We're away from Pakistan for a couple of weeks, and using recordings to relive our supercharged participation experiences for awhile most days. This experience so reminds me that I am not me. Rather, we are we! The processes of experiencing, registering, recognising, understanding, recalling, and strengthening are processes of a "we" not an "I". I used to emphasise this fact a lot more. I need to get back to doing that more. "Language" (now I prefer to say, talking, understanding, conversing) is a about "we-s"and not about "I-s". Clapping is not about a single hand! As we relive these experiences with our nurturer, far away from him, he is also here with us, not only in the recordings, but in our own inner and outer voices whenever we attempt to say something to one another in Potwari. I'm mentioning this, because Angela has been getting busier and just now I was listening alone. Weird. Yet, even now, I wasn't listening as an I, but three voices going on, in me and out of me, working together for understanding and growing. But it works so much better, for her and for me, when there are two of us physically together, and much, much better with there are three of us--she, I and the nurturer as the current evolving "we". (Others will join this "we".)
Monday, February 25, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
Starting Phase 2 with Lexicarry
The Guide to Phase 2 (The Next 150 Hours) is based around Mercer Mayer's book Frog Where Are You? We chose that book because we felt it is more likely to stay in print than most wordless picture story books . We've bought and given away scores of copies of the book along with the Guide to Phase 2.
However, Angela and I just started Phase 2 differently. In the Guide to Phase 2, we talk briefly about Story Building using the Lexicarry by Patrick Moran. (see http://www.lexicarry.com) For Phase 1, Angela has made the "Lexicarry-like" pictures that are in the graphics packet. They include some greetings, but more emphasis on "power tools" such as "What is that? I don't know. What am I doing? I don't understand. Please speak more slowly. What did you say? What is this called?" (We make up new ones on the fly). So we in fact didn't use the Lexicarry at all in Phase 1, only our "Lexicary-like" pictures. It turned out that we had only five hours to get into Phase 2 before leaving the country for a couple weeks, and decided, why not do it with Lexicarry? And so we did.
A drawback of Lexicarry for early Phase 2 is that, unlike the pages of wordless picture story books, the story strips of Lexicarry aren't full of background and foreground details to talk about. For this and other reasons, if someone doesn't already "know the ropes" of doing Story Building in Phase 2, we suggest that they indeed start with Frog Where Are You? and carefully read the Guide to Phase 2 in order to learn the technique. Once they have the technique down pat, they'll have flexibility in varying it.
So how did it go using Lexicarry rather than a wordless picture story book? Wee, even without all the little background and foreground details of Frog Where Are You? we nevertheless came close to meeting our goals of seven or eight new words per hour, on average. In those five hours we did 9 Lexicarry strips with a range of 3 to 9 new words per strip.
The steps we followed were similar to those we use with picture story books, but treating a frame in a Lexicarry story strip as if it were a page in the book. So the basic steps were:
1) Look at a frame, and try to say what is there and what is happening.
•GP's in the lead.
•Nurturer scaffolds their efforts to talk.
•GP's look for everything they can say.
•They look for things they can't say, and ask the nurturer.
2) Write numbers by bits of the story that represent new words; record the new words in the order of those numbers as that auditory dictionary.
3) Word strengthening activity (nurturer speaks, and we point or act out in some way).
4) Summary recording of each frame as we finish it
5) Debrief after an appropriate amount of monolingual time
6) Go on to the next frame and repeat 1 through 5 with that frame
7) After doing steps 1- 5 with the final frame of a story strip, nurturer tells whole the story in the "past tense"
•First re-play the frame-by-frame summaries for the nurturer to be reminded of things to say.
•The nurturer tells the story while looking at the picture strip. (Recorded)
•The nurturer re-tells the story with the picture book closed. (Recorded)
As you can see, Lexicarry seems to work much like a wordless picture story book, although we covered twenty-seven frames in five hours, and we wouldn't want to cover twenty-seven wordless picture story book pages that quickly.
