I've posted a video about conference interpreting before, but here's another cool video that was just uploaded to youtube in the last week, this time looking at the kinds of interpreting that go on in closed-door meetings. It's a little disappointing that the title, "Interpreter Breaks Down How Real-Time Translation Works," misnames the process as translation. Looks like WIRED kind of got their wires crossed a bit there (pun absolutely intended). This video looks at both consecutive and simultaneous interpreting. Frankly, this vid makes them both look pretty intimidating, the simultaneous for pretty obvious reasons (listening and speaking at the same time, mental exhaustion), but the consecutive doesn't look much easier, honestly, with its indecipherable note-taking system.
Some of the terminology for simultaneous interpreting was fun to learn, though. When I originally heard the narrator say "...we can employ what we call chuchotage, which means whispering in French," for a second I thought he meant the word meant "whispering in French," rather than "whispering" in French. Wouldn't it be fun if French had a word that specifically meant whispering in their language as opposed to whispering in all other languages? But no, it just translates to "whispering". And then décalage translates to "gap." I wonder why the terminology comes from French. Did the French originally corner the market on interpretation technique? Though I mentioned my parent/teacher conference interpreting experience in the prior post on interpreting, based on this video, it looks like I did kind of a mix of consecutive and simultaneous. It wasn't as intense as full simultaneous (though we routinely went from one conference to another for 4-8 hours), but I quickly learned that things would go more smoothly if I started interpreting before each full thought was completed, sometimes while the person was still talking if they got going on a good clip. Not really whispering, though, so they usually just interpreted that (no pun intended that time) as a hint to take more frequent breaks, so then I'd end up consecutive interpreting short phrases rather than long sentences or heaven forbid, full paragraphs! But that seems like a YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary) type of situation, where quasi-interrupting was taken in stride by parents and my teacher colleagues, but might not be so welcomed a practice in a meeting of diplomats...
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Duolingo is on a roll this month! They released their first podcast in French, had their 7-year anniversary, and now they're releasing their Arabic course.
Arabic must have been eagerly anticipated and in development for a while, at least that's the impression I've gotten from reading comments on their facebook posts. To accompany the launch announcement, they also posted a link to this blog, What makes Arabic hard (and why that shouldn't stop you from learning it), which talks a bit about some features of the Arabic grammar, sound, and writing systems (compared to English), and how those characteristics influenced the design of the course. They've written posts like this before, like back in 2017 to discuss the launch of their Chinese course. I really like these type of posts, because it makes the app more relatable to be able to peer behind the curtain a bit, so to speak. The Arabic post did a great job of talking about elements of linguistics and language learning in a reader-friendly way without simplifying to the point of mischaracterization. They also frame the difficulty of learning Arabic as a challenge, which gives it a nice positive spin. It's an effective enough take that, if I'm feeling brave in the near future, I might give the course a try. I've been aware for a while that Duolingo has had podcasts in Spanish, and though I've heard good things, I've never checked them out (as I'm neither needing to learn Spanish nor lesson planning for intermediate learners). But I was really excited to see that Duolingo is finally starting to release a podcast in a language other than Spanish--and I say that as a Spanish teacher! It's really lucky for Spanish to be the go-to language for new content, experimentation and innovation, but I also feel for my colleagues in other languages. I happen to have studied 3 semesters of French back in undergrad, but that was quite a while ago. I briefly maintained lofty notions of maintaining or even growing my French knowledge, but that pretty much slipped by the wayside. So when I saw the announcement of the French podcast, I immediately went to check it out, specifically the transcript, because I find I rarely have the attention span to dedicate to just listening to something, unless I'm doing something else at the same time (no commute for me at this point, so no listening to podcasts in the car). I was pleasantly surprised to find that, with a background of 3 semesters over 10 years ago, I was still able to understand 95%+ of the transcript. The TL pieces are contextualized with a little bit of English introduction (but not direct translation), and that (probably/certainly?) helped. Honestly, I think it would be great if they would publish the TL parts with and without the English. With, for the context and for those who want the extra support. But also without, for those who want to test themselves sans context or just don't want the English interruption as they reread/listen for increased acquisition. In addition to understanding the language (comprehensible: check), I thought they did a nice job of not oversimplifying or using fake learner language (complex: check), and the story itself was interesting and sweet (compelling: check). So it hit on all cylinders for me. I'm looking forward to more, and I hope they continue developing other languages as well. Another day, another discussion of foreign language instruction on Facebook. This time, an article was posted that described a research study of first language acquisition in small children. The discussion was on the potential relevance and application of the findings to L2 teaching, especially regarding output.
