband goods piled outside the door. I knocked but there was no answer. Again I waited.

After several minutes, an attendant finally popped his head out and before he could scurry away, I produced my receipt and asked for my bottle of Bulgarian wine. He looked rather irritated and said that it would take 20-30 minutes to retrieve since it was in another terminal. I said that I could wait. He mumbled something under his breath and sauntered off.

I spent about 40 minutes checking out the duty free area where I purchased several boxes of dates, the local “must have” souvenir. Then I headed back to the “confiscated alcohol” office. No one was in sight so I waited and waited... and waited!

Finally, a woman walked out of the office and I pounced. I politely explained that I was going to miss my flight, that I didn’t really drink and the only reason I was waiting so long for the bottle of wine was because it was a gift from dear, dear friends and not because I am an alcoholic. The woman sighed, disappeared behind the closed door and did not reappear.

Eventually the original official walked past and I asked about my bottle of Bulgarian wine. Ah, yes, the Bulgarian wine. He reappeared with the goods in question, which I seized and frantically tried to stuff into my carry-on bag. Thanks to my newly purchased dates, this was impossible. I had to unload the carry-on bag, rearrange my boxes of dates, computer, etc. and FINALLY managed to get everything loaded before frantically rushing to board my plane. Safe at last – or so I thought.

There proved to be one last hurdle. My travel agent neglected to tell me that my flight did not go directly to Tokyo but made a stopover in Osaka where everyone had to de-board and GO THROUGH A SECURITY CHECK!! Of course, the Japanese officials insisted on taking the bottle of wine in my carry-on bag. Of course, I insisted that it was a gift from dear, dear, DEAR friends and that I would slit my wrists in front of their surveillance machine if I had to part with it.

A Qatar Airways staff member was called to assist with this difficult passenger. She was not happy. I was told that the bottle would be put in a large plastic bag then tagged, but that it would have to go into the baggage hold with all of the other luggage. If it broke, Qatar Airways could not be held responsible.

Thinking on my feet, I hurriedly pulled out my neck pillow, inflated it with lightning speed, and attached it to the bottle by wrapping the pillow in my pajama bottoms which I always carry at times like these. I then removed my computer from its protective case and stuffed the bottle into the latter. There was no place for the QA woman to attach her baggage tag but I was one step ahead of her. I quickly produced a collapsible bag and put the now rather weird shaped package into it. I crossed my fingers as the attendant attached the baggage tag to the bundle and then stuck the claim stub to my ticket glaring as she did so.

When I arrived at Narita Airport in Tokyo my suitcase was the first item off. I happily loaded it on to a baggage cart then waited for The Bottle... and waited... and waited. Of course, it was the last item to appear on the carousel and I was probably the last person to leave Narita from my QA flight. The good news is that the bottle somehow survived all of this pandemonium. The bad news is that I have most likely been blacklisted by Qatar Airways and will never be able to board one of their flights again.

Next time you are asked what a nice gift would be for someone returning to Japan perhaps a hot pan full of steaming banitsa pastry covered in yogurt sauce would be easier to transport.

P.S. My life is now back to normal – although I suspect that the psychological scarring from the above adventure(s) is permanent.

15. Homeward Bound

2011-09-23T14:52:00.001+09:00

At 20, I decided to change my studies from Journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa and major in Southeast Asian Area Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. I said a tearful good-bye to my Malaysian family (see entry 14), a “two boxes of kleenex” event as my aunt Gwen would say, then began the long trek back to the West Coast along the Trans Canada Highway. Having limited funds, I decided to hitchhike the 3,500 kilometers (2200 miles) home, staying with CWY/JCM alumni here and there to save money. About half way to Vancouver, I stopped to visit two of these friends, Donna and Claude, in Winnipeg, Manitoba where I stumbled upon a job for the summer.

The Manitoba provincial government had several work programs for their youth, including tutorial positions in creative programs for local kids. Armed with Donna’s Winnipeg address and experience with my Malaysian family, I landed a teaching job working with native children and soon found myself on a bus headed to the small Manitoba town of Cranberry Portage.

The program that I was hired on had two very different goals for three groups of students. The first goal over the initial two two-week terms was to help native children from isolated northern communities adjust to a more structured classroom environment. The participants would have to leave their rural homes and move to larger towns and cities in order to complete their secondary school education, and we were supposed to assist them in this major transition in their young lives. The second goal of the third and final term was to give kids from Winnipeg’s tough inner city the chance to escape their rough and tumble daily life for two weeks of fun by a lake while working on school subjects – a kind of summer school in the wilds.

