This recent article in The Scientific American caught my eye:

From the January 2010 Scientific American Mind – The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages – Bilingual people process certain words faster than others By Melinda Wenner.
The ability to speak a second language isn’t the only thing that distinguishes bilingual people from their monolingual counterparts—their brains work differently, too. Research has shown, for instance, that children who know two languages more easily solve problems that involve misleading cues. A new study published in Psychological Science reveals that knowledge of a second language—even one learned in adolescence—affects how people read in their native tongue. The findings suggest that after learning a second language, people never look at words the same way again.

Eva Van Assche, a bilingual psychologist at the Univer­sity of Ghent in Belgium, and her colleagues recruited 45 native Dutch-speaking students from their university who had learned English at age 14 or 15. The researchers asked the participants to read a collection of Dutch sentences, some of which included cognates—words that look similar and have equivalent meanings in both lan­guages (such as “sport,” which means the same thing in both Dutch and English). They also read other sen­tences containing only noncognate words in Dutch.

Van Assche and her colleagues recorded the participants’ eye move­ments as they read. They found that the subjects spent, on average, eight fewer milliseconds gazing at cognate words than control words, which suggests that their brains processed the dual-language words more quickly than words found only in their native language.

“The most important implication of the study is that even when a per­son is reading in his or her native language, there is an influence of knowledge of the nondominant second language,” Van Assche notes. “Becoming a bilingual changes one of people’s most automatic skills.” She plans to investigate next whether people who are bilingual also process auditory language information differently. “Many questions remain,” she says.

WHEN WILL PEOPLE REALIZE THAT EVERY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SHOULD TEACH A FOREIGN LANGUAGE? Sorry for the all caps, but every study that is done supports this and yet you see states cancelling elementary foreign language requirements when budgets are tight and in states like Georgia and Connecticut, abolishing the foreign language requirement to graduate high school. It is so disappointing.

I was shocked to discover that Drake University in Iowa did away with their foreign language department replacing it with the “Language Acquisition Program”. Here is the description on their website:
The World Languages and Cultures Program offers a unique approach to language learning. Courses are interactive and thus limited to a maximum of four students. A native speaker functions as a model and a resource person. Students also work with their Language Coordinator, a professional linguist who mentors their progress. Language Learning Strategies courses provide students with additional structure and guidance.

I noticed that there are no foreign languages among the possible majors. Please tell me this is not the future for colleges and universities. While I think this approach would be fine as a possible course for upper level students and as a supplement to traditional courses, I don’t know of any online courses that could substitute entirely for a class that meets 3-5 times a week with a professor trained and accredited in actually teaching the language. We offer many stand alone software programs at www.wor.com, but even I would not try to say any are better than an actual class.

I see so many cutbacks in this economy of reduced funding that language proficiency will become harder and harder to obtain. Yes, there are instructors that are not fluent in the language they are supposed to teach and instructors that do not teach well. But unless you a student at an online school, where ALL the courses are online, I don’t think this can replace a “real” class with a trained instructor and not just a linguist.

Comments?

In doing some research for a publisher in Hong Kong for whom we are going to sell a brand new Chinese textbook, I found this interesting list online. Hope you find it helpful!

The Benefits of Studying Chinese

Many students do not realize the benefits of studying Chinese and what makes it easy. There are many benefits to studying Chinese. Here is a list of reasons to study Chinese and why it can easier to study than other languages.

Why study Chinese?

1. China is the most populous country in the world with over 1.4 billion people. Mandarin is spoken by almost one billion people. It is
the #1 spoken language in the world. One out of five people in the world is Chinese.
2. Mandarin is spoken in the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, The Philippines,
and Mongolia.
3. China is one of the world’s oldest civilizations, over 5000 years old.
4. China has the second largest economy in the world. Knowing Chinese will allow students to compete effectively in the global
economy of the future.
5. China is one of America’s largest trading partners.
6. Many American companies do business in China, including Motorola, Coca Cola, and Ford.
7. Knowing Chinese may be an edge when competing for a job. The demand for business people who know Chinese is
skyrocketing.
8. China is playing a major role in world affairs and will continue to do so.
9. A May 2006 Newsweek article stated that “In U.S. homes, Chinese has eclipsed French, German and Italian and become the third
most commonly spoken language after English and Spanish.”
10. By studying Chinese, students will develop an appreciation for Chinese culture and history.
11. Leaning a second language develops critical and creative thinking skills.

