Speaking in tongues

Pimsleur’s work on language learning is popular. The Internet come-on is “Learn a new language in 10 days without a book or CDs.” The winsome smile of the lady promoting the website caught my attention, and though I was only methodologically curious (of course), I found out what I already knew in years of pedagogy; one relies on the way students naturally learn their native tongue as a child: listen and repeat.

In the years I taught oral English to students at the Shenyang Aerospace U and tutored children at the Shou Wang weekend school, the only Chinese words I used were ting (listen) and chongfu (repeat).

Ting denotes paying attention. There are three major groups of strokes. The first one on the left is the “ear” with an emphasis on it being huge (open wide) written below it. The second is the “eyes” so that listening involves viewing and watching with intensity, occupying the top right quadrant. The third brushed below the “eyes” is the “heart,” indicating heartfelt engagement. It makes the one word with many strokes equivalent to “active listening” in English.

Just this one word had enormous implication in the conduct of my classroom. It required students of their own volition to be at full attention all the time since not doing so would be obvious. Normal classrooms had teachers equipped with mini-microphones and portable speakers so that ze voice was amplified throughout the room. In lecture halls, the rooms were equipped with sound systems enhancing the popular PowerPoint presentation; lectures were conducted with the lights dimmed save the one by the green board with the front row appearing to listen in earnest while the rest of the class fingered smartphones, or caught up with their z-z-z-z-s.

My class architecture was designed so there was no escape from the neighbor. In my third year, when classes had over 30 students, they had two sessions per week so I split them into two, each alternately attending a session and skipping the other. I assigned them seats, my normal way of learning to identify each person by their birth names rather than the “English” ones they chose in other English classes for the convenience of the foreign teacher.

Assigned seats broke up roommates who tended to stick together; it also broadened student’s circle of co-learners. I had them work in small groups with people they did not normally associate with. It also worked to their advantage since they were assigned work outside the class, encouraged to “each one teach two” (E1T2) as learning is best accomplished when one taught what one learned. 

Seating arrangements silenced the loquacious and engaged the shy, in two rows of semi-circles if the class numbered more than 30. Smaller classes were in one row around the room, cozy since no one looked at anyone’s back!

In the center of the room was a table covered with a kerchief (a simple black and white a la Palestinian headgear) with a hankie centerpiece holding a broken cup and spilled uncooked rice, local stones from the schoolyard and one or two gems from my collection. (Students invariably asked what the decor “meant.”) Throughout the two-period session (with a break) I walked around the center table so there was no defined front of the room. When someone was called to speak, ze spoke directly to the whole class using “public” voice.

The students talked, though reluctant at first. They were asked to leave their “faces” outside the door. This was hard for many who were used to be backbench warmers in a hide-and-seek game. They were in a speaking class and if they had to worry about “face,” they would not open their mouths. There was no place to hide. Read and write, they did not hesitate, but speaking of their sense experience, personal feelings, thoughts and deeds was “private,” not in their normal comfort zone.

They listened to the teacher, classmates, and to their own voices. I had them repeat (chongfu) what they heard so that they can hear themselves and get comfortable with their own sound in English. We got them to repeat familiar ads and public signage, and sang popular English songs. I got them to talk about themselves by identifying parts of their bodies that included words they were not too familiar with like forehead, cheeks, chin, chest, hip, thigh, calf, shin, etc. Varied games to do this were designed. They learned.

“Listen and repeat” started babies’ natural learning of any language. The method worked in the classroom, too. (Unfortunately, the passing of test is still the mode of learning in China). In class, I described what I saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched as an invitation for students to do likewise in their assigned groups. A comfort level was in place because they talked of what they already knew without reading a book, to persons they are familiar with. There were no right or wrong answers. There was only the courage to speak. 

My students and I worked doubly hard, first on the courage, then they spoke!