I was responsible for instructing the kids in mathematics, a subject that I enjoy and, given the level, felt qualified to teach. As for outdoor activities, I was supposed to train everyone in canoeing, including the intricacies of canoe-over-canoe rescue techniques just in case a craft started to sink. But there was a slight problem: I couldn’t tell which end of a canoe was the front!

Fortunately, we were given a crash course in “how to hold a paddle” and by the time the first group of children arrived I was ready to impart my newfound wisdom on them, or so I thought. As it turned out, the children taught me some things since all of them were at home in a canoe. Some even helped their parents manage trap lines (fur trading was a source of income for many of their families), skillfully gliding their boats over lakes and rivers much better than I ever would.

The children were from one of

Canada

’s largest First Nation’s groups, the Cree, and they communicated in their mother tongue as we paddled along. The bad news was that they spent most of their “training time” on the water cracking jokes about my less than stellar canoeing skills. The good news was that they taught me a range of Cree phrases connected to life on the lake.

Working with these kids I began to realize that I didn’t need to wander far to experience a completely new world. They told me which plants were edible as we trudged along forest paths. They explained the complex process of skinning an animal then tanning the pelt so that it could be used for clothing. I was taught how to cook a beaver (you boil the meat first to remove the large amount of fat) and I even learned how to do traditional Cree beadwork, a hobby I enjoy to this day. Each of these activities was important in their culture but the language needed sometimes did not even exist in English.

Learners of a new language may desperately search for an equivalent meaning in their mother tongue for every word or phrase. Too often they view unique items with frustration asking “How do you say this?” when there is no exact answer. Each language is filled with culturally-based terms and concepts which cannot be translated directly. You just have to accept them at face value, developing an innate understanding, a “feel” for the meaning based on the context and examples around you.

I recently spent time in Sofia,

Bulgaria

with some local friends. Over dinner they referred to one of their group as being “sert”. When I asked for clarification, everyone started piling definition upon definition.

“Well, someone who is kind of hard-headed.”

“No, more like strict… or serious.”

“Kind of uptight.”

“Yes, but not mean or nasty.”

This went on for a while and I began to panic. Then I looked across at the young woman they were referring to. Confident, organized, a person who helps but does not suffer fools. Ah, “sert”!

Unique terms like “sert” should be appreciated for the special “flavour” they impart to a language. They are a gift of knowledge and help you to better understand a culture.

A few years ago, Tomson Highway, a prominent Canadian author of Cree descent, stayed at my home in

Japan

for several days. When I mentioned that I still remembered some of the language the children had taught me that distant summer in northern Manitoba, he decided to test me. As I blurted out phrases he suddenly began to smile. Apparently the kids had done their job well and my accent was pretty good. But the phrase I thought meant, “You have a nice canoe.” had a much more risqué meaning. The kids had taught me a thing or two – and gotten the last laugh!

14. Reintegration: Coming Home

2011-09-19T14:34:00.000+09:00

At 19, I returned from

Malaysia

a mess. I was homesick for a place that a year earlier I didn’t even know existed and was suffering from a severe case of “reverse culture shock” (see Blog 13). After spending a few months of hell with my family on Vancouver Island, I moved to Ottawa and attended Carleton University where I began to reinvent myself. I found a house with occupants from Quebec and

Indonesia

so that I could use French and Bahasa Indonesia/Malaysia regularly, made new friends from Columbia to improve my Spanish, and worked with CWY/JCM’s Fijian program as a volunteer. (I can still sing the Fijian welcoming song.) At school, I created an animated short film called “Learn a Language, Learn More” as part of my Journalism program, which was Carleton’s entry in a national animation festival.

I was thrilled to be living in Ottawa with its eclectic markets catering to embassy families from around the world, but I couldn’t afford the goods on display. I was a starving student and needed part-time work so I began knocking on doors, including the Malaysian High Commission’s. There I landed a job as the private tutor to the family of the newly-appointed Deputy High Commissioner – my first language teaching job!

Before heading to the High Commission, I had prepared a 5-minute speech in Malay about the wonders of my CWY/JCM experience. Buffalo leeches crawling up my legs in rice paddies, a weekend spent at the Sultan of Kedah’s mountaintop palace, sleeping under a basket of skulls in an Iban longhouse in Sarawak – I think you get the picture. I marched into the High Commission and asked to see “someone in charge” (these were pre high security days) then poured out my monologue for the unsuspecting cultural attaché standing in front of me.