Why Chinese is easy?

1. There are no verb conjugations.
2. There is no gender.
3. There is no noun-adjective agreement.
4. There are no articles (the, a, an).
5. There is no number agreement (three books).
6. Numbers are easy: 20 = 2-10s, èr shì; 30 = 3-10s, san shì
7. Days of the week and months are easy. Monday = day one of the week; Tuesday = day two of the week; Wednesday = day three of the week…; January = one month, February = two month, March = three month…
8. There are no capital and small letters.
9. If you know 1000 commonly used characters, you will recognize 90% of the characters in Chinese newspapers.

What makes Chinese hard?

1. There are four different tones.
2. Character writing can be difficult with all of the strokes. There is a Romanized system called pinyin; some letter-sounds
combinations are different from English combinations.
3. Some structures can be difficult, such as measure words. The word modifying the number changes depending on whether it is
general, paper/book, cup/bottle, etc

I just read an interesting article about using theater or drama in the foreign language classroom. Here is an excerpt:
Drama and languages have much in common. As curricular areas, both need their learners to be active, expressive and communicative participants. Using our strategies to teach the four skills of language helps learners to learn the mechanics, but using drama helps them to experience the language.

I thought these lines express the advantages very well. Our products such as “Mighty Mini-Plays” (French, German and Spanish) and “Skinny Skits” (French and Spanish” are grabbed up by teachers frustrated by the lack of theater pieces they can use for their students. One can use simulated conversations as well, but there is something different about performing a play in front of classmates, or for parents.

Any comments from teachers out there?

Exhibiting this week at a military conference. It has been interesting to see where there is the most interest. Foreign films are clearly # 1 – for maintainging and improving proficiency, especially for colloquial vocabulary, and for learning more about the culture. That interest was not surprising. What did surprise me was the interest in foreign language editions of classic comics – Spiderman, Batman, GI Joe, etc. I am now researching foreign language editions – look for them soon on our website at www.wor.com – if you know of any – especially for tough to find languages – Russian, Arabic, Mandarin, Serbian, etc. – let me know!

I read an article in the Wall St. Journal yesterday about Rosetta Stone’s new Totale online subscription. If it was not expensive enough to spend several hundreds dollars for their program, they are charging $999 to access this online program for just one year, then it is finished. I refuse to sell Rosetta Stone, because of its price (and because of the fact that several years ago, a vice president with the publisher told me if I could not be 100% positive about the product, he did not want me to sell it. I replied that I was not 100% about any product – they all have weaknesses, and because I want to be honest about what I sell, I took it off my website that day!)

This is the email I sent to the WSJ this morning:

As a businesswoman selling foreign language resources since 1989, and one who refuses to sell Rosetta Stone because of its price, I felt compelled to email re the article by Katherine Boehret. There are SO many alternatives to paying $999 for one year for their program, I was surprised by the emphasis only on this product and no mention of other products. I personally recommend Learn to Speak French Deluxe 9.0 for adults who want to learn a language – $34.95 – with 30 topics, videos of native speakers that one can converse with using their speech recognition, etc. Instant Immersion French Deluxe – $45.00 – hours and hours of varied activities, etc.
Then one can purchase dvds of French films to practice comprehension and learn about the culture and the slang, the way the language is really spoken. You can then buy books to read to further your vocabulary. Upshot?
2 software programs – $80.00
4 French films on dvd – ~$100.00
5 books to read – ~$50.00
You could buy a dictionary, audio cds for the car, etc. and STILL pay less than $999.00.

There are SO many online groups one can chat with, for free too – why would anyone pay $999 and then lose the access after one year?

Forgive my rant, but so many people call me, looking for programs and disappointed at what they got after buying Rosetta Stone. They felt, with all the publicity and marketing Rosetta Stone pays for, that it must be the best out there and did not realize all the alternative programs. When I see free publicity like that article, it makes me aggravated.

I feel so much better now that I have gotten that out. In these tough economic times, value is important.

Well, Entre les Murs (The Class is the English title) was finally released on dvd this week.

http://www.wor.com/pd-entre-les-murs—the-class—dvd.cfm

I watched it the other night with our 15 year old and 20 year old son. At first, we all really enjoyed it. If you had muted the sound, you might have thought this was a typical American classroom, some white students, some black students, even a couple of Asian students. However, with the sound, you discover most of the black students are immigrants from Africa. Unlike many Hispanic students in the U.S., they all spoke fluent French. However, many of their parents could not read the notes sent home by the teacher. It was interesting to see how the different teachers viewed these students and how the main teacher, François, interacted with his class.