Basically, the study measured brain activation while children (ages 4-6) listened to stories, and they also measured the children's language use, including:
The question of relevance to L2 teaching centered on what that means about the role of output in language learning. Though this is not an L2 study (a point I'll get back to later), for the sake of argument, the above bullet points could be translated to ACTFL-speak as interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational, respectively. Or just input, output, and interaction. If one were to assume the results of the study could be extrapolated to the very different circumstances (e.g. environment, cognitive development) of foreign language classroom instruction, the surface interpretation would probably be that interaction is more effective at impacting language acquisition than straight input (i.e. listening without interaction) and especially output (i.e. speaking practice). I still had some questions after reading the MIT News blurb, so I looked up the original article. A couple thoughts:
After reading the journal article, I would boil the findings down to this: Children who experience more interactive conversation have more brain activation in the speech production center of the brain even when passively listening. Back to what this says for L2 acquisition. Hard to say. It's good to think about how/whether L1 studies can be extrapolated to bilingual or formal L2 situations, but it's also possible that if this effect translates to L2, it wouldn't even be relevant until the learner has enough proficiency in the L2 to be equivalent to a 4-6yo. A baby or toddler version of this study would in some ways be more applicable (but harder to measure). A bilingual version of this study would be fantastic, of course. It's possible that those kids who experience more interactive conversation in any language (e.g. L1) could have more brain activation in the speech production center of the brain when passively listening in any language (e.g. L2), meaning students coming to language classes could already differ in their brain activity in ways that impact their L2 processing. Or maybe the effects don't span across languages, in which case it wouldn't affect L2 processing, and interaction in L2 is what affects L2 processing. Or maybe not. Lots of avenues for research before we can confidently make judgments about L2 learning or instruction. If anything, I interpret this research to support the notion that rather than talking at students or asking them to talk for talking's sake, those interested in supporting language development (whether L1 or L2) should emphasize talking with students. The topic of "authentic resources" (frequently shortened to #authres) has come up again in a language teaching-related facebook group I'm a member of, as it does from time to time. This time regarding the recommendations straight from the big guy: ACTFL. The "authenticity" discussion has a lot of dimensions, and it's a topic that consistently gets under my skin. For this particular post, I'll restrict myself to opining about the ACTFL's initial statement at the link. Before getting into that, though, first a bit about the classic definition that floats around everywhere: "by native speakers, for native speakers," which I find hopelessly reductive and frustrating. There are a number of simple arguments that easily poke holes in the basic definition, which I won't get into here. ACTFL currently expands that definition slightly to "written by members of a language and culture group for members of the same language and culture group," which at least theoretically admits nonnative speakers into the exclusive club of potential "authentic" content producers. Though, of course, who gets to decide who and at what point of proficiency someone becomes a "member" of a given nonnative language/culture? But ACTFL defines "authentic" in the context of making the following recommendation: Interactive reading and listening comprehension tasks should be designed and carried out using authentic cultural texts of various kinds Here they've added "cultural" into the mix: authentic cultural texts. What does that mean? Do texts now need not only to be produced by language/culture members, but be about the target language culture? That seems unnecessarily restrictive. Infographics seem to be a popular #authres, but is the Spanish (or what have you) translation of e.g. the FDA's food pyramid (a popular choice in food units) not authentic enough to be considered "use of authentic text" (even if it was translated by a native speaker and is clearly translated for the benefit of native speakers) just because it's a translation of a U.S. cultural product?
And just the definitiveness of the phrasing "Interactive reading and listening comprehension tasks should be designed and carried out using..." They could have said authentic materials should be incorporated into the classroom (leaving it open as to what other texts are used in combination, e.g. learner-centered materials to be used for extensive reading/listening). But the implication here is that they're the only material that should be used.😤 The definitiveness of the recommendation wouldn't bother me nearly as much, maybe not at all, if they didn't go on to define "authentic" in the way that they do. I much prefer a more communicative definition, and my personal definition was influenced substantially by Day and Bamford's Extensive Reading in the Second Language Classroom, specifically the chapter "The Cult of Authenticity and the Myth of Simplification." Instead of defining authenticity by the author's or audience's group membership, it is defined by the text's purpose. Is the purpose of the text to communicate meaning (as opposed to practice discrete language)? Then it's authentic, regardless of who wrote it or who reads it. I'm feeling feisty and want to put something out there.
I read a lot of materials produced by Spanish language teachers, e.g. books, short stories, summaries of little videos. And one thing I often notice that just gets under my skin is an overabundance of subject pronouns. Seeing overt subject pronouns several sentences in a row for a subject that hasn't changed (and it isn't meant to be emphasizing) triggers weird processing in my brain; I don't like it. Spanish is a pro-drop language, meaning that subject pronouns can be omitted. But it's not just that they can, it's that in many cases they should, and including them when they're not needed is weird and unnatural. Subject pronouns can be necessary to establish or clarify the subject, but after that, if they continue to be included only serving to reinforce the meaning of the verb ending, that's a big nope for me. To my (albeit nonnative) eyes (and sort of ears, as I tend to subvocalize when I'm reading in Spanish moreso than in English), it does one of two things to me.
