Well I had another sleepless night because I wasn't really sure how to get my point across. I watched the following DVD by Vera F. Birkenbihl called:
"SPRACHEN LERNEN LEICHT GEMACHT!"
languages learning easy made!
You see, I'm completely into the decoding, why not the other way around ;-)
It's a fabulous lecture given to a bunch of people such as parents, teachers and self-learners. I would have loved just to play this DVD in front of the class, but I decided not to. Instead, I wrote down all the parts I wanted to tell the class. I also decided to make this lesson in German because I really, really wanted them to understand.
So the next morning, we started with the song "viva la vida" and sang it for the head teacher. We're always together on Monday and Friday. It's only Thursday morning, that I'm by myself.
And then I introduced the Birkenbihl method to the class. I won't write here a thousand times: "I told them that there was ..." I'm going to use direct speech here as if I was talking to the class.
Difficulties with language learning
So, how many of you think, that learning a foreign language is easy? (non of them raised their hand) I'd like you to write down the two things that you're struggling with the most. This could be things such as: writing, reading, learning vocabulary, pronunciation, speaking, grammar or anything else you can think of. (I gave them a minute to think about this and to write it down. The head teacher herself came to the blackboard and wrote down one word at the back that she thought was the biggest issue that the class had) So let me tell you this: According to surveys, 90% of all student say that they have difficulties with learning a foreign language and another 90% of them struggle with Vocabulary and Grammar. Now, how many of you have written down at least one of those two issues? (ALL children raised their hands and the teacher turned over her side of the blackboard. She had written VOCI too. Maybe 1/3 of the class actually did have both of them written down but the other issues were mainly pronunciation and speaking)
The natural way of language learning
Before learning a foreign language, what language did you learn? - And how did you learn your mother tongue? Well from the 7th month of pregnancy, an embryo starts hearing his mother's voice. So before it's even born, it had two months to get used to the sound of the language. But after being born, it takes another couple of months before a baby starts using their voices to communicate. And maybe a year later it's able to say the first words. And maybe another year later it starts putting some words into sentences... And even though neither grammar nor pronunciation is accurate, everyone is happy about it. And another 2-4 years later it starts to read and write...
The unnatural way - the school way...
With a second language the school expects us to do it all at once... I can see this with my stepson... He has to learn vocabulary lists with words he has never even heard before. Even before they have talked about it in school... And what's the problem with that??? You are trying to learn something by figuring out the pronunciation yourself which is just not possible in English! In Spanish, there are rules of how to pronounce a word and if you know those rules, you can pronounce every word, no matter if you know it or not... But English? The language of homophones? Then tell my how to pronounce the letters "ough"... If it's "though" why don't I say "throw" to "through"? I just added a "r"... And if it's "bough" why can't I say "cow" to "cough"? It's just a "c" instead of a "b"... So you see that trying to cram vocabulary you don't know cannot make sense. Can it?
