Something we teachers still don’t do enough of (but all can and should)

“To have another language is to possess another soul” – Charlamagne

I can’t claim to know a huge amount about Charlamage (or many of the people I quote) but I remember reading this somewhere and feeling such a strong pull to these words. We Brits are notoriously inept at adopting new languages. It’s a reputation we’ve built that sticks like glue wherever we go.

We’ve all heard pasty holidaymakers yelling English at waiters in the hope that volume will encourage comprehension. You may have done it yourself. Even if you haven’t, I bet you’ve been abroad somewhere in your life and felt the horrifying discomfort that arises when we need to ask something of someone and we know they don’t speak anything we understand. Or, if we’re feeling really polite, one of the following:

parles-vous anglaise?

¿hablas inglés?

sprechen Sie Englisch?

And, apparently, we’re the ones with the ‘manners’.

What’s the point?

My partner will be sick of hearing this because I say it all the time – not always at her, but sometimes at her:

“It is the little things that make the biggest difference” – Yours Truly.

English is so widely spoken that it is often unnecessary for British people to learn another language when travelling abroad. Hence, our neglect for linguistic versatility. As a result, we often feel so embarrassed around people from other countries when they speak English to accommodate us. We also shame others, or ourselves, for sticking to what we know and failing to adopt other languages. Because of this shame, the anxiety surrounding foreign languages to us is crippling and stops us learning. It’s a vicious cycle.

But get this…

An old friend of mine – from Russia, but who I met in New Zealand – transformed my outlook on British monolinguality (is that a word?). He put such a positive spin on it that I’ve only seen our attitude to other languages this way since.

“I find it so impressive that you people speak the only truly global language and yet so many of you still insist on learning others.

There’s no need, yet many of you still want to.” – Philipp Strokov, philosopher, comedian, barman and all-round good soul.

Why do some of us bother learning other languages? We can visit such a vast area of the world and survive just with our mother tongue. What’s the point?

Well,

"A different language is a different vision of life." - Federico Fellini

"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going." - Rita Mae Brown

There’s your point.

How my “little things” have made a big difference

Many people in the UK do like to learn another language. Some learn many. Such is the cultural melting-pot in which we live, Britain is now blessed with millions of citizens who have brought other languages – and, therefore, other visions of life and road maps of cultures – to our shores. In my opinion, our world is all the richer and more beautiful for the wealth of cultural and national backgrounds and languages that make up Britain today.

One symptom of this societal shift? Many children in our schools speak other languages or have families who do.

I, for one, want a road map of their cultures. I want to learn where they are from, what they can teach me, how they see the world differently to me. I want to see their vision of life; once I can, I am all the more empowered in supporting and educating them.

But, being British and monolingual, that isn’t easy. A little effort, I find, goes a long way, though. It’s the little things that make the biggest difference.

When I go abroad, I use what I can learn in a few days prior. I spent 4 days in Italy last year and tried to speak only Italian based on a few podcast episodes I had listened to while gardening the week before. Just a week. I never got into lengthy conversations but I was able to order food and drinks, check prices and greet people. I was able to blend in a little. Everywhere I went, I felt an appreciation for the effort and a huge willingness to help me out when I was clearly struggling. I felt I’d connected with these people.

Once, I took evening classes at the local college in Spanish (and I currently have a 238-day streak on Duolingo); when lost in Benidorm on a stag do, this helped me direct our taxi driver back to where we needed to be. This blew the other stags’ minds that I could do it when, in truth, it’s a simple – and small number of – instructions to be able to give.

I visited some friends in Bavaria, in the south of Germany, this summer. I have even less German than I do Italian but I could ask my friends (and my partner, who has an A-Level in German) for little phrases that helped me blend in there too. Being with English-speaking friends also meant I could learn other phrases. I can’t repeat many of them here but they all kept me entertained and allowed me to explore the differences between English and German. My favourite example is when, while living in New Zealand, I tried to explain a slug to some Germans and described it as being ‘like a naked snail’. Cue roaring German laughter: the German word for slug is ‘nackte Schnecke’ or, literally, ‘naked snail’. That’s one of my favourite linguistic memories.

It's the little things that make the biggest difference.

Languages in the classroom

I promise you, in all of these cases of me speaking another language, this took nothing more than a little effort and a little desire.

It takes even less than that to bring languages into the classroom.

Many classrooms in Britain are stocked with children who speak little English, their families hailing from far-flung corners of the world and their adopted language still alien to them. I don’t have one such classroom but I do have a mixture of backgrounds represented in the classroom.

For once, I can actually shed some vaguely scientific, peer-reviewed knowledge on this topic. During my Masters in Education, I wrote an essay about the reluctance of teachers to use other languages in classrooms. I found out that almost a third of children in the UK now consider English as an additional language (henceforth referred to as EAL students). Additionally, many children speak English in school as a ‘first’ language but may dabble in other languages at home, ones their families may be more confident in speaking. To not embrace other languages is to deny a huge number of children the opportunity to tap into a vital part of their identity.

An incredibly simple way to encourage languages in the classroom is through the register. I’m not the first teacher to do this, I know, but I believe every teacher should. At the beginning of the year, I encourage an informal chat with the class about where members of their families come from. Being children, they’re all too keen to share.

One bonus of this is we get a very real sense of how different we are and people are able to get excited about being different from others. This is a proper, authentic celebration of differences.

Better still – you don’t have to know how to say hello in 20 different languages: the children can teach you. Find a way of recording their phrases and, if necessary, read the off a piece of paper when you do the register. You’ll get the hang of it eventually. My children start be writing phrases I don’t know yet on their whiteboards and holding them up for me. After a few days, I’m able to remember it.

NOTE – I am crap at this. I find I am much slower than lots of people I know at taking on language. If you think you are too, I promise, you are better than you expect.

So far, here’s the list of languages I have learned to say either hello or good morning and good afternoon in:

-        Welsh

-        French

-        German

-        Spanish

-        Swedish

-        Italian

-        Lithuanian

-        Polish

-        Russian

-        Philippine

-        Mandarin (spoken in China)

-        Tamil (spoken in Sri Lanka)

-        Japanese

-        Korean

Aside from Spanish (and GCSE French), I have made no effort of my own to learn any of these languages. The children have taught me them.

How does this help the children?

This is a wonderful example of what the children gain from their teacher embracing their culture.

Last year, I taught a bright, eager student whose family hailed from Poland. I had already learned the Polish greetings by this time so was able to bond with her over that on the first day. It’s something small but, as I always say, the smallest things make the biggest difference.

During our World War 2 topic, she altered the question to include a paragraph about Poland’s suffering and efforts.

She chose to write about Polish scientist Marie Curie during our ‘Inspiration People’ topic.

In my enrichment club – Culture Club – she led a lesson all on her own teaching other children about the Polish language and culture. Guess what? Other children then expressed an interest in doing the same, both to connect their language/culture with their daily setting and to enrich the learning of others.

Best of all – at the end of the year, she left me a travel guide to Krakow, where her family once lived, and a Polish language guide. She left telling me that she hopes to become a historian when she grows up, one who documents Polish history and shares it with the world.

The pride she has in her Polishness was unspeakably moving and genuinely inspirational. Just by being in my class, she made me want to learn Polish one day. She made me want to visit, to explore the culture, the food, the music and the history of her country. She shared this with others who, in turn, wanted to share their own cultural differences and linguistic versatility.

All because I embraced greeting her in Polish every day.

It’s the little things that make the biggest difference.

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