As it turned out, he was Indian-Malaysian and didn’t really understand much of what I said (at least this is what his open mouth and frightened gaze suggested). However, the Malay secretary who had summoned him jumped up and squealed, “Bagus! Bagus!” (Great! Great!). Within a week I was the private English and French tutor for the Deputy High Commissioner’s family. They had arrived in

Canada

just two weeks earlier and my job consisted of language classes each week with his wife, five daughters ranging in age from 3 to 14, and two brothers-in-law. In retrospect I probably used a lot of Malay with smatterings of English and French. Writing this, I have guilt pangs about how little I taught them, particularly since it was my involvement with this wonderful family that saved me, that finally brought my head back home.

Working with people from other countries living in your culture can not only help maintain or even improve your language skills, but might also open your eyes to the uniqueness of your own world. Too often we take for granted what sits in front of us. By assisting others, we really begin to think about who we are, about the beauty – or hardship – of where we come from. At least this was true for me.

And my Malaysian family? I taught in their home two days a week for peanuts, but was always well-fed and treated as one of them. My joy at being immersed in a Malaysian atmosphere was evident as I made every effort to assist each member of the family as they adjusted to life in

Canada

. For the reality was that they were helping me reintegrate into my own culture.

I became a kind of chaperone, escorting family members out into the big, bad world of Ottawa. This included accompanying the High Commissioner’s wife to official functions and acting as her personal translator. Despite my limited language skills, it wasn’t difficult since everyone seemed to ask the same innocuous questions at the cocktail parties she dutifully attended but hated.

To break the monotony of the party circuit, we sometimes made up silly answers to the sillier questions just to see if the polite questioners were really listening.

“How do you like Canadian food?”

“Oh, the blueberries are wonderful in curry...”

I think people must have found us a disturbing pair – a tall, gangly youth escorting an older Asian woman dressed from head to toe in traditional garb with her face showing through a voluminous scarf, giggling in the corner over our little pranks.

One brother-in-law of the High Commissioner published a newspaper article in a Kuala Lumpur newspaper about a “crazy Canadian” who babbled in Malay after only a few months in

Malaysia

, wore sarongs at home, and ate the hottest of curries with his hands (a feat Malays feel most foreigners are incapable of). While in CWY/JCM, I had brought several Malaysians home for a week on Vancouver Island so that my family could join the experience. Unfortunately, these friends sent clippings of the article from Kuala Lumpur to my family home.

When my mother opened the first letter, a newspaper clipping dropped to the floor. All she could see was a cropped picture of her eldest son smiling out from an incomprehensible newspaper article. She assumed that I had returned to

Malaysia

and became frantic, leaving hysterical messages with my housemates in Ottawa, none of whom understood what she was babbling about. (Quebecois and Indonesians, remember?) Their reports made me think that SHE had flown to Kuala Lumpur since I was not aware the newspaper article had been written!

But my mother was justified in worrying about me. I was truly addicted to things Malaysian. By the end of my year at Carleton, I had decided to change my major from Journalism to Asian studies at the University of British Columbia, specifically Southeast Asian Area studies. To my knowledge, I was the first student ever enrolled in this program and might have been the last, since it no longer exists.

(If you are really a fool for languages,check out my language learning website, www.sulantra.com, with courses from andto English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Bulgarian, Thai, German andKorean!)

13. Walk the talk – into a shock!

2011-09-03T01:05:00.000+09:00

I spent a year as a participant in Malaysia on the Canada World Youth/Jeunesse Canada Monde program and the experience left its mark. I fell in love with my host country – the people, climate, food, customs, EVERYTHING – and returned to my family on the West Coast of Canada a complete wreck. I remember staring blankly at a TV screen while being wrapped in a blanket to ward off the chill – in AUGUST. Or sprinkling chili powder on my mashed potatoes to unsuccessfully duplicate the spicy taste of the food that I missed so much. My parents wondered what kind of creature their son had turned into. So did I. Now I know that what I was going through is called “reverse culture shock”, and I was suffering from a bad case of it.

You expect differences when you leave and travel for an extended period overseas; however, it is very unsettling to discover that sometimes when you return home, nothing is the same. In my case, my brain felt twisted in knots. I was homesick for the wilds of Malaysia – and I mean seriously wild. At the end of my Malaysian sojourn, I had lived for six weeks with an Iban family in a longhouse in the jungles of Borneo with a net full of etched skulls suspended over my bed to protect me from evil (although I can’t say that I would want to protect anyone if it was my skull stuck in that net!), staring down at me as I went to sleep each night. Now I was staring at walls in my parents’ home wondering why I didn’t want to step outside. If I had had the choice, I never would have boarded the plane back to Canada.