However, after an hour, we all got a little bored with the film. There is no real plot, it is definitely more of a documentary. While I think it is a great film to show in many high schools (but it is rated PG-13 because of bad language), I would show maybe half of it, not the entire film. I also think for advanced classes – French IV and AP – have them read the book first – then they should appreciate the film even more. http://www.wor.com/pd-entre-les-murs.cfm

I would definitely like to hear what others think of the film!

I exhibited at the national TPRS conference in San Antonio, Texas last week. What is TPRS, you ask?

TPR Storytelling is a method for teaching foreign languages that was invented by Blaine Ray, a Spanish teacher in Bakersfield, California, in 1990. Concerned that his students were disinterested in the unexciting process of learning a language from a textbook, he began to use James Asher’s Total Physical Response to teach Spanish. Asher says that students acquire their second languages as they acquired their first languages. Our students learn as babies learn. Therefore, we should not expect them to produce the language before they have had an ample amount of time to listen to it. Blaine experienced great success, and the students began to be excited about his class. Although TPR has been the most effective method for acquiring a second language since it was invented in the 1960s, Blaine found that after hitting the “TPR wall,” he was unsure of what to do to move from the imperative to the narrative and descriptive modes of speech. He found that changing from commands to the third person singular allowed him to tell stories, a long-term memory technique. He found that asking the students to act out the parts of the characters in the stories preserved the highly effective physical element that had been so powerful in Classical TPR. As the technique was developed over the years, it became an all-encompassing method and methodology. The method combines Dr. James Asher’s Total Physical Response (TPR) with Dr. Stephen Krashen’s language acquisition strategies, allowing us to teach grammar, reading and writing along with vocabulary.

Teachers experience the role of their students by signing up to learn Chinese or Russian during the conference. It is fun to see how much they can learn in just a few days, using this methodology. We were there with all our readers in a variety of languages!

I am pleased to announce that World of Reading is now an approved vendor for the RIF – Reading is Fundamental Program. Here is a little information about them, for those who do not know the program:

Founded in 1966, RIF is the oldest and largest children’s and family nonprofit literacy organization in the United States. RIF’s highest priority is reaching underserved children from birth to age 8. Through community volunteers in every state and U.S. territory, RIF provides 4.5 million children with 16 million new, free books and literacy resources each year.

All RIF programs combine three essential elements to foster children’s literacy: reading motivation, family and community involvement, and the excitement of choosing free books to keep.

Through community volunteers in every state and U.S. territory, RIF provides 4.5 million children with 16 million new, free books and literacy resources each year. RIF’s highest priority is reaching underserved children from birth to age 8.

Supported by the U.S. Department of Education, corporations, foundations, community organizations, and individuals, RIF has provided more than 350 million books since 1966 for children to choose and keep.

RIF serves children and families in every state, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories in programs that operate in schools, libraries, community centers, childcare centers, Head Start and Even Start centers, hospitals, migrant worker camps, homeless shelters, and detention centers. Today, thanks to public-private partnerships, RIF is the nation’s largest nonprofit children’s and family literacy organization.

We have designated which books on our website are eligible for RIF, basically those readers which are $7.00 or less. If you have any questions, let us know!

After a shocking and scathing editorial in our local paper in Atlanta, I feel very defensive about the importance of taking French. This uninformed man was up in arms that his child only had the option of taking French or Spanish in high school, because he wanted him to be able to study German. While I strongly agree that schools here in Georgia should offer more choices than just French or Spanish, that does not mean French is not worth studying.

As the rap of the same name as the title of this blog entry by the well-known Etienne puts it,
Over 200 million people speak French in this world, in more than 50 different countries. French is the official language of UN and NATO, The Red Cross, The Olympics, and UNESCO.

From a local perspective, in 2006, more than 50 French companies operated in metro Atlanta alone, employing over 5,600 people. There are approximately 60 Atlanta companies operating with subsidiaries in France. In competing for a job in the U.S., you will compete against far fewer native French speakers than Spanish speakers in looking at marketable skills.

It just amazed me that in this day and age, someone could not understand the importance of French.