An advantage of the Lexicarry picture strips is the carefully planned range of human interactions that are depicted. In building stories about those interactions, we tried to think of issues such as who would speak first of the two people? What else might they say? In which situations would a particular speech act be carried out in the same way or different ways (say someone in a picture strip is saying that they are sorry in a particular way for a particular reason)? Other meaningful details, such as why the beggar is holding out his left hand to receive money? Etc. So our asking could go beyond the old fashioned "What is that?" and "What is he doing?" though there was a reasonable amount of that old fashioned asking as well.
Now we're away for a couple of weeks, with lots of recordings that let us re-live, re-experience, refresh and strengthen!
However, Angela and I just started Phase 2 differently. In the Guide to Phase 2, we talk briefly about Story Building using the Lexicarry by Patrick Moran. (see http://www.lexicarry.com) For Phase 1, Angela has made the "Lexicarry-like" pictures that are in the graphics packet. They include some greetings, but more emphasis on "power tools" such as "What is that? I don't know. What am I doing? I don't understand. Please speak more slowly. What did you say? What is this called?" (We make up new ones on the fly). So we in fact didn't use the Lexicarry at all in Phase 1, only our "Lexicary-like" pictures. It turned out that we had only five hours to get into Phase 2 before leaving the country for a couple weeks, and decided, why not do it with Lexicarry? And so we did.
A drawback of Lexicarry for early Phase 2 is that, unlike the pages of wordless picture story books, the story strips of Lexicarry aren't full of background and foreground details to talk about. For this and other reasons, if someone doesn't already "know the ropes" of doing Story Building in Phase 2, we suggest that they indeed start with Frog Where Are You? and carefully read the Guide to Phase 2 in order to learn the technique. Once they have the technique down pat, they'll have flexibility in varying it.
So how did it go using Lexicarry rather than a wordless picture story book? Wee, even without all the little background and foreground details of Frog Where Are You? we nevertheless came close to meeting our goals of seven or eight new words per hour, on average. In those five hours we did 9 Lexicarry strips with a range of 3 to 9 new words per strip.
The steps we followed were similar to those we use with picture story books, but treating a frame in a Lexicarry story strip as if it were a page in the book. So the basic steps were:
1) Look at a frame, and try to say what is there and what is happening.
•GP's in the lead.
•Nurturer scaffolds their efforts to talk.
•GP's look for everything they can say.
•They look for things they can't say, and ask the nurturer.
2) Write numbers by bits of the story that represent new words; record the new words in the order of those numbers as that auditory dictionary.
3) Word strengthening activity (nurturer speaks, and we point or act out in some way).
4) Summary recording of each frame as we finish it
5) Debrief after an appropriate amount of monolingual time
6) Go on to the next frame and repeat 1 through 5 with that frame
7) After doing steps 1- 5 with the final frame of a story strip, nurturer tells whole the story in the "past tense"
•First re-play the frame-by-frame summaries for the nurturer to be reminded of things to say.
•The nurturer tells the story while looking at the picture strip. (Recorded)
•The nurturer re-tells the story with the picture book closed. (Recorded)
As you can see, Lexicarry seems to work much like a wordless picture story book, although we covered twenty-seven frames in five hours, and we wouldn't want to cover twenty-seven wordless picture story book pages that quickly.
An advantage of the Lexicarry picture strips is the carefully planned range of human interactions that are depicted. In building stories about those interactions, we tried to think of issues such as who would speak first of the two people? What else might they say? In which situations would a particular speech act be carried out in the same way or different ways (say someone in a picture strip is saying that they are sorry in a particular way for a particular reason)? Other meaningful details, such as why the beggar is holding out his left hand to receive money? Etc. So our asking could go beyond the old fashioned "What is that?" and "What is he doing?" though there was a reasonable amount of that old fashioned asking as well.
Now we're away for a couple of weeks, with lots of recordings that let us re-live, re-experience, refresh and strengthen!
