Do you have to go abroad to learn a language?
20 October 2005
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Are you one of those language learners who loves to be plunked into an ongoing stream of talk, soaking it up, mimicking what you hear, unruffled if you don't understand what's being said? Or are you someone who needs more structure, who wants to know what each word means before you try it out, frustrated when waves of incomprehensible speech wash over you.
As a language teacher, I often hear people say: "the only way to learn a language is to go abroad." Well, that's not strictly true. And it's particularly not true if you're thinking that by being in another country, you'll automatically "pick up" the language. I actually hate that term "pick up a language" because it implies that language learning somehow happens without effort. Not so. It does take effort, and we probably all know people who have spent 2 or 3 years in a foreign country and came home monolingual.
Learning styles vary, so a good way to think about learning a language abroad is from the point of view of readiness. For most people, parachuting into a foreign culture with no previous study of the language, no preparation at all, is not only disorienting, it's inefficient. With no framework to help make sense of what you're hearing, progress is slow. Readiness differs from one person to the next, but for most of us, it's best to have some formal study of a language -- before you pull the ripcord. And once you're on the ground, it's best to enroll in a structured learning experience, a language class of some kind. You take the class to get knowledge about the language, then use the streets and pubs and clubs of the community as your lab.
The great advantage of studying and living abroad is that you can experience the language in its cultural context. Words and phrases that you hear in a sometimes "sterile" classroom come alive, even change meaning, when you hear them coming from a native speaker over drinks in a cafe. Or when you join the crowds in a soccer game. Or deal with the local bureaucracy.
When a friend of mine was a junior in college -- after a couple of semesters of Spanish -- she signed up for a program in Spain, her first experience with language study abroad. After orientation on the first day, the instructor shifted to Spanish and told fifteen nervous Americans to take the "no English" pledge. From then on she was immersed in a dialect of Spanish that she slowly adopted as her own. She spoke almost no English for five months. She didn't hang out with Americans. She watched Spanish TV and movies (with no subtitles), and spent as much time as she could with locals. At first she spoke really broken Spanish; but by the end of the semester, she was using the language comfortably, expressing herself at an advanced level. That was total immersion in the culture. All of her waking hours, 7 days a week, speaking or thinking exclusively in the target language.
It's fatiguing at first to be confronted with a foreign language, because you're constantly listening, concentrating, trying to make sense of what you hear. And because it takes effort, it's easier than you think to spend a long time abroad and still come home a monolingual. If your goal is to learn a language abroad, try for linguistic isolation. That means: avoid the cell phone, the Internet, satellite TV from home, and opportunities to speak your mother tongue. Even a little before you think you're ready, take an oath to communicate only in the target language, and do it as much as you can -- around the clock. Study abroad by itself is not the key to learning a language, but the combination of a structured class and total immersion can't be beat.
That's the linguistic thought for today, which comes to us from Sheri Spaine Long at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. And this is the Five-Minute Linguist at the College of Charleston, in cooperation with the National Museum of Language. Visit our website at www.cofc.edu/linguist, where you'll find hundreds of opportunities for total immersion. And keep in mind that wherever you are, and whatever you do... language makes a difference.