<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'><font size="2">Number three.</font><br>
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From: Jaime R Vergara <pinoypanda2031@aol.com><br>
To: editor <editor@saipantribune.com><br>
Sent: Fri, Aug 22, 2014 2:59 pm<br>
Subject: August 27 for ST<br>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b>Listen <i>(ting)</i> and repeat <i>(chungfu)</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Pimmsler's work on language learning is popular. The Internet come-on is the by-line of
learning a new language in ten days without a book or CDs, though I suspect,
the winsome smile of the lady promoting the website probably got our attention;
I clicked more than once! I was only methodologically
curious, of course, only to find out what I already knew in my more than
30-years of pedagogy; one relies on the way students naturally learned their
native tongue as a child: <i>listen </i>and <i>repeat.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">In the three years I taught oral English to students at the
Shenyang Aerospace U and tutor children at the Shou Wang weekend school, two of
the only Chinese words I used were <i>ting </i>(listen)
and <i>chungfu </i>(repeat).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">I used the classic character <i>ting</i>, not the simplified one currently used to denote paying
attention with one's ears. The earlier
version began with a radical that set the meaning of the word. In this case, there were three major groups
of strokes. The first one on the left was
the "ear" with an emphasis on it being huge (open wide) written below
it. The second was the "eyes"
so that listening also involved viewing and watching with intensity. This occupied the top right quadrant. The third written just below the
"eyes" was the "heart", thoroughly engaged. I called it the hooker. The one word was equivalent to "active
listening" in English.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Just this one word had enormous implication in the conduct
of the classroom. It required my students to be at full
attention all the time. Normal classes
have teachers equipped with a mini-microphones and portable speakers so that ze
voice was amplified throughout the room.
In lecture halls, the room was equipped with a sounds system and given
the popularity of Power Point presentations, lectures were conducted with the
lights dimmed save the one by the board; the front row listened in earnest
while the rest of the class behind them did something else, or caught up with
their z-z-z-s.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Thus, my class architecture was designed so there was no
escape from the gaze of the neighbor. Class
numbers varied in size from 30 to 60 students.
When it was over 30, they had two sessions per week so I split them into
two, no more than 30 per, each attending a session and skipping the other. I assigned them seats, my way of learning to
identify each person by their birth names rather than the "English" ones
they chose or acquired in other English classes, usually for the convenience of
the foreign teacher. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Not only did assigned seats break roommates who tended to
stick together (there are four in a room in the dorm) but it also broadened student's
circle of co-learners. I had them work
in small groups with people they did not normally associate with. It also worked to their advantage since they
were assigned work outside the class, each one encouraged to teach two as
learning is best accomplished when one taught what one learned, in this case, learning
how to learn.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Seating arrangements silenced the loquacious, and engaged the
shy, in two rows of semi-circles if the class numbered 30. Smaller groups were in tight but cozy one row
around the room.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">On the center of the room was a table covered with a
kerchief (mine was a simple black and white <i>ala
</i>Palestinian head gear) with a hankie centerpiece laden with a broken cup
and spilled uncooked rice, local stones from the schoolyard and one or two gems
from my collection. I walked around the
center table so there was no defined front of the room. When someone was called to speak, ze spoke to
the whole class, and discovered "public" voice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">And talked, they did, though not at first. They had to overcome "face" so they
were asked to leave their "faces" outside the door of the room. This was hard for many trained to be
backbench warmers. They were in a
speaking class and if they had to worry about "face", they would not
open their mouths. Read and write, they did
not hesitate, but speaking from experience, of personal feelings, thoughts and
deeds was "private", not in the normal comfort zone.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">They listened to the teacher, their classmates, and to one's
self. It was on the last that we asked
them to speak, first, to repeat what they heard<i> </i>so that they can hear their voice, and get comfortable with their
own sound in English. We get them to
repeat familiar ads and public signage, but mostly, sang along popular English songs. Then I got them to talk about themselves by
identifying parts of their bodies that included words they were not too
familiar with like <i>forehead, cheeks,
chin, chest, hip, thigh, calf, shin, etc.
</i>I designed varied games to do this and they had fun learning.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Listen and repeat begin the learning of languages. In class, I described what I saw, heard,
smelled, tasted, and touched over the weekend, and asked the class to do the
same individually in their assigned groups.
There were no right or wrong answers.
There was only the courage to speak.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Everyone worked doubly hard on the courage!</div>
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<br>
<div style="clear:both"><i>j'aime la vie</i><br>
<a href="mailto:pinoypanda2031@aol.com">pinoypanda2031@aol.com</a><br>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!</i></div>
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