Learning a new language is not a child’s play. A person has to cross many hurdles to learn an entirely new language. It is a time-consuming process that demands sheer dedication, perseverance, and hard work on the side of both the learner and the teacher. Any reader who is reading this paper will also understand this. What remains unknown to the majority of the learners is that there are many strategies available that make learning the new language much easier so that it is easier for the learner to manage his time effectively in other ways (Kim, 2020). This paper initially discusses the writer’s personal rationale behind learning a new language and the personal experiences of the learner in learning the new language in Australia. The next section deals with the principles the learner thinks to apply when the learner is teaching the new language with proper illustrations followed by the last section which is the conclusion.
I think it is very important for every person to learn a new language because it firstly opens up new opportunities for the learner to speak in that language where the language is native. It also increases the learner’s knowledge and skillsets and aid in the personality development of the person. The learner who has learned the new language can now effectively participate in any event of the society with due respect. When a person learns a new language, he/she is better able to express himself/herself through ideas and feelings to a larger section of his contacts and can also discover information. The critical thinking abilities of the learner enhances after learning a new language (Derbel & Al-Mohammadi, 2015). The knowledge acquired by a person after learning a new language and the command over the language which the learner develops is quintessential in their political, social, and cultural life. If the learner happens to be a school student, then after learning a new language, the student develops competence and the understanding of punctuation procedures, spellings, sentence structures, and also text organization. I think culture should be appreciated, no matter what the culture or religion or the region the learner is from, he/she should appreciate every form of culture. This develops the entire personality of the learner. The learner will be able to enjoy the world much more.
I truly believe in the proverb which goes as ‘language is culture and culture is language’. The evolution of language and culture has always been hand in hand. Language and culture have always influenced each other which had ultimately given the shape to human beings to what it is today. Both these concepts have been interwoven together in an intricate framework. The reality of the whole world is based on the habits of the people which are in turn based on the language that they speak. Every language has its community. No two languages in the world are so similar to each other that their communities also match. Every community is different. Therefore, when a person speaks a particular language, he/she is representing a culture. And when the person is representing the culture, naturally he needs to know the language of the culture. Both these concepts are said to have a homologous mental reality (Scarino, 2019). I think when a person teaches a language to another person, he is technically teaching him the culture of that language group. The person on the other side of the table, who is learning, learns an entire culture along with the language which also gives an idea of the behavior of that community.
I had learned the language Light Warlpiri in Australia. This language is native to the people residing in an isolated village, Lajamanu, which is located in the northern territory of Australia (O’Shannessy, 2005). This village is inhabited by approximately 700 people and this language is spoken by the residents of the village who are under the age of 35. This village had invented this exclusive language. I had heard about this from my college friend and after visiting the village for the first time, I started to love this language. I started visiting the village every Sunday since my college was closed on this day and I slowly started to learn this language. I also got an idea about their culture – the food they ate, the customs they followed, their beliefs, and their values. This language has been recently developed and many of the people who had first developed this language are still living (Bakalar, 2013). The parents of these children who speak Warlpiri are proud that their children are learning English as well to face the outer world and at the same time are preserving their native language. I was a successful learner of this language since I never made a day off. I was a diligent learner who visited the village every Sunday to learn the new language of the region.
I have had many experiences while learning a new language in Australia. Though the main thing which I have learned is that there are many strategies which if followed correctly help the learner to learn the language in a much easier way (Scarino, 2011). The research area is known as the ‘second language acquisition’ has three key elements to learn a new language:
The first principle that I would like to apply when I am teaching a new language to my learner is the principle of ‘spread it out’. This principle predominantly focuses on allocating the time to studying or teaching the language most effectively. This principle encompasses two main components which are spacing which means that the time allotted for teaching or studying the language should be broken down into numerous small sessions and secondly, separation which means spreading these numerous sessions out over time (Kumaravadivelu 2012). This principle revolves around the idea that the entire content should not be taught or learned all at one go, instead the material should be grasped slowly over some time. For example, if I am teaching the vocabulary which I am to take the test on Friday and the teaching requires a total of 30 minutes and today is Sunday, I have four options to teach the vocab before Friday:
According to this principle, the third option is the best because the sessions are spread over time instead of spreading the session altogether or teaching the content all at once. It is easier for the students to concentrate if taught in this manner. Teaching or learning all at one go does not help the learner to learn but helps in cramming the material which is not a good way to teach or study.
When I used to learn Light Warlpiri in Lajamanu, I used to have many fears. These fears posed hurdles to my journey. Therefore, when I teach, I can expect that my students will also face the same fears. Hence, the third principle deals with making errors. My students can fear making mistakes or they may fear that they might say the wrong word instead of the right word or the fear may be that they can embarrass themselves in this situation of not being able to find the correct word. These fears are common and may happen to anyone. I faced these fears too while I was learning the language. The fact is the students NEED to make these errors since unless they make the mistakes, they would not be able to learn from them. If the student does not make a mistake, then the level of the comprehensible output also goes down, that is to say, the fear of making an error affects the learning process negatively. For example, to put this theory to practice, I, as a teacher, have to create the classroom situation in such a way that the students who are making mistakes feel comfortable and not embarrassed when they are learning a whole new language and making those common mistakes (Scarino, 2009). Another way of putting this into practice is by combining the students of the same language skill to learn together instead of combining them with advanced learners or native learners. Making combinations with advanced learners would lead to an inferiority complex and similarly, making to sit with native learners would lead to a superiority complex.
Conclusion
A culture is built on the bricks of language. Learning about a language is the most crucial for learning the culture. Language is the way a person expresses himself/herself, communicates with each other, establishes relationships, and generates a sense of fraternity. Approximately, the entire world consists of 6500 spoken languages, and every language spoken is unique in its way. There is a famous saying which was said by the American who was born in Afghan, Khaled Hosseini, who is by profession a novelist and a physicist too – “If culture was a house, then language was the key to the front door, to all the rooms inside.”
References
B.Kumaravadivelu (2012) Language Teacher Education for a global society
Bakalar, N. (2013). A Village Invents a Language All Its Own. The New York Times. Retrieved 16 March 2022, from
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/science/linguist-finds-a-language-in-its-infancy.html#:~:text=Warlpiri%20rampaku%2C%20or%20Light%20Warlpiri,people%20in%20Australia’s%20Northern%20Territory.&text=There%20are%20many%20dying%20languages%20in%20the%20world.
Derbel, e. M. I. R. A., & al-mohammadi, s. (2015). Chapter ten integration of language skills and culture in english language teaching: rationale and implications for practice. Issues in english education in the arab world.
Kim, D. (2020). Learning language, learning culture: Teaching language to the whole student. ECNU Review of Education, 3(3), 519-541. https://doi.org/10.1177/2096531120936693
O’Shannessy, C. (2005). Light Warlpiri: A new language. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 25(1), 31-57.
https://doi.org/10.1080/07268600500110472
Saville-Troike, M., & Barto, K. (2017). Introducing second language acquisition. Cambridge University Press.
Scarino, A. (2009). Teaching and learning languages: A guide.
Scarino, A. (2011). The shape of the Australian curriculum: Languages (Doctoral dissertation, Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority).
Scarino, A. (2019). The Australian Curriculum and its conceptual bases: a critical analysis. Curriculum Perspectives, 39(1), 59-65.
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