Friday, February 15, 2013
Nurturer training--subtleties of nurturing versus teaching
We can teach what nurturing is but there seems to be almost as big a challenge in teaching what it isn't. Besides that, I learned in Principles of Teaching 101 that you go from the known to the unknown. In many places the known is teaching, while the unknown is nurturing. However, the prejudice toward teaching rather than nurturing is so strong that even if we train nurturers to nurture, there is a moment-by-moment danger of backsliding. Suppose a nurture really gets the point, and never backslides. There are still that nurturer's GPs. If they haven't grasp the difference between nurturing and teaching, and the difference between students and GPs, then all we've done by training the nurturer is to put her at cross purposes with her GPs! Just as nurturers will vary in their inclination to backslide, so will GPs who basically understand the difference. Well, then, part of nurturer training is to teach them to deal with GPs who want to be students.
But the re-infiltration of the teacher-student mindset is a subtle tendency. If a GP has that teacher-student mindset, it is going to show up on unexpected ways. Of course, GPs are supposed to be a little community, a team growing together and helping one another in natural ways. Ever notice GPs getting angry at other GPs? I think it is because they are being students. And how dare a fellow-student act like she is a teacher! "The teacher is my teacher. Teachers are superior to students, as you know, and I resent your acting superior to me!" Time to front slide. Instead of "The teacher is my teacher, back to "The nurturer is our nurturer, and you & I are co-growing-participators, so enjoying helping one another along, as the nurturer helps us help one another."
But the re-infiltration of the teacher-student mindset is a subtle tendency. If a GP has that teacher-student mindset, it is going to show up on unexpected ways. Of course, GPs are supposed to be a little community, a team growing together and helping one another in natural ways. Ever notice GPs getting angry at other GPs? I think it is because they are being students. And how dare a fellow-student act like she is a teacher! "The teacher is my teacher. Teachers are superior to students, as you know, and I resent your acting superior to me!" Time to front slide. Instead of "The teacher is my teacher, back to "The nurturer is our nurturer, and you & I are co-growing-participators, so enjoying helping one another along, as the nurturer helps us help one another."
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Dipping into Potwari literacy practices
Potwaris, if they are literate at all--and I don't know the percentages, but it is a lot of them who are literate--are literate in Urdu. Almost no-one, by contrast, uses Potwari for reading and writing much at all. Literacy means Urdu.
Since we're being nurtured into Potwari practices, that includes--at the right time and in the right functions--being nurtured into Potwari literacy practices, i.e., their practices of reading and writing Urdu. Keeping the time dimension in view, it wouldn't make any sense to worry about this in Phase 1. If Potwaris were literate in Potwari then, as you know, we'd just learn the names of the letters, Dirty-Dozen style, in Phase 1. We say that the letters, like bottles and axes and pillows, are pieces of life in a literate languacultural word, piece of life with names (such as a, b, c...). But it turns out, it is Urdu letters that are pieces of Potwari life.
Since we already know some Urdu, though, there is nothing wrong with learning the names of the Urdu letters in Potwari. This was mainly for Angela. She learned to recognise the letters, in their word medial forms. It is a frustration for her, anyway, that she can't read Urdu. And since that is a Potwari practice, why not start taking it on? She has got her start on that now, in Potwari supercharged participation sessions, recognising how important Urdu letters and Urdu written texts are in Potwari life.
Since we're being nurtured into Potwari practices, that includes--at the right time and in the right functions--being nurtured into Potwari literacy practices, i.e., their practices of reading and writing Urdu. Keeping the time dimension in view, it wouldn't make any sense to worry about this in Phase 1. If Potwaris were literate in Potwari then, as you know, we'd just learn the names of the letters, Dirty-Dozen style, in Phase 1. We say that the letters, like bottles and axes and pillows, are pieces of life in a literate languacultural word, piece of life with names (such as a, b, c...). But it turns out, it is Urdu letters that are pieces of Potwari life.
