Teaching Native Languages with Respect

Methods

Many students have a resistance to actually speaking a new language. They find themselves taking refuge in learning to read, write, and translate rather than speaking the new language. Teachers need to meet this resistance effectively instead of reinforcing it.

The two basic skills needed to speak a language are:

1. pronunciation of sounds in a manner similar to that produced by native speakers of the language;
2. linking the sounds with meaning to produce speech in the new language.

The chart below is animated (in the lessons) so that each colored block plays a sound when it is clicked. Learners get to play a game with the color chart, and the game gets the learner pronouncing the native language sounds and bypasses the usual resistance to speech found in most (older) students.

The Sound/Color chart

The Sound/Color chart enables the students to learn pronunciation in the target language without getting sidetracked into an alphabet and a system of diacritical marks. Students have a terrific time with it and learn to pronounce the sounds in the new language while gaining the confidence that learning to speak can be less threatening than assumed.

If the learners are old enough to be familiar with reading and writing, they are soon ready to be introduced to the alphabet in use with the particular language being taught (Lesson 4). The alphabet is produced in the colors used on the Sound/Color chart: this means that learners can be self-correcting--they can go back to the chart to recapture the sounds. It also means that learners are free of the constant (discouraging) correction of pronunciation that occurs in many classrooms.

Summary: Students need to relate directly to the language, not to the teacher, and they need to do this with a sense of confidence and discovery. The use of the Color Chart rather than a diacritical system to teach pronunciation helps the students learn that scholars and linguists are not the authorities in language learning. The active silence on the part of the teacher/speaker and the refusal to encourage imitation in the classroom helps the students learn that teachers and native speakers are not the authorities in language learning either. The real authorities in language learning are children--including the children we were when we learned our first language. Teachers, of course, need to know how language learning worked the first time if they are to help students learn another language.

Back

Lesson 1

Information on the Silent Way of Teaching Language

Information on Words in Color for Teaching Reading

Text by Jim Green
Alliance Project for Tribal Colleges
Box 340
Wilmot,SD 57279

Send EMAIL to: jim@dailypost.com