I came to realize that the family nest would never be the same, would never come close to providing the excitement that I had experienced outside of my own culture. I would watch as the eyes of close friends glazed over within minutes of me describing adventures in Malaysia. Fish head curries, Borneo jungles, skulls suspended over beds – these were not part of their reality. I soon learned to limit my travel talk if I brought it up at all. I became silent and sullen, homesick for a land far away and the friends who had shared my experiences there, while gradually growing apart from the people I had known before CWY/JCM. These were my darker days.

With language comes cultural experiences that may change our tastes and perspectives in ways we do not bargain on. Getting deeply involved in another culture may result in separation from your own. Or maybe we just see the home front differently, are more critical of things we took for granted and accepted in the past. You become a different person, not better, nor worse. Just different. And such in-depth experience has an impact on one’s language, too.

Once after moving to Japan, I was at home in Canada talking with a friend in Japan when I felt my mother’s stare. After I hung up, she said quietly, “Do you know that you bow when you talk on the phone now?” I had never thought about it, but she was right. Most of my body language – the bows, the nods – had a distinctly Japanese flavor. And when I shook hands, I always brought my right hand back to my heart as the men do in Malaysia. As for my speech, I still gasp, “Aiya!” when I am surprised by something, a Chinese manifestation picked up in Mandarin class at university long ago. Yes, I have incorporated a variety of influences into my speech from the languages that I have studied over the years and have become a Heinz 57 of foreign idiosycracies, both in speech and gestures.

And I am not the only one. Several friends who have lived long term in Japan then returned to their home countries slip unknowingly into the patois of Japanese and their mother tongue they used to communicate in Japan, even years after being back home. I have a close friend, Miss D, whose sympathy noises or tag questions are always delivered in Japanese when I visit her in Vancouver. For me, this “mixing of languages” holds an intimacy. It brings back memories of shared experiences from another time and place, acknowledging that we have a special history together.

They say that once you have lived overseas for an extended period you can never go back home. Maybe not, but you can create a new home and possibly even a new language shared with the most intimate of friends.

Fortunately, after returning from Malaysia and spending a few months of hell with my family, I moved to Ottawa to begin studying Journalism at Carleton University. I found a house with half of the occupants from Quebec and the other half from Indonesia, so I got to practice French and Bahasa Indonesia/Malaysia on a daily basis. Maybe I was avoiding reality, but I prefer to think of it as creating a new one.

(If you are really a fool for languages,check out my language learning website, www.sulantra.com, with courses from andto English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Bulgarian, Thai, German andKorean!)

12. A Strategy for the Street: Eliciting

2011-08-26T19:15:00.000+09:00

If you have taken language classes in school then your understanding of how to pick up new vocabulary may be a little distorted. It probably involves memorizing endless lists of words out of context then regurgitating them for exams where you are penalized for minor spelling mistakes that native speakers make even though the essence is intact (think “seperate” vs. “separate”). Afterward, the vocabulary you “learned” grows fuzzy and harder to recollect as you move on to the next list of arbitrarily selected “useful” words and phrases.

At the tender age of 18 I ended up on the streets of Malaysia and realized that 99% of the language that I had studied was not going to get me very far. I had never learned the name of that exotic fruit which looked like nothing I had ever seen before. How was I supposed to bargain for a pair of sandals or a tube of toothpaste? What in the world was the word for diarrhea – and the medicine that I needed to stop it? No, the typical language class doesn’t stray as far off the beaten track as I had. How would I ever pick up the language that I needed?

I presently teach in a technical university, working with students from a range of engineering backgrounds. I do not delude myself into believing that I can provide them with all of the language they will need to function should they end up in a workplace overseas. What I can give them, however, is a strategy for collecting language. I call it eliciting and it works like this.

The first stage of eliciting is to recognize when you don’t know a word and need help. This may seem obvious but a surprising number of second language learners just don’t do it. Why? Because they have been conditioned to show what they do know in class and on exams, not what they do not. To suggest their knowledge of a new language is incomplete is considered “bad”, a reflection on their limited ability. Which is very ridiculous. How in the world are you going to improve, especially on site, if you don’t ask those around you for assistance?

