Archive | May 2012

Top Hollywood Celebrities Who Acquired Second Language

May22

We are always super excited to hear celebrities’ spicy gossips and eager to learn about their lives. Their amazing acting skills and attractive looks inspire us all. But besides all this, fewer people know, some of these celebrities are very efficiently skilled at other languages. Some of them like Natalie Portman leave one jaw dropped with her ability to speak five languages fluently; nonetheless Jodie Foster can handle dubs in French-language films. Below, we will be talking in a little detail about these celebrities’ language skills.

 SANDRA BULLOCK

Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, Virginia on July 26, 1964. Her father John Bullock was a United States army employee and her mother Helga Meyer was an opera singer. John met Helga while he was stationed in Nuremberg, Germany and then married her there. Sandra was raised in United States and she always accompanied her mom on her opera tours throughout Europe. During stay with her aunt and grandmother at Salzburg and Nuremberg, she learnt German. That is why Bullock can spectacularly speak fluent German.

                                                             

 MILA KUNIS

Milena Markovna Kunis born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine on August 14, 1983 gained fame from her breakout film Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  Russian is her native language which she can speak very fluently. At the age of seven her family moved to Los Angeles, California. There she was enrolled in an acting school to help learn English, and that is where she was discovered by an agent. When Mila Kunis was admitted in school these are her views regarding it, “I blocked out second grade completely. I have no recollection of it. I always talk to my mom and my grandma about it. It was because I cried every day. I didn’t understand the culture. I didn’t understand the people. I didn’t understand the language. My first sentence of my essay to get into college was like, ‘Imagine being blind and deaf at age seven.’ And that’s kind of what it felt like moving to the States.” 

                                       

 BRADLEY COOPER

The 37 year old American actor Bradley Charles Cooper, known for his movies The hangover, A-team, Wedding Crashers etc, surprised everyone when he spoke fluent French during an interview promoting “The Hangover II”. According to Cooper during his college years, he went on a student exchange program to France where he learnt French.

                                                                         

 JODIE FOSTER

The super-smart Jodie Foster learnt French during her stay at French prep school, Lycée Français de Los Angeles. As a teenager she frequently stayed and worked in France. Foster still speaks French fluently and most surprisingly dubs the French-Language films too.

                                                     

 JOHNNY DEPP

Everyone’s heart throb, Johnny Depp also speaks fluent French. He lives in Paris with his partner, French model Vanessa Paradis. They both also have two bilingual kids.

                                                                               

   KIM CATTRALL

Kim Cattrall is an English-Canadian actress who is known for her role as Samantha Jones in the HBO’s comedy/romance series Sex and the City. She was born in Liverpool, England on August 21, 1956. Kim picked on learning German fluently during her stay at Frankfurt with her husband Andre. J. Lyson. But she admits that she has forgotten a lot over the years.

                                               

 VIGGO MORTENSEN

Viggo Mortensen can speak several languages. His mother was American and father was Danish, apart from that they settled in Argentina where he acquired Spanish in primary school. That is why Viggo is fluent in English, Danish and Spanish. Mortensen is conversational in French and Italian, and understands Norwegian and Swedish.

                                                 

 BEN AFFLECK

39 year old Ben Affleck is an American writer, producer, director and actor. In childhood, Ben lived in Mexico where he easily learnt to speak Spanish. Affleck while promoting his movie “The Town” in Spanish, he described his co-star Jon Hamm as “guapo” meaning handsome.

                                             

GWYNETH       PALTROW

Paltrow was born and raised in Los angeles, California. Her father is film producer/director Bruce Paltrow and mother is an actress Blythe Danner. She got special attention for her work in Seven (1995) and Emma (1996). Gwyneth learned to speak Spanish at the age of 15 on her student exchange program to Spain.

                                                 

 NATALIE PORTMAN

Natalie Hershlag (Natalie Portman) on June 9, 1981 was born in Jerusalem, Israel. She was three year old when her family moved to United States. Portman learned to speak Hebrew while attending Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School. Apart from English, Natalie had great interest in learning other foreign languages since childhood. She can speak fluently German, Japanese, French and Spanish. Some say that she had studied Arabic too.