Also, from a theoretical standpoint (specifically Input Processing), the unnecessary inclusion of SPs, since they provide lexical information that makes the verbal morphology redundant, likely make students less likely to process verb endings at all. Bill VanPatten, in an episode of his podcast Tea with BVP, brings up the example of past tense. Learners are more likely to pay attention to lexical information like an adverb of time, e.g. "ayer," and completely ignore the verbal morphology (this has been demonstrated through research e.g. with eye-tracking experiments). Of course, there are two possible explanations for that. Either it's
Person morphology would be arguably the same. Except I'd say it's even more important in this case to be mindful of the overuse of the lexical component (the subject pronoun) because while the presence or absence of a time adverb doesn't change the processing of the sentence (it just clarifies), the inclusion of subject pronouns when the subject has already been established impacts how that sentence is processed (e.g. the aforementioned jabby finger). I'm sure the pronoun overuse is being done out of a desire to add context and reinforcement to the meaning of the verb ending. But it sets bad precedent for students. Can we agree to not do this so much? I recently came across this interesting post from Cult of Pedagogy describing a practice called "dogfooding" (the term isn't originally from education, but from tech, apparently). From what I understand, it comes from the idea that you shouldn't feed your dog something you wouldn't eat yourself. By extension (to tech and ed), it basically advises that a developer/instructor should test their product by engaging with it like a consumer/student before assuming it's appropriate for release. So applying directly to instruction, it means looking at the activities we engage in or assign to our students from the perspective of the student--doing them ourselves first if need be. The takeaway: If we would find an activity (e.g. conjugation exercises, contrived role play) boring or confusing or frustrating or unauthentic, and subsequently wouldn't choose to work on it ourselves, why would we assign it to students? I realize I've definitely already put this idea into practice (without having heard of it) in a few courses I've taught where I've inherited materials or instructions from prior instructors. I've revamped assessment for a course on contrastive Spanish/English grammar analysis, ditching chapter tests in favor of writing assignments, because I looked over the pre-prepared exams, and I couldn't even figure out what some of the questions were asking! I'm not going to give students a test I couldn't confidently take myself. I've retooled writing assignments for intermediate Spanish students from "research reports" (vague, dry, language above their expected level of acquisition) into Choose Your Own Adventure stories (fun, contextualized, still easy to incorporate the research info), because I would have dreaded writing the kind of product being described in the directions. Then in full "dogfooding" spirit, I did the project myself first. I let the students pick my particular research topic, and then I gave myself the homework of creating a CYOA story as a model for them. When they got to begin their own, I was able to give really clear instructions for how to map out and present the story, because it wasn't hypothetical. So what activities that we typically assign out of habit can we pause and examine critically, taking on the perspective of the student? Are there improvements or changes we can make so they are more clear, more interesting, more engaging, such that we would comfortably take them on as learners? It's basically the Golden Rule of teaching. Go eat your own dogfood! Earlier this week, my social media lit up with notifications about the results of an MIT study looking at language learning achievement and age of acquisition. I've read a few separate articles talking about the study, and one thing I've noticed is the headlines, which make broad generalizations that the study don't support, and are either skewed negative or positive. Here are a few:
MIT's own blurb by the MIT News Office Cognitive scientists define critical period for learning language
A report by the Independent Scientists reveal cut-off age for learning a new language
This bizarre combo of bleak and perky from The Guardian Becoming fluent in another language as an adult might be impossible - but I'm still going to try
And in contrast to the rest of the reporting, there's this much more upbeat take on Medium MIT scientists prove adults learn language to fluency nearly as well as children
I understand the reasoning behind clickbait headlines, but given the general public's propensity to read the headline and not even bother reading the article, it's frustrating when simple word choices misrepresent a study's findings or even what science is/does. See, for example, some key verbs from the headlines: define, reveal, prove They're all inappropriate, though that last one might be the most egregious. A single study cannot provide definitive evidence of... anything, really. Especially not something as long-debated and multi-faceted as a "critical period." The study itself What they found:
The Medium piece is the only one I read where the author actually seems to have looked at the open-access data set and done some additional analyses. He highlighted data showing that, while the average score of those who began learning English into adulthood is lower, there are still plenty of participants who scored 90%+, as high as native English speakers. And that the average adult learner was already scoring around 80% after only a year of study (though I'm not sure if those were immersion or formal classroom learners). That pretty much shoots claims of "impossibility" out of the water. More thoughts on the study What's good:
In sum Like all studies, this one is another interesting step in the direction of knowledge of language acquisition. Unfortunately, some media reporting is more accurate than others, and even the most balanced of the pieces give the conclusions more weight than is appropriate. Though I fundamentally disagree with the word "proves" (maybe that was a site-level decision, and not the author, as internet article titles are wont to be), I find myself most inclined to agree with the Medium's conclusions. The authors of the study are continuing to investigate these and similar questions, so I'm looking forward to seeing what else they can come up with. References: Hartshorne, J.K., Tenenbaum, J.B., & Pinker, S. (2018). A critical period for second language acquisition: Evidence from 2/3 million English speakers. Cognition, 177, 263-277. There's a strong push for "authentic resources" in language teaching. That's a whole can of worms, and maybe I'll get into it sometime, but not at the moment. But a corollary to the directive to teach using authentic resources is to "adapt the task, not the text."