Once you admit that a word or phrase is not at your fingertips, you send up a warning flag to the person you are talking with and make them aware of your predicament, psychologically setting them up to help. In English, you might begin with “How do you say...?” or “What do you call...?” Next, you focus their attention on the type of word you want, for example, “How do you say a thing used for…?”, “What do you call a person who…?”, or “What is a place where you…?”

Finally, start throwing out ANYTHING that will get your meaning across. You want the other person to understand and give you the necessary language. The explanation does not have to be grammatically correct, or spoken at all. Gestures can often convey what you want much more effectively than words.

After a struggle of this kind, the language will probably be much more memorable than if you had looked it up in a dictionary, not to mention the other person will have remained engaged in the conversation. There is nothing worse than having a conversation with someone armed with a dictionary. Key words are painfully located by the endless flipping of pages as eyes glaze over and other engagements are suddenly remembered. Dictionaries are fine for writing essays or love letters, but disastrous in face-to-face encounters. They cut the conversation into pieces generating words that, given the time lag, lose their meaning and may be incorrect by local standards anyway. One man’s “spatula” is another’s “fish slice”... or “lifter”!

Instead of being “book-based” (or “battery-based” in the case of electronic dictionaries) in a conversation, I use the words I have already learned combined with gestures to elicit the words that I need from the other person. It can be challenging at first, but you will be surprised at how willing people are to help. The more you go out on a limb to get your meaning across, the more successful you will be at building up your vocabulary.

Many years ago, my youngest aunt, Gwen, visited me in Japan along with my mother. During the course of their visit, Gwen became afflicted with constipation. As we passed a pharmacy, she suggested picking up some medicine to relieve her uncomfortable condition. She dragged me up to the counter where I stood stupidly staring at the pharmacist. At the time, I had some spoken Japanese but didn’t know the word for “constipation”.

Oh, sure, I managed to blurt out “How do you say... a kind of sickness... you travel... too much rice...?” The pharmacist was completely engrossed by my babbling but had absolutely no idea of what I wanted to say. Suddenly Gwen said something like, “Oh, for goodness sake!”, pushed me aside and began to gesture. She did a remarkably authentic rendition of someone seated on a toilet and straining to produce... well, you get the picture. And so did the pharmacist and a gathering crowd of onlookers. There was a spontaneous chorus of “Bempi!”, the word in question, which I have never forgotten.

My first realization of the importance of asking for words took place when I was about thirteen years old. My youngest brother, Keith, was about one year old and sitting on my lap. I was testing to see how many words he could remember by asking, “What’s that?” and pointing at assorted objects in the living room. Suddenly he interrupted, pointed at a ladybug crawling across the table that I had not noticed at all, and said “Whazzat?” I stared, then blurted out, “A ladybug.”

Although he had absolutely no idea of how many words he had just stated, Keith (or Keithie as I called him in those days) sounded like a native speaker. He had learned this key question as a “chunk”, or “formula”, and was now armed to pick up the words HE wanted to learn, not what others intended to “teach” him. A question like “What’s that?” or “How do you say this?” can be easily introduced and learned from the moment you start studying a language. I know because I have done it many times in a range of languages, and have incorporated it into my language training website.

Asking for the language I needed in Malay when I was 18 served me well and I still remember many of the words that I picked up to this day. And, if I don’t, I can very easily get them again by eliciting.

11. Food for Thought

2011-08-20T01:02:00.004+09:00

When I arrived in Malaysia at the tender age of eighteen, I was totally unprepared for what I encountered. The climate was too humid, the smells around me too intense, and the food was like nothing I had eaten before. For someone who had never tasted a chili before, the spicy heat of my first local dish was brutal. The burning sensation seemed to scorch my tongue, shred my throat and melt my very toenails! I ended surviving on a steady diet of bananas and lost about 15 kilos in my first few weeks. Finally, I was told by the coordinators that, if I didn’t start eating properly, I might as well go home.

This was the magic bullet. The idea of heading back to a gray winter on Vancouver Island was even more terrifying than the local cuisine and, after surprisingly little effort, I soon found myself in love with the spices, eating with my hands, wearing sarongs and sleeping on the floor. In other words, I had adapted and gone native.

I once taught in a small college at the base of Mount Fuji which had a study program with a school in Bulgaria. When they arrived from Sofia, the young women who attended our college impressed everyone with their linguistic skills. Not only could they understand the lectures and carry on a reasonable conversation in Japanese, but they were competent in the written language as well. They had even studied the tea ceremony for several years before arriving in Japan! But there was one hitch: the Bulgarian ambassadresses had trouble with Japanese food.

