Language Learning Behavior That Drives Teachers Crazy

All those language learning behaviors that drive teachers crazy? I do them all!

For example:

• I nod and smile when someone is talking to me in Korean - even when in actuality I don't understand a word they're saying. How many times have I done that! I'll meet someone in the apartment elevator, say; we'll greet, and the person will start talking to me. I smile, nod, say "ne, ne" (that's "yes, yes") and at the end say goodbye. I wonder what I'm saying "ne" to?? Sometimes this is easier - it gives the illusion that we've just had a nice conversation in Korean, which is better than the sometimes endless and hopeless exchange of "What?" "I don't understand" "Please repeat" etc.

• I don't yet have a Korean "um" or "yeah" or other filler phrase I can comfortably use between thoughts when I speak. So what do I do? At home, Spanish speakers will sometimes repeat the word "pero" in between thoughts, even when their English level is high enough not to need any other Spanish; some students seem to preface every sentence with the word "because" - even when there is no cause relationship; it too seems to function as a filler, annoying as it sounds to the listener. I find myself saying "and so" in between sentences. How annoying that must sound - sticking "and so" between each Korean phrase. But even when I notice it, I can hardly stop doing it - it just slips out. The mind - or the tongue - really seems to need to put something there. (I also sometimes fill with "y" - the Spanish word for "and" - a typical phenomenon where you start filling in gaps with words from a different foreign language you've studied. It's gotten me in trouble since "y" is also the pronunciation of the name "Lee" in Korean and happened to be my Korean teacher's name. Someone asked me why I was talking about my teacher.)

• And I incessantly translate. There was an older Russian woman at SJCC who used to come into the ESL lab for help. She absolutely had to analyze every sentence she read or wrote and translate it into Russian. It's the only way she could understand. I wanted to shake her, to tell her to tolerate some ambiguity and try to get her mind functioning in English. Relax, and let the English sounds and structures penetrate. And here I am, finding that I cannot tolerate ambiguity either, and I can't just relax and let the Korean penetrate - it doesn't go in! I hear the sounds, I know I've heard them before, but often they don't mean anything until I think through the translation.* And my Korean texts are filled with the English translations of words I've written above the Korean words. I tell my students not to do that - to gloss the words at the bottom or on a separate page - but they want the translations there and so do I.**

• I have little patience with proofreading. I've mentioned this in the posting on error correction. Proofreading in Korean is nothing like proofreading in English. When I look at a page of Korean text that I've written, it still just looks pretty much like squiggles to me. I'm still at the stage where I have to sound out most words - like a first grader learning to read (Can't you hear the parents? "Just sound it out!"). As with translation, I have to think through the spelling of every word.*** I understand the effect of misspelled words, but going through a text word by word is so tedious and does not seem very rewarding in terms of learning. So sometimes - I skip that part!****

*In our classes at Yonsei we have a test on about 100 new vocabulary words every week. and I've always done well on those tests, but I use mnemonic tricks, associations, mental pictures etc. to remember the words. Of course, we use the words in conversations and exercises, but that's not how I remember them. So I do well in reading comprehension and writing and vocabulary tests because I have to time to think and translate and remember my tricks, but very poorly in listening and speaking because it goes too fast and I haven't really internalized the learning yet. (Learning vs. Acquisition! Oh, so true!)

**Does this slow down learning? I think it does. But in class I have to be ready to answer a question about a text at a moment's notice. What if I forget a word and can't answer the question? I will be embarrassed in front of all my classmates! I will be on the spot, sweating and squirming, trying desperately to come up with some kind of answer. So - I use translation and any other trick, like predicting what exercises we might be asked to perform orally and copying the answers into my textbook ahead of time. I've been known to read a previously copied answer without knowing what it meant!

***An example: compare these two words: "지하절" and "지하철." The first is an incorrect spelling of the word for "subway" and the second is the correct spelling. I have to force myself to remember which "ㅈ" has the little line above it and which doesn't. "ㅈ" and "ㅊ" do represent different sounds, but I can't yet distinguish them in rapid speech, so pronunciation doesn't help. To a Korean, spelling "subway" the first way immediately sets off their mental red pencil - just as someone spelling "friend" as "freind" sets off mine.

****So I love keeping my learning log, which I write in Korean but just for myself - so I write as I would speak, without worrying about correctness, and it's very enjoyable. I wonder - which way is the more efficient for learning?

PS I think I've got some good language learning behavior too! Stay tuned.