Since we already know some Urdu, though, there is nothing wrong with learning the names of the Urdu letters in Potwari. This was mainly for Angela. She learned to recognise the letters, in their word medial forms. It is a frustration for her, anyway, that she can't read Urdu. And since that is a Potwari practice, why not start taking it on? She has got her start on that now, in Potwari supercharged participation sessions, recognising how important Urdu letters and Urdu written texts are in Potwari life.
Sound sorting tones
Two posts today. First, early on, we encountered two words: broom and window. Both sounded like baarii. However, we discovered they were different and the difference was categorical for the nurturer (which always seems dramatic when they hear something so strikingly different, and you don't hear any difference). Angela and I could not possibly hear any distinction. This is what Núria Sebastián-Gallés calls "deafness" in cross-language speech perception. (Sebastián-Gallés,
Núria. (2004). Cross-Language Speech Perception. In Pisoni, David B. &
Remez, Robert E. The Handbook of Speech
Perception, pp. 531-546. Oxford:
Blackwell.) To host people, the difference is so obvious and they can't fathom anyone not hearing it. They can't get in your shoes and hear through your ears. But truly, to you the two things sound identical. (A Latina woman told me once that she always says "bed linens" rather than "sheets" since she can hear no difference between "sheet" and another English word.
When we found ourselves deaf to a sound distinction, I at once concluded the difference must be tone, because all the other possibilities involved sound distinctions I know I'm not "deaf" to, and I'd already heard that a related language was tonal.
We'd been doing sound sorting with first-syllable vowels, but that was pretty easy. In Phase 1, we have small drawings for each earlier vocabulary item, and use them for different purposes, including sound sorting. If you've forgotten what sound sorting is, in the case of initial vowels, it means listening to the words again that go with the drawings, and as you do, arranging the drawings in columns of words that all begin with the same vowel. It was definitely helping us to hear the vowels better, but there were no distinctions we could not here.
When we discovered there were tones, and we were "deaf" to them, we took the picture of the broom and the one of the window as the headers for two columns, and then we stared trying to put other pictures into one column or the other based on whether they had the tone (pattern) of "broom" or "window" (and "broom" and "window" were also taken as the "names" of the two tones (patterns) so that the nurture could tell us for new words, which tone it was).
So we're sound-sorting words by tones.So far, not so good, but we believe it will get better. One problem is, of the two tones (patterns) one is not very common, so we have hardly any drawings in that column and a ten-foot-long vertical strip of little drawings in the other column. To make matters worse, we read now that there are three tones (patterns) in these languages. We thought we had an example of the third, but it turned out not to be so. Still looking.
We'll let you know if and when we overcome our "deafness"
When we found ourselves deaf to a sound distinction, I at once concluded the difference must be tone, because all the other possibilities involved sound distinctions I know I'm not "deaf" to, and I'd already heard that a related language was tonal.
We'd been doing sound sorting with first-syllable vowels, but that was pretty easy. In Phase 1, we have small drawings for each earlier vocabulary item, and use them for different purposes, including sound sorting. If you've forgotten what sound sorting is, in the case of initial vowels, it means listening to the words again that go with the drawings, and as you do, arranging the drawings in columns of words that all begin with the same vowel. It was definitely helping us to hear the vowels better, but there were no distinctions we could not here.
When we discovered there were tones, and we were "deaf" to them, we took the picture of the broom and the one of the window as the headers for two columns, and then we stared trying to put other pictures into one column or the other based on whether they had the tone (pattern) of "broom" or "window" (and "broom" and "window" were also taken as the "names" of the two tones (patterns) so that the nurture could tell us for new words, which tone it was).
So we're sound-sorting words by tones.So far, not so good, but we believe it will get better. One problem is, of the two tones (patterns) one is not very common, so we have hardly any drawings in that column and a ten-foot-long vertical strip of little drawings in the other column. To make matters worse, we read now that there are three tones (patterns) in these languages. We thought we had an example of the third, but it turned out not to be so. Still looking.
