A Dose of My Own Medicine
I’ve been advocating the use of read/write web in my EFL classrooms for three years now. Ironically, I have done little toward applying the same approach in my own language learning attempts. Although I’ve been in Japan for more than six years now, my Japanese still sucks. One of my New Years resolutions was to change that with a daily dose of the Web 2.0.
I’ve started by subscribing to an excellent Japanese language podcast called Nippon Voice Blog, which publishes bi-monthy segments on topics relevant to what’s happening culturally at the time. For example, I just finished listening to the latest one, Osechi Ryouri (traditional New Years food), which taught me vocabulary that I was able to put into immediate use in conversation with friends and family. In the process, I constructed a glossary for that podcast which I made available to other users for download by posting the URL in the comments section.
Next, I started a blog at Drecom, a Japanese provider, where I plan to write on a consistent basis and, hopefully, put the social networking services to work there to meet other people and converse in Japanese. I need this type of authentic, text-based interaction to push me to learn new kanji and patterns of language use. I find it too difficult to sustain attention on dry, grammar based texts.
The big question is, can I stick to it amidst all the other activities in my life right now?
Update: I switched back to Wordpress for the Japanese blog because it’s such a better blogging tool. It’s called Senmandanoyume. And no, I haven’t made much time for it recently.
Miriam wrote:
Good luck - I have been watching a Mexican soap to try re-aquaint myself with Spanish. At first it was tough and grueling but now I am totally hooked. I don’t know if I will be able to speak and understand native speakers any better (the pressure gets to me) but I certainly understand the program better and have been dreaming in Spanish (occasionally) for the first time since I lived in Costa Rica.
Posted 09 Jan 2006 at 1:51 pm ¶
Aaron wrote:
I think we all need to do something enjoyable if we are to sustain our learning outside of formal education.
Posted 09 Jan 2006 at 9:12 pm ¶
EFL Geek wrote:
This sounds a lot like what I started a year ago with my group blog for learning Korean: Lets Learn Korean (한국어 연습장). When I started it, there was a lot of action, but now I am the only one writing and not very often.
I need to get more discipline and regularly motivate myself.
Posted 10 Jan 2006 at 3:21 pm ¶
John G wrote:
You can keep it up Aaron. Even my Japanese improved when I exposed myself to new vocabulary (and without all that memorization or indexing). I tend to think that if you’re just given the chance to hear new words you’ll begin to pick out the ones that you find the most useful - kind of like survival of the fittest, the best words will stay in your head! Sometimes I’d just look at a few pages of my dictionary, just to see if there were any useful things I hadn’t thought of.
Posted 11 Jan 2006 at 12:42 am ¶
Aaron wrote:
EFL Geek: That’s a cool blog and a really good idea. I vaguely remember you writing about it on your main blog last year, but never checked it out. Thanks for the link.
John: Thanks for the encouragement. I wonder if you are still keeping up with your Japanese?
Posted 11 Jan 2006 at 2:01 pm ¶
Miriam wrote:
Ha! I love that John - survival of the fittest. Learning spanish from a soap opera really funny because they use the world “golfa” a lot which doesn’t seem to be in dictionaries but I think means “slut” or “whore”. There is also other similar slang which I pick up because they say it all the time - but it probably isn’t used that much in non-soap-life. Oh well, at least it is fun.
Posted 13 Jan 2006 at 4:22 pm ¶
Marco Polo wrote:
Great idea, Aaron. Kudos to you for making this a priority and for the courage to give it a go.
At the Indendent Learning Association’s conference in Auckland last September, a keynote address was given by Marina Mozzon-McPherson, an Italian who has lived in the UK for many years and is a teacher of Italian (and autonomous language-learning and advising) at Hull University, UK. She referred to an email list that was created (by her?) with the aim of helping her Italian students communicate in Italian with Italian native speakers (Marina herself and others she located and roped in). However, she found it slowly changed its purpose: firstly it kept going even after the Italian course was finished, and it now includes several “generations” of Hull Uni Italian language students; secondly, Marina discovered it was a useful resource for HER, as an expat Italian - she was able to brush up her Italian, discover new words and expressions coined since she left that country, etc., thanks to being in contact with native-speaking Italians living in Italy. Other expat Italians that Marina brought in discovered the same thing, and it became a very lively and vibrant community with genuine communication going on between British students of Italian, Italian native speakers (both expat and those living in Italy) and other students of Italian from other countries now living in Italy for various reasons.
This gave me the idea of doing what Aaron has done, to help me develop my Japanese skills, and perhaps also to brush up other languages I once spoke but have no opportunity to use now. I got distracted, however, by a major personal project that has given my Japanese language skills a quantum boost, but which I can’t recommend to everyone due to the huge expense: building a house in Japan!
Posted 13 Jan 2006 at 7:16 pm ¶
Aaron wrote:
Hey, let me know more about building a house in Japan sometime! In the meantime, I’ll be hunting down Gatto books.
Posted 15 Jan 2006 at 11:10 pm ¶
Graham Stanley wrote:
This is a great idea Aaron - I’ve been listening to a few Spanish podcasts too - I’ve stopped now as I just don’t have time, what with EVO starting and all. I even started blogging in Spanish for a while, but didn’t keep it up as it just took up too much of my time. However, your post may make me change my mind. I’m all for not asking my students to do what I wouldn’t do myself.
Posted 16 Jan 2006 at 5:33 pm ¶
Graham Stanley wrote:
Miriam, the word ‘golfa’ (male version: ‘golfo’) is in common currency in Barcelona, Spain, and I don’t think it’s as strong as you make it out to be (at least not here) - it tends to be used chidingly, or in fun, when someone goes out a lot, especially looking to pick up men/women. If you look in the dictionary it is a synonym for ‘whore’, but I could say this word to someone without offending them, but I could never use the other word (’puta’) without it being an insult.
Posted 16 Jan 2006 at 5:40 pm ¶
Marco Polo wrote:
Aaron, the link doesn’t work. Maybe you gave up?!? Thanks for the links to Japanese podcasts. Now, I wonder what you think of creating your own podcasts in Japanese, for the sake of improving your Japanese language skills? I would guess that podcasting of this kind would not be a high priority for people living in the country where the target language is spoken, unless it is for the authentic purpose of networking and finding like-minded Japanese speakers.
Posted 24 Feb 2006 at 12:02 pm ¶
Aaron wrote:
Hi Marco…I gave up blogging at that service. Compared to using WP, I found the experience less than palatable. I started a new one here: http://e-poche.net/senmandanoyume
Posted 26 Feb 2006 at 10:53 am ¶