In all of the years that they had studied the language, these young women had not really had a chance to try Japanese home cooking and the ingredient that seemed the most repugnant for their Slavic tastebuds was dashi, the fish stock ubiquitous to most Japanese dishes. They didn’t like the smell of it and passed judgment on food which contained it long before a morsel had reached their mouths. Dashi was for them what chilies had been for me in Malaysia repulsive.

As things turned out, the women from Sofia eventually grew accustomed to the Japanese version of fish stock. Now when I visit them in Bulgaria, they request the instant version as a souvenir. And as for my aversion to chilies, I carry around a bottle of hot sauce with me at all times.

I feel sorry for those “ex-patriots” who wrap themselves in the safe cocoon of friends from the homeland while dining primarily on familiar foods just like mom or Macdonalds used to make “back home”. These same people more often than not never make an attempt to learn the local language, pleading its complexity as an excuse while creating a quasi version of their home away from home that is safe, secure, and ultimately limiting.

If you obviously enjoy the cuisine of a country, you have opened a very large door to the culture. People feel good when you show an appreciation for their typical diet. I now realize that refusing to sample a dish that someone has gone to the trouble of preparing for you can be very offensive. To me, there is nothing ruder than saying “No, thank you.” before even giving something a try. Some of my students do this when I invite a class to my home for dinner. It leaves a bad taste.

So, if you are heading to a country, prepare yourself by tasting the local delicacies in advance on your home turf, either by going to a restaurant or finding recipes online that you can prepare in the safety of your kitchen. The effort may be more valuable than you can imagine.

After returning from Malaysia and before coming to Japan, I began to explore the dishes of Asia with friends in Canada. Fortunately, I first lived in Ottawa where the presence of embassies guarantees a steady supply of exotic ingredients in the local market. Later, I moved to Vancouver, a city which seems to have a restaurant from every corner of the globe on each street. Among the dishes I discovered, sushi was one of my favorites. And this love of raw fish and rice helped me land my first job in Japan.

A friend was in the final stages of being hired for a job in Japan but developed cold feet. Instead of going to the last interview in Los Angeles, he handed me his ticket (you could do things like that in those days) and said, “You have more experience. Go instead of me.” So I did.

When I walked into the interview, the three men sitting across from me in business suits were nonplussed. When they realized that the young man in front of them was not the person they had intended to rubber stamp and hire, they held a rather tense discussion in Japanese at the end of which they suggested we go for lunch. This plan suited me fine since I was starving. As we ate, I extolled my virtues, explaining that I had much more teaching experience than my friend, all the while stuffing myself with succulent morsels of raw fish and rice. And I got the job!

I discovered the truth about a year later when one of the men who had interviewed me showed up at my workplace to see how I was doing. We went out in the evening and, over drinks he confessed that I had presented them with a major headache that day in Los Angeles. They needed a teacher badly, but were mortified since I was a complete stranger. Then they decided on the plan of taking me for lunch. It seems my predecessor was not a fan of Japan’s cuisine and made life miserable for his superiors. In my case, I might turn out to be a mediocre teacher, but at least I wouldn’t starve and create problems for the Personnel Section.

Yes, food can be an excellent entry to another culture and a new job!

10. Malaysia: Sensory Overload!

2011-08-05T13:38:00.003+09:00

In my 18th summer, I was notified that I had been selected to join the inaugural year of Canada World Youth/Jeunesse Canada Monde, an exotic exchange program to develop international understanding between my homeland and the rest of the world, and would soon be heading to

Malaysia

. I had really wanted to go to

Mexico

and improve my nascent Spanish and was not overjoyed with the new destination. I didn’t even know where

Malaysia

was on a map! But after putting in a little time at the library I realized that, of the five possible CWY/JCM destinations,

Malaysia

was the furthest away, hovering above the equator on the other side of the planet. That was enough incentive for me.

As it turned out, the coming year was life-changing. I made friends who would last a lifetime and fell in love with

Malaysia

, a country that was off the beaten track and like nothing I had experienced thus far. But it wasn’t all easy going. Sure, I had wandered the streets of Montreal and Paris babbling in broken French. But there was still some familiarity, the feeling that you weren’t too far from home. When we touched down on the tarmac of Kuala Lumpur International Airport in January of 1973, it was like landing on the moon!