That pithy response is generally to address concerns like "My students aren't proficient enough to understand [xyz text]" or "How can I find authentic resources appropriate for novice-level learners?" Those are super valid points. If we define authentic as only "by native speakers, for native speakers," as is done popularly (my personal definition I'll leave for another post), then yeah--it's going to be hard to find texts written by people proficient in a language that are understandable by people who are not yet proficient in that language. There is likely a lot of unknown vocabulary and probably grammatical constructions that are unfamiliar (especially if one teaches according to a textbook sequence where some grammar is considered too "difficult" to present in the first semester or year or what have you). So back to the response. Rather than capitulate the point that it may make sense to provide language learners with texts they can understand, i.e. probably texts targeted specifically for learners, which don't fit the narrow definition of "authentic," the popular refrain is to "adapt the task, not the text." What does that mean? It means finding something, anything the learner can do with the text provided, given their current proficiency level. That might mean identifying cognates, looking for examples of a particular verb tense, finding known vocabulary words, etc. And honestly? I don't have a problem with that (to a point). It is valuable to practice the skill of trying to negotiate meaning in an otherwise incomprehensible text. As learners get out of the classroom and into the real world of the language (assuming they have the inclination and eventual proficiency to do so), they will come across plenty of incomprehensible text that needs deciphering. My issue, from an acquisition standpoint, is that it's inefficient. If the goal of a language program is to get learners to acquire as much language as possible in our limited contact hours, then I want to focus my time where I get the biggest bang for my buck. If most of the language in an authentic text is incomprehensible, and students must resort to picking out isolated words/phrases, then it's not much different than providing them with a list of words/phrases. And my goal is to move beyond the word/phrase level as quickly as possible so students can be processing increasingly complex (but still comprehensible) language. To sum it up, I don't mind incorporating the occasional native-origin text, in order to practice the skill of deciphering, but it's never going to be my mainstay activity nor my go-to for providing concentrated input, simply because the content that is comprehended is so sparse. I was graciously loaned a copy of Bill VanPatten's While we're on the topic: BVP on language, acquisition, and classroom practice, which describes and advocates for communicative language teaching. I read it straight through, but I'm working through it again to take down my thoughts, reflecting on it piece by piece.
Other than context, the component of BVP's definition of "communication" that I am still weighing is "purpose." Not whether purpose is necessary, because I agree it is. Without a purpose for speech, no real meaning is being exchanged; it would just be gibberish. I have questions about the definition, however. BVP constrains "purpose" to one of two domains (p.9):
That said, I return to something I mentioned in my last post on incorporating transactional language into the dialogue of narrative stories rather than role-plays. BVP's reaction to stories (specifically in the context of co-created stories ala TPRS) is that "how this outcome fits within the psychosocial or cognitive-informational purpose of communication remains to be seen" (p.71). This perspective kind of surprises me. The act of telling a story, especially co-created with the input of students, could easily be argued to develop relationships (psychosocial). In the book, there are many comparisons of L2 instruction to parent/child talk. Is there no purpose to parents telling/reading stories to their children? I cannot imagine he would make that argument. Regarding the cognitive-informational purpose of stories, BVP asks "Do learners know something about themselves and the world around them that they didn't know before?" (p.71). Which makes me wonder, does speech need to be objectively true to be informational? Can't we learn from a story, even if it's entirely fictitious? I don't see why not, but even if one were to argue that only nonfiction can inform, that would make it even more crucial to honor entertainment as a valid purpose. For example, consider fiction novels, tv, movies, etc. I can't imagine anyone would argue they not communicative input just because they're not biographies. I have some more questions about what counts as purposeful as well as the differences between communicative questions, display questions, and parent/child talk, but I'll save that for a separate post. |
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