We'll let you know if and when we overcome our "deafness"
f
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Finished the First 100 Hours
I was thinking today, as we did Phase 1B session 25, how that so much has happened between us and our nurturer, and thus, in us, and including in our brains (language processing systems), and in "us-in-the-host-world", in spite of the fact that, in my case at least, I wasn't "trying" real hard. Just doing all the games (nee activities) and quite a bit distracted, but it worked. We're more than ready for Phase 2. We have some other things to do, though, for a couple of days, and then we'll be away for awhile.
One thing we noticed is that key concepts ("vocabulary") need to be added to the games. You recall that our Phase One activities are not too much about "useful expressions for the real world". Our supercharged participation sessions are part of the real, host world--the only part that is accessible enough for enough hours that we can grow much during this early stage. And as we play, we "conquer the world". That is, we want to start understanding speech, and then talking, about the basics of everyday experience, because that is what we will build on in Phase 2.
PEOPLE (man, woman, boy, girl)
Their bodies (body parts, possessive)
Their emotions and physical conditions
Their appearances
Names of their family relationships
Their most basic actions (run, walk, take, read, buy, sneeze, barf...)
ANIMALS (included early because of their place in discourse)
Household animals (if there is such a thing)
Farm animals
Wild animals
Creepy crawlies
HOUSE
Parts of of it
Contents of it
The OUTSIDE area where most outside daily business is done
The COUNTRYSIDE and it's contents
Natural features
Agricultural features
Maybe salient countries
PROPERTIES OF OBJECTS
Shapes
Textures
Tastes
Etc.
RELATIONS BETWEEN EXPERIENCES/STATES AND OTHER EXPERIENCES/STATE
Before
After
During
If, then
The one who ...
GRAMMAR of ongoing processes (is doing), states (is) and commands; also person and number, negation, wide range of range of question words, yes-no, etc.
So doing the First 100 Hours for the first time in twelve years, I notice some of the most basic bits of experience are missing. For example, nothing about hardness/softness among the properties of objects. In relations between experiences/states, there was no during (while, when). Actually, it is really time to sit down with the First 100 hours and the outline above, and think of important holes missing. We want to manage starting to understand speech and to interact verbally in all these aspects of experience (and no doubt more) with 800 to 1000 vocabulary items. i.e., space for "conquering the world" is limited. Time is too. Make wise choices.
Well, we maybe need a whole bunch of people together who have done the First 100 hours and brainstorm again to update. We don't want to change the instructions for the games and their order, but the gaps we see (like hard/soft) can be filled in without changing the instructions or order. We could have an appendix if we want to update certain games. But if we change the games or their order, then we defeat the beautiful, caring work done to translate the First 100 Hours for GPs of many languacultural backgrounds (Chinese, Korean, German, Spanish, French, Arabic, etc., etc.) learning many host languages.
One thing we noticed is that key concepts ("vocabulary") need to be added to the games. You recall that our Phase One activities are not too much about "useful expressions for the real world". Our supercharged participation sessions are part of the real, host world--the only part that is accessible enough for enough hours that we can grow much during this early stage. And as we play, we "conquer the world". That is, we want to start understanding speech, and then talking, about the basics of everyday experience, because that is what we will build on in Phase 2.
PEOPLE (man, woman, boy, girl)
Their bodies (body parts, possessive)
Their emotions and physical conditions
Their appearances
Names of their family relationships
Their most basic actions (run, walk, take, read, buy, sneeze, barf...)
ANIMALS (included early because of their place in discourse)
Household animals (if there is such a thing)
Farm animals
Wild animals
Creepy crawlies
HOUSE
Parts of of it
Contents of it
The OUTSIDE area where most outside daily business is done
The COUNTRYSIDE and it's contents
Natural features
Agricultural features
Maybe salient countries
PROPERTIES OF OBJECTS
Shapes
Textures
Tastes
Etc.
RELATIONS BETWEEN EXPERIENCES/STATES AND OTHER EXPERIENCES/STATE
Before
After
During
If, then
The one who ...