Although many instructors approach language training with neat and tidy formulas in self-contained boxes, the reality is a lot messier. With language comes the wild card: culture. Food, fashion, feelings are all part of the loaded package you receive when you take those first shaky steps in a new tongue. In the case of

Malaysia

, simply getting there opened the door to “culture shock”.

In the good old days direct flights didn’t exist to Southeast Asia. Our group of eighty participants left

Canada

in the freezing winter, spent a day in the cold drizzle of London,

England

, refueled in the middle of the cool, dry desert night of Dubai then landed in the intense mid-day heat of Kuala Lumpur. The acclimatization process had been put on fast forward and none of us was prepared for the dense humidity of KL. Disembarking the plane, it felt like walking into a wall of steamy dampness, a wet sponge that pressed against your face and seemed to smother you. Just breathing was a struggle as the tropical world surrounding us moved in slow motion.

And it wasn’t only the climate. We were whisked away on a bus to spend our first evening in a kind of training camp where we partook of our first real Malaysian meal. Sure we had practiced “makan dengan tangan” – eating with our hands – during orientation in Ontario and had tasted a watered down version of the local food, but nothing could prepare me for that first meal.

We sat on benches at long tables as local staff placed oversized bowls of a suspicious yellow liquid in front of each person. With a tense smile glued to my face, I dipped my spoon into the smelly broth (which I now recognize as curry) and from the depths of the murky liquid, a grotesque creature emerged – literally! My spoon had dredged up the large, bulbous-eyed head of a fish, its mouth hanging open with the curry broth dripping from between the rows of little teeth. For a boy from the Prairies who only knew fish as something that came in a can, that first meal was like being cast in a horror movie!? Listlessly moving my spoon around in the bowl so as not to disturb the contents, I eventually pushed it away mumbling something about not being hungry.

As it turned out, all Malaysian food was a challenge for me because the main ingredient seemed to be chilies. By the end of the first week, I was surviving on bananas (fortunately, Malaysia has an amazing range of them). Between the heat and fear of the local cuisine, I was soon losing drastic amounts of weight – about 15 kilograms in my first month.

Then there was the language. In fact, Bahasa Malaysia was surprisingly easy, particularly the version used in the marketplace, called pasar melayu. The pronunciation was painless (no exotic tones like Chinese) and the grammar was a breeze – put the word “telah” before the verb and you were speaking in the past tense, say “akan” before the same verb and you were discussing the future. Even plurals were simply formed by saying the word twice. Two scripts were used, the ABC’s and “jawi”, or Arabic script, and the writing system was phonetic with many words from English. “Teknoloji” (technology), “sains” (science), “sekolah” (school) – with a little effort I could soon figure out the signs in the marketplace or read a restaurant menu.

When I tried to communicate the real hurdle was my lack of vocabulary. I just didn’t have enough words for the things I needed to do each day. I was forever pointing and asking “Apa cakap ini?” – “How do you say this?” But little by little, the words came, the sounds and smells grew familiar, and I became more comfortable walking about in my sarong than in the long trousers I had brought from

Canada

for official functions.

Language is only the wrapping paper for an amazing gift – the chance to enter another world, to grow and move in new directions. Years later the first group of CWY/JCMers still has reunions to celebrate our youthful adventure, to acknowledge the road we wandered down so many years ago. Some of us went back to our hometown with a deeper appreciation of who we were and where we came from. Others, like me, became gypsies, wandering from country to country, culture to culture. But later experiences have never been quite so deep, disturbing or delightful as that first time in Malaysia.

9. Have an Attitude

2011-07-29T12:11:00.001+09:00

In the spring of my final year at high school, I discovered a poster taped to the door of the counselor’s office announcing a new and intriguing exchange program called Canada World Youth, or Jeunesse Canada Monde. It seemed a wealthy philanthropist was undertaking an unusual social experiment with 240 young people from across

Canada

. The lucky participants would be trained for several months then sent off to one of five different countries for six months. Upon their return, they would then live in Canadian communities with participants from the exchange country, introducing their culture to others while learning more about their own country. The details were vague, but the prospect of spending a year on the road was thrilling and soon the school halls were buzzing with excitement.

Once the initial euphoria died down, however, the general consensus of my peers was of the “I-don’t-have-a-chance” variety. Many of my friends picked up the application form but put down their pencils after answering only a few questions. They seemed to be saying, “What’s the point?”, passing a personal verdict even before entering the arena. What was the big deal? I simply filled in the form, dropped it in the post, crossed my fingers, and moved on to my math homework, forgetting about the application until a few weeks later when I received an official reply. I had passed the first stage of the selection process and would attend an “evaluation session” in Vancouver!