Effects of Anxiety while Acquiring Second Language

May22

Social anxiety is defined by “(1) feelings of tension and discomfort, (2) negative self-evaluations, and (3) a tendency to withdraw in the presence of others” (Schwarzer, 1984 ). It is a fact that students face a certain degree of anxiety on daily basis in their classrooms. This anxiety quadruples when students acquire a second language while taking a language course. For many students language courses are the most anxiety-provoking courses that they take (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986). This psychological state of mind has been focus of research among many linguists as well as psychologists.

The focus of this article is the effect that anxiety has in second language acquisition (L2) among students. Majority of the studies up till now show a negative correlation between anxiety and acquisition performance. For instance MacIntyre in his “Modern language journal” talks about the negative correlations stated by different researchers. He says that significant negative correlations between language anxiety and course grade have been reported for languages such as Japanese (Aida, 1994), Spanish (Horwitz, 1986) and French (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991b). Language anxiety has also shown significant negative correlations with standardized proficiency tests, both written and oral (MacIntyre, 1995). Krashen (1985), in his affective filter hypothesis says that high anxiety among learners will be an impediment in reaching the language acquisition device. According to Horwitz (1986) language anxiety could compel students to postpone language study indefinitely or to change majors.

Although primarily anxiety is associated with low performance among learners but there has been research from positive perspective too. In Bailey’s (1983) study of competitiveness and anxiety in second language learning, facilitative anxiety was one of the keys to success, and closely related to competitiveness (Brown, 2000). And there are also some examples of different researches where the correlation is nil. When a study was done by Zhang Baoyan’s (1996) on students in Taiwan who were learning English as Foreign Language it was found that there was no relationship between anxiety and learning outcomes/progresses.

So, we can conclude from these researches that the relationship between anxiety and achievement is possibly not simply direct or linear. Other factors such as aptitude, classroom environment, culture, learner’s proficiency are also important. Krashen’s in his “Affective Filter Hypothesis” shows that motivaton, self-confidence and anxiety go hand in hand. According to him these factors together play a prominent role in language acquisition and prove to be vital in the process of language acquisition, thereby either improving or interfering with a student’s ability to progress.

Bibliography

  • Brown, H. D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching. San Francisco: Prentice Hall Regents.
  • MacIntyre, P. D. (1995). The Modern Language Journal. How Does Anxiety Affect Second Language Learning? A Reply to Sparks and Ganschow, 91.
  • Schwarzer, R. (1984 ). The Self in Anxiety, Stress, and Depression. Holland: Elsevier.
  • Horwitz, E., M. Horwitz & J. Cope. (1986). Foreign language classroom anxiety. Modern Language Journal, 70, 125-32

Top 10 Language Teaching Universities around the World

May21

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1) Harvard

The world’s best school, according to the rankings, is Harvard, which finishes top in terms of both academic and employer ratings. More than anything, it is the sheer breadth of languages taught at the school that is truly astounding. Over 80 are listed in its prospectus, ranging from traditional European and Asian languages (French, Mandarin) to relatively obscure languages spoken only by small pockets of people (Welsh, Kikongo), to dead, ancient languages (Old Norse, Latin).

2) Oxford (Oxbridge)

Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world and lays claim to nine centuries of continuous existence. As an internationally renowned centre for teaching and research, Oxford attracts students and scholars from across the globe, with almost a quarter of our students from overseas. Positions two in the world ranking for languages is occupied by the grand old institutions of Oxbridge, with Oxford leading its slightly younger sibling in both the academic and employer ratings. The university owe its rankings to the strong performances of its graduates in the professional world – academically.

3) UC Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley is one of the world’s leading academic institutions. Widely known as “Cal,” the campus is renowned for the size and quality of its libraries and laboratories, the scope of its research and publications, and the distinction of its faculty and students. UC Berkeley is also considered to be amazing when it comes to modern languages, but has occupied third position in the world ranking. The University is famous for its language teaching courses. The UC Berkeley also owe its higher ranking to the best performance of its graduates – academically. The faculty of Berkeley is quoted daily in newspapers and journals throughout the world as experts in their fields.

4) University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is one of the oldest universities in the world and one of the largest in the United Kingdom. Its reputation for outstanding academic achievement is known world-wide and reflects the intellectual achievement of its students, as well as the world-class original research carried out by the staff of the University and the Colleges. It is the tutorial system that gives Cambridge graduates an edge. “The supervision system at Cambridge makes a big difference, in the sense that students get a lot of one-to-one tuition”. For the MML (modern and medieval languages) course, the weekly one on one session with a native speaker is an invaluable opportunity to sharpen spoken language skills and develop colloquialisms.