GRAMMAR of ongoing processes (is doing), states (is) and commands; also person and number, negation, wide range of range of question words, yes-no, etc.
So doing the First 100 Hours for the first time in twelve years, I notice some of the most basic bits of experience are missing. For example, nothing about hardness/softness among the properties of objects. In relations between experiences/states, there was no during (while, when). Actually, it is really time to sit down with the First 100 hours and the outline above, and think of important holes missing. We want to manage starting to understand speech and to interact verbally in all these aspects of experience (and no doubt more) with 800 to 1000 vocabulary items. i.e., space for "conquering the world" is limited. Time is too. Make wise choices.
Well, we maybe need a whole bunch of people together who have done the First 100 hours and brainstorm again to update. We don't want to change the instructions for the games and their order, but the gaps we see (like hard/soft) can be filled in without changing the instructions or order. We could have an appendix if we want to update certain games. But if we change the games or their order, then we defeat the beautiful, caring work done to translate the First 100 Hours for GPs of many languacultural backgrounds (Chinese, Korean, German, Spanish, French, Arabic, etc., etc.) learning many host languages.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
It's OK to use the "familiar imperative" in Phase 1, for goodness sake.
Session 24 is over and Session 25 is similar to it. Can't get much closer to Phase 2 without being there!
Our wonderful nurturer has generally given TPR commands in the "familiar imperative", though often with a helping verb or some such thing added to the root that to us makes it seem a bit more formal. Yesterday he seemed to really "get familiar", and used a ton of simple, bare-root commands, with the verbs as simple as he could make them. That is great, as I think it employs the "base form" from which other verb forms differ in various ways, and it really makes that base form clear.
This is a difference between the GPA and what many "language learners" understand they should do, and is an example of something that causes objections to the GPA. The whole idea of learning commands in the "familiar imperative" seems so counter-intuitive to most people who think much about it, since "We'll never use that form in 'real life'." "Counter-intuitive" really means, "in conflict with my unexamined folk-theory of language and language learning".
Saying, "We'll never use it in 'real life'," assumes that supercharged participation sessions are not "real life," though in fact, they are, overwhelmingly, the primary host-world "real life" in Phase 1. The complaint also misses the time dimension, which is so often missed by so many, in so many ways. Man, get a couple hundred common verb stems in your mental lexicon, for goodness sake! That is something you can do well now following the principle that you grow best when a nurturer interacts with you in your growth zone.
The dreams people have in mind of "real life language use", are just that—dreams. Such "language use" is not remotely within reach for GPs within the first 100 hours. In the richest, most supportive setting of social interaction that is possible (which means in your supercharged participation with your paid nurture), by the end of Phase 1, for you to get an intelligible sentence together and out of your mouth is an enormous struggle. You're just not out there "in public" richly addressing all sorts of people using imperative sentences. So who cares, if you mainly know the familiar forms during the Phase 1 games, if that helps you to get to know a lot that is easy to build on, and to grow really well at this point?
The familiar imperative is in fact, in this and many languacultures, an excellent foundation for the range of verb forms yet to flood in at the right time through the right games and discourses. Adding the polite forms to already known familiar forms will be so relatively easy once you are ready to start using a lot of imperatives "in public" (Phase 3?), having hundreds of base forms to build on. You did what helped you grow best at time X (the simple, familiar imperatives) and that made you ready to grow further, in ways in which you grow best at time Y (picking up polite imperatives). By the time any imperatives are really relevant to "real life" you'll know how to form them, and to use them (though you won't likely be using them in a host-like manner for a considerable time) . So what is the big hairy deal about only hearing polite imperatives from the first day.
We have become explicit that in Phase 1, we grow well if our nurturer interacts with us by playing with us in our growth zone. So the word "play" is now a serious technical term of the GPA.
Anyway, Angela and I are again surprised how much we've changed in a measly 100 hours, both becoming those "new yous" (the plural of "new you") within the experience of our nurturer inside his languacultural world (and soon that of other host people). We have a lot more "new yous" to become in the experience of host people.