CWY/JCM was looking for a cross section of the population: male and female, rural and urban, well-off or of limited means, francophone, anglophone, kids from every province and territory – I wasn’t sure where I fit in but I apparently filled a niche and made it past the first screening. A few weeks later, I found myself in a cavernous hall in Vancouver along with about one hundred other youths being observed by serious looking “evaluators” in lab coats with clipboards and pens. We were divided into small groups, herded on to large plastic sheets, handed a box of clay, and left to our own devices without a single direction. Just silence.

Some individuals started muttering about “guinea pigs” and/or “a bloody waste of time”. I was just excited to be in the big city. I opened the box, took out the clay and suggested we start building something, a diorama with a volcano erupting and dinosaurs roaming about (my Alberta roots were showing!). If I was going to be stuck with four other people on a large plastic sheet for two hours, I might as well have some fun. As we formed triceratops and smoothed out lava flows on our plastic sheet, the “evaluators” were frantically taking notes. It seems they were identifying people who could deal with limited direction, cooperate with others, and take the lead. I just wanted to finish my diorama before the time was up and have a good time in the process.

Some people might think that I am an eager beaver, constantly optimistic about the outcome of every activity I join in. This is not the case. I can be as miserable as the next guy. On the other hand, once I have made the decision to take that first step into unknown territory, there is no turning back. I do it with all of the energy and attitude that I can muster. In for a penny, in for a pound. To be honest, people who procrastinate drive me crazy as they analyze the pros and cons (usually the latter), all the while building a wall of self-defeating doubt. For God’s sake, just do it!?

Every year I coordinate short survival courses in a new language then drag the participants overseas to test their communication skills on the streets of a country where the language is spoken. At the beginning of each course, I interview participants to determine what their personal goals are. Why do participants want to spend twelve hours learning basic skills in a new language then subject themselves to testing in a foreign land? Inevitably, some people begin with a statement like, “I don’t know why I’m here. I’ll NEVER learn this language...” What an awful way to start a new learning experience!

This lack of confidence is depressing but understandable. If you have had a series of negative experiences trying to learn another language, you begin to think that only the “gifted” (i.e. freaks) can learn another tongue. Or maybe you’re a little stupid... Too often language teaching in schools is approached as an abstract exercise, grammar tables and tests, the stuff of academia. For the average Joe, this is intimidating or boring. It destroys the psyche, planting seeds of doubt that bloom into a defeatist attitude. When someone tells me at the start of a course that there is no possibility he or she will ever be able to communicate in the target language, my job has just become twice as challenging. I am dealing with a “classroom casualty”.

But there is no such thing as an “average Joe”, and the fact that someone has agreed to join one of my test courses suggests that he or she still has a glimmer of hope. It is up to me to make the new language accessible, to make the training experience enjoyable. Language learning, as with many things in life, should be fun! And it can be as I have learned over and over in these short, intense courses conducted over the past thirty years. I see fear turn to hesitant enjoyment then slowly build into self-confidence. By the third lesson most learners start to think, “Maybe I will be able to communicate.” They start to believe in themselves.

And this change in attitude is not just on the part of the learners. It happens with the instructors, too. For my courses, I use native speakers as teachers, many of whom are foreign students studying in the Tokyo area. I give them a short orientation and training session then throw them into the lion’s den. Although all have experience learning another language, most have never taught before. They arrive as nervous as the participants, convinced they will do an inadequate job. Furthermore, these instructors believe the participants will be unable to speak the target language in so few hours of training. Fortunately, instructor attitudes can also be changed and the excitement is palpable as teacher and learner begin to interact in the target language.

I could go on forever about this positive energy, this change in attitude on all sides, but I won’t. If you are interested in reading about the experience of one young Thai man I recruited to train a mixed group of six strangers heading to Bangkok, check out his blog at http://mynameistoey.wordpress.com/2007/03/15/teaching-thai/. Suffice to say that a change in attitude is often necessary for everyone in the classroom.

And what of CWY/JCM? I was in Quebec City studying French on yet another government scholarship when the acceptance letter arrived. I had ticked off

Mexico

as my country choice on the application. I frantically tore open the envelope thinking, “Campeche, here I come!” only to discover that I was being sent to...

Malaysia

But that is another story for next week’s blog.