5) Yale University

Yale University was founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School in the home of Abraham Pierson, its first rector, in Killingworth, Connecticut. In 1887 Yale College became Yale University. It continued to add to its academic offerings with the establishment of different schools. So, for now Yale has also started its modern languages School in late 20th Century and is able to achieve the number five world ranking in languages.

6) Australian National University (ANU)

Established in 1946, The Australian National University is one of the world’s most highly regarded universities. According to the Director of “the School of Culture, History and Language” “Over the past 4 years Language enrolments at ANU have increased by 22% and nearly 50% over the past decade.  In an increasingly rationalised educational area we have been able to increase the languages being taught at the ANU from 20 to 24.” ANU’s strong performance here can be seen as a nod towards the increasing importance of Asian languages in the 21st century. Though European languages account for a fair proportion of languages taught at the university, but the ANU has given equal importance to Asian Languages also.

7) Cornell University

Once called “the first American university” by educational historian Frederick Rudolph, Cornell University represents a distinctive mix of eminent scholarship and democratic ideals. Adding practical subjects to the classics and admitting qualified students regardless of nationality, race, social circumstance, gender, or religion was quite a departure when Cornell was founded in 1865. The Cornell university is ranked number seven when it comes to languages and is also marked for teaching a number of languages. The different language departments at Cornell University offer about 45 languages or more which is actually impressive.

8) University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

University of California, Los Angeles was established in late 19th Century, but the most spectacular growth of the university occurred in the 25 years following World War II. UCLA is famous for its world wide language teaching. The UCLA language center is also named as the “center for world languages” which signifies the extent of languages the university teaches. The university also conduct different workshops which make the language learning more easier and interactive.

9) University of Toronto

The University of Toronto has assembled one of the strongest research and teaching faculties in North America, presenting top students at all levels with an intellectual environment unmatched in breadth and depth on any other Canadian campus. Due to its vast area of research U-of-T is always represented in top-5 universities of US. This article also shows that Canadian Universities also have their representation in top-10 when it comes to language teaching.

10) Stanford University

Stanford University, founded in 1885, is recognized as one of the world’s leading research and teaching institutions, with one of the most renowned faculties in the nation. Stanford University offers its students a remarkable range of academic and extracurricular activities. We are committed to offering an education that is unrivaled among research universities. The Stanford university of US is ranked at number 10 when it comes to the top-10 universities of modern language.

For further details visit the language centers of the respective university, the links are given below.

Bibliography:

 

Ten reasons for learning second Language:

May21

        I.            Know the world you live in:

We must discover and experience the diversities in the world we live in and enjoy all its colors and tastes. One must understand and learn the language of a region to truly know its people, know its culture, values & traditions, to be able to appreciate the true taste of their food and of course to get the full experience of travelling.

By limiting yourself to one language is limiting your abilities. With a new language you get a whole new perspective of life, it’s like seeing he world with a new eyes, like living a new life.

There’s a Czech proverb, “You live a new life for every new language you speak. If you know only one language, you live only once.”

   II.            Posting or Emigration to new country:

If you’re moving to a new country or region and you are unfamiliar with the local language, learning their language will help you settle soon and integrate with the new community. You’ll be better able to handle daily routine affairs without facing problems e.g. helping your kids with homework and talking to their teacher, buying ticket at a local park, asking out the handsome guy at your afterschool job without embarrassing yourself or bargaining with the shopkeeper.

You’ll be able to make new friends and build personal relations. About that there is an amusing quote:

“When you go to a country, you must learn how to say two things: how to ask for food, and to tell a woman that you love her. Of these the second is more important, for if you tell a woman you love her she will certainly feed you.” – Louis L’Amour.

III.            Business Interactions & Increase Employability:

Today businesses, economies, employs and clients are all truly global. To do business on international level and sell in foreign market, you must know the trends, values and especially the foreign language. Foreign language is crucial to make business deals, attract foreign clients and designing business campaigns in a foreign country.

Companies are always expanding their business overseas. In all multinationals, a multilingual candidate has a competitive edge over others. If you know a second language, you are bridge to new customers for your company. Whatever profession you belong to, doctor, manager or journalist, learning a foreign language will certainly help you in your career.