Today we started out our supercharged participation session with a whole hour of Session 22 Game 7, using the setup pictured a couple of posts ago. I noticed a turtle among the toys, and so asked Angela to get out the rabbit. I then forced her to tell the story of the Hare and the Tortoise, as I acted it out with the toy rabbit, toy turtle, and other props. Pretty Phase-2-like, eh! Well, Phase 2 is only a couple of hours away.
Our wonderful nurturer has generally given TPR commands in the "familiar imperative", though often with a helping verb or some such thing added to the root that to us makes it seem a bit more formal. Yesterday he seemed to really "get familiar", and used a ton of simple, bare-root commands, with the verbs as simple as he could make them. That is great, as I think it employs the "base form" from which other verb forms differ in various ways, and it really makes that base form clear.
This is a difference between the GPA and what many "language learners" understand they should do, and is an example of something that causes objections to the GPA. The whole idea of learning commands in the "familiar imperative" seems so counter-intuitive to most people who think much about it, since "We'll never use that form in 'real life'." "Counter-intuitive" really means, "in conflict with my unexamined folk-theory of language and language learning".
Saying, "We'll never use it in 'real life'," assumes that supercharged participation sessions are not "real life," though in fact, they are, overwhelmingly, the primary host-world "real life" in Phase 1. The complaint also misses the time dimension, which is so often missed by so many, in so many ways. Man, get a couple hundred common verb stems in your mental lexicon, for goodness sake! That is something you can do well now following the principle that you grow best when a nurturer interacts with you in your growth zone.
The dreams people have in mind of "real life language use", are just that—dreams. Such "language use" is not remotely within reach for GPs within the first 100 hours. In the richest, most supportive setting of social interaction that is possible (which means in your supercharged participation with your paid nurture), by the end of Phase 1, for you to get an intelligible sentence together and out of your mouth is an enormous struggle. You're just not out there "in public" richly addressing all sorts of people using imperative sentences. So who cares, if you mainly know the familiar forms during the Phase 1 games, if that helps you to get to know a lot that is easy to build on, and to grow really well at this point?
The familiar imperative is in fact, in this and many languacultures, an excellent foundation for the range of verb forms yet to flood in at the right time through the right games and discourses. Adding the polite forms to already known familiar forms will be so relatively easy once you are ready to start using a lot of imperatives "in public" (Phase 3?), having hundreds of base forms to build on. You did what helped you grow best at time X (the simple, familiar imperatives) and that made you ready to grow further, in ways in which you grow best at time Y (picking up polite imperatives). By the time any imperatives are really relevant to "real life" you'll know how to form them, and to use them (though you won't likely be using them in a host-like manner for a considerable time) . So what is the big hairy deal about only hearing polite imperatives from the first day.
We have become explicit that in Phase 1, we grow well if our nurturer interacts with us by playing with us in our growth zone. So the word "play" is now a serious technical term of the GPA.
Anyway, Angela and I are again surprised how much we've changed in a measly 100 hours, both becoming those "new yous" (the plural of "new you") within the experience of our nurturer inside his languacultural world (and soon that of other host people). We have a lot more "new yous" to become in the experience of host people.
Today we started out our supercharged participation session with a whole hour of Session 22 Game 7, using the setup pictured a couple of posts ago. I noticed a turtle among the toys, and so asked Angela to get out the rabbit. I then forced her to tell the story of the Hare and the Tortoise, as I acted it out with the toy rabbit, toy turtle, and other props. Pretty Phase-2-like, eh! Well, Phase 2 is only a couple of hours away.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Postponing activities in Phase 1 until a day later, and a hint at why
In the First 100 Hours plan, there is a basic strategy of introducing new material in one session (the "first encounter"), and then for sure reusing it soon in another (a "strengthening" activity), often moving from understanding only to understanding and talking. Going through the First 100 Hours again after twelve years, I've been noticing that sometimes the "strengthening activity" is not in a later session from the "first encounter" activity, but instead, later in the same session. That is O.K., as long as the strengthening activity doesn't involve a switch from understanding only to understanding and talking. An example today was Activity 7 of Session 22 (in place of "Activity" I now like to say "Game"). Earlier in Session 22, actions like climbing, flying, driving, riding, etc. were learned through TPR in Activity (Game) 4, and strengthened through more TPR in Games 5 and 6, using the set up pictured in the previous post. However, then comes Game 7, which would have the GPs using the new materials in talking, describing situations which involve these new actions.
