Learning Language Learning

Stand up.  Sit down.  Point to nose.  Point to toilet.  Point back to nose.  Point to man waving.

Pointing to noun and verb pictures

That is a sample of the organized charades we've been playing at our Second Language Acquisition training the past two weeks.  We're studying the basic tools for learning a language and culture simultaneously in places where there's no class to take.  It's been very stimulating! We're looking closely at the practices of learning a language, before we are actually thrown "into the fire" of having to do it all to survive when we reach our future home.  It's been refreshing to examine the spiritual aspects of learning languages and the way it forces you to be "child-like" in your dependence.

Learning the phonetic sounds we don't hear in English

I'm also very encouraged by the practical tools they're giving us so we can form our plan for language learning ahead of time.  Our method will probably revolve around being participant-observers in daily life, making notes about the situations and vocabulary we want to learn, and then meeting with a language helper to go over these things. That's where the charades come in.  We make pictures of things and actions we've observed, and then go over them with the language helper until we can use them in sentences, etc.

This week we're just doing simulations, so hopefully we won't ever really have a man waving at us as he points to his nose after standing up from a toilet...