The origin of vocabulary lists
And who invented vocabulary lists and grammar rules? (I got answers such as: "a mean person", "a teacher", "someone stupid"...) Well, it were the monks in the Middle Ages when they went on Missions in far away countries to bring those people what they thought was the right belief. So they went to remote places and before they could convert those people to Christianity, they had to learn the language. We all agree that this is not too hard while you're in this place where this language is spoken all the time. But most monks didn't stay forever but new monks came to replace them. And to give them a head-start they sent vocabulary lists back to the convents so the monks that were going to replace them could start learning the language before they got there. So what was the difference between those monks in the convents and you students? These monks were highly motivated because they knew that they would need this language to survive in those countries. In addition to that they didn't have much to do than praise the lord, eat and pray and learn those words on the list... They didn't have 9 other subjects they had to do homework for. Learning isolated vocabulary is not brain-friendly at all but back then it was all they had. They didn't have CDs or MP3-players they could load text in the foreign language on as we do now but most language teachers still expect kids to cram vocabulary for their tests. (Even teachers who just finished their education at a university of teachers education believe that cramming vocabulary is essential for learning a foreign language although I now that our lecturer told us nothing alike and I'm quite sure that other lecturers (at least the good ones) show their students different ways of dealing with vocabulary too. Fun ways... Brain-friendly ways... Then why is it so hard to believe for teachers, that cramming vocabulary is not the way? - I just realised that I'm writing more thoughts than I actually told the class, so I put them in brackets and italicised them)
How to get the necessary repetitions
(I drew an exponential curve on the blackboard) In order to initialise vocabulary a brain need repetition. Without repetition, we'll have forgotten 75% of what we have learnt within only two days and after 30 days it's completely gone. (So here we see the sense of testing students!!!) How many of you only study something for a test? And how sustainable is that? Our brain needs repetition to be able to save data permanently. Repetition 1-5 is not too bad but what about repetition 25? 35? 45? (They looked at me with huge eyes) There is a way to get this repetition which is no so boring and time consuming as writing the same word 45 times... we can delegate this task to our subconscious mind. Just like in our mother tonge. Non of us said (let alone wrote) the word "Daddy" before we initialised it. But we heard it over and over again. "Come to daddy", "oh look, there's daddy" and so on... So we got the essential repetition by hearing it. Now our brain makes no difference between actively listen to something or just hearing a sound in the background and that's exactly what this Birkenbihl method is about.
The Birkenbihl approach
Step 1 - To decode a text
The first step of the Birkenbihl method is to crack the code of the foreign language.
In the "young world" word list there is for example: "keep somebody happy" translated with "jemanden bei guter Laune halten" while we would translate it with: "behalten jemanden glücklich" because you all can see the sense in this translation too and there's really no "good" and no "mood" in this English phrase, is there? There is lots of weird translations in those vocabulary lists and all of you would cram them for the test!
My favourite translation is "I'm the one to ask" from Unit 4 which is translated with "bei mir sind Sie an der richtigen Adresse"...
But this step is already done for you. There will be exercises where you will have to decode a text yourself but for right now, you start with step 2 of the approach.
Step 2 - Active listening
In this step, I will read the text to you in English and you will first read along the German word-by-word translation. With a black marker you can cross out all the German words that you already know. So the second time I read the text, you follow the German words where you still need them to understand and switch to the English words where ever the German word is crossed out. After a couple of times, you will have understood all of the text. The aim is, that you hear the English and you understand it. So you don't have to produce the English yet. That comes later.
Step 3 - Passive listening
This is when we let the gigantic capacity of our unconscious mind work for us while we do something fun. We let this text that we now understand every single word of play on our MP3 player, our stereo or where ever. We don't have to listen to it, it just has to be there... We can adjust the volume when everything is quiet. That's when we should be able to hear it. But then, we can concentrate on our homework, our hobbies, even watch a movie while we unconsciously make all the repetitions we would never do under different circumstances.
Step 4 - Activities
And then, after having listened to the text for about two weeks, we know it inside out and we can start doing all kinds of fun stuff. We can do role-plays, quizzes, play games, talk freely about the topic and a lot more. But since this occurs two weeks after starting with the topic we have to think ahead. So about two weeks before completing a Unit we do the active listening with a text from the next Unit. So you can go ahead and listen to it passively before we even start with the activities of the Unit.
That way you are always familiar with words we use in a Unit and you can participate straight away. With the traditional method you start a Unit and as you go along you learn more and more about it and once you know it all and it starts being fun, the Unit is finished and a new Unit start with new and unfamiliar vocabulary. We want to make it the other way around.
Does this make sense to you? Who would like to try this with me? (Really every single one of them smiled and raised their hand and I felt soooo relieved!!!) I'm really looking forward to doing this with you!
So this is it for my first German - English lesson. From now on there will be no German speaking in my English lessons anymore!
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