Whenever I see that we haven't separated into separate sessions (indeed separate days) a "first encounter" games that involve only understanding from a "strengthening" game that also involves talking, I skip the latter game for the time being, and come back to it in a day or two. This also gives us a chance to listen to the recordings in between the "first encounter" game and the "strengthening" game that includes talking.
There was an interesting article in Psychological Science in 2007, "Sleep associated changes in the mental representation of spoken words." I hesitate to mention it as it is the sort of stuff that feeds into pop-psychology sensationalism (like "right brain and left brain" and primitive tribes who can't conceive of the not-too-recent past or tell lies). In fact this article is a serious study, and worth thinking about. The authors had a way to distinguish (it can be reasonably argued) between a new word that people merely remembered (episodically) and a word that was actually playing a role in the "mental lexicon" during listening, that is being used by the "brain's dictionary" as part of the normal listening comprehension process. The study wasn't about second language words, but still seems tantalizing from our perspective.
It didn't matter how many hours people knew a new word. That word didn't become part of their mental lexicon (hence their linguistic listening comprehension system) until a period of sleep had occurred. It looks as if something happens during sleep that moves a word from being something you remember to something that is functioning in your language system.
It isn't easy to extrapolate from this to the fact that I like to have a night's sleep between Session 22 Game 6 and Session 22 Game 7-- to sleep on it, you might. But I hang out this bit of maybe-not-trivia for your consideration all the same.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Personal Phase 1 saga: Something must be happening!
We're in Session 20 of Phase 1B, on the way to Session 25 (end of Phase 1), and hoping to make it before leaving for two and a half weeks a week and a half from now.
I feel like we haven't learned very much. Today, in Session 19, there was "Warmup Activity: GPs comment about things they can see and hear in the room, through the window or door, etc."
Out the door/window came first. Then kitchen. It was amazing how we could just stand there and describe most of what we could see (with a bit of scaffolding by the nurturer, of course). I was really caught by surprise, in fact, flabbergasted. Guess we've been learning something. We had never talked about those particular places before, nor thought about talking about them, nor talked about other such places. Yet the speech rolled (all things considered), and we were nowhere near done doing what we could have done when we stopped. We must have learned something in our supercharged participation!
Thanks to our wonderful nurturer (who recently bookmarked this blog).
Now, of course, describing the here-and-now doesn't get you very far, since a lot of the point of languaculture is to be able to discourse about the then-and-there. Still, first things first! Do what you can do, and then as you can do more, do that next.
I feel like we haven't learned very much. Today, in Session 19, there was "Warmup Activity: GPs comment about things they can see and hear in the room, through the window or door, etc."
Out the door/window came first. Then kitchen. It was amazing how we could just stand there and describe most of what we could see (with a bit of scaffolding by the nurturer, of course). I was really caught by surprise, in fact, flabbergasted. Guess we've been learning something. We had never talked about those particular places before, nor thought about talking about them, nor talked about other such places. Yet the speech rolled (all things considered), and we were nowhere near done doing what we could have done when we stopped. We must have learned something in our supercharged participation!
Thanks to our wonderful nurturer (who recently bookmarked this blog).
Now, of course, describing the here-and-now doesn't get you very far, since a lot of the point of languaculture is to be able to discourse about the then-and-there. Still, first things first! Do what you can do, and then as you can do more, do that next.
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