“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can; there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.” -Sarah Caldwell

 IV.            Discover Art and Entertainment Treasure:

By learning foreign languages you’ll be able to read original versions of great books instead of translated versions and watch legendary movies without subtitles, because the essence of any art work is lost when translated into another language. An artist thinks in a certain language and creates something; to understand and feel it you must know his language.

You’ll be able to understand the music and poetry you love know the meaning of lyrics of great songs and do justice to the artists.

V.            For Reading/ Education purpose:

If you want to study abroad in some university or college, you must know the language used in educational mediums there, to be able to study your courses without any difficulty. If the local language is different from that used in institutes of that country e.g. Pakistan where higher education is in English where as national language is Urdu, one must know the local language as well, to be better able to communicate with your professors & fellow students. Institutes where international students apply mostly provide foundation courses to improve the language skills of the foreign students.

Even if you’re not studying in a foreign country, you might want to study a subject in which most of the research work and books are published in a foreign language. Without learning that language, you won’t be able to access the information or communicate with the experts and researchers.

“Language is the archives of history.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

 VI.            For the Love of Language:

Sometimes we just find some language sound good or look good. If you’re a fan of Calligraphy, you might want to learn Arabic language or if you find music or just the plain language attractive to ears, you’ll want to speak like that and understand it. Or you might like the people of a certain region interesting, you will want to understand their language to know them better.

VII.            To get the best out of your travel experiences:

The favorite restaurant in the new town have menu in local language, or you like food of some foreign country or region but the recipe books are in foreign language, you’ll definitely want to learn that language. People respect the fact if the foreigners or tourists try to learn the local language even a few phrases.

“No man should travel until he has learned the language of the country he visits. Otherwise he voluntarily makes himself a great baby – so helpless and so ridiculous.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

VIII.            Sharpen Your Mind:

Learning new languages not only enriches your communication skills but also enhance your thinking capabilities. Learning is a sort of mental exercise and it develops your memory skills too.

“Language is not only the vehicle of thought, it is a great and efficient instrument in thinking.” -Humphrey Davy

 IX.            Be Unique, Secretive and Cool:

Knowing a foreign language is not just impressive but it also shows that you are cultured and intelligent. It gives you a sense of uniqueness.

If you and  your best friend learn a foreign language that no one in your friend circle knows, you’ll be able to communicate in your secret language all the time, which is not just cool but will also give you privacy in public.

    X.            Expand your Horizons:

If you are assuming that your mother tongue and at most learning the global-lingua-franca English are enough for you, you are just putting self-imposed limitations on yourself. Learning has no limitations. A new language will certainly open your eyes to a whole new world that you’ve never imagined before.

“A different language is a different vision of life.” – Federico Fellini, Italian film director

A new language opens up new ways and opportunities for you.

Difference between ‘Intake’ and ‘Input’ in L2 (Second Language) learning

May19

L2 learning mainly refers to the conscious learning of a second language other than one’s mother tongue. As in Pakistan, people are bound to learn the national language “Urdu” mostly as L2 along with the first language which is usually a regional language like Punjabi, Pashto or Sindhi. Linguists like Corder (1967), Hatch (1983) and Yule (2006) studied the amount of input given to L2 learners as compared to the amount of knowledge L2 learners gained and they observed that only a limited amount of knowledge was retained by the L2 learner. This evaluation of L2 learning process led to the discovery of ‘intake’, a term first coined by Corder (VanPatten, 1996). To learn L2, it is important that the learner lives around people who speak L2 or goes to a class room where L2 is being taught. This exposure of learner to L2 is termed as ‘input’. ‘Input’ is the knowledge that an environment offers to a learner, whereas ‘intake’ is that particular amount of an input that a learner successfully processes to build up internal understanding of L2. Though, Input and intake are parts of the same learning process but linguists treat them differently due to the complex nature of L2 learning.

In the beginning of 18th century, linguists focused on the things like capability and efforts of a L2 learner rather than the effectiveness of classroom teachers, textbooks or teaching methods (Yule, 2006). This is the reason that Chomsky (1959) and Skinner (1957) referred to the same phenomenon but ignore to explain the difference between the terms; input and intake, they were more concerned about the general factors effecting language acquisition and biological abilities (Rast, 2008). However, according to Rast (2008), Hatch worked on explaining the both terms in the light of Corder’s work so that the distinction between them will be recognizable for linguistic analysis as these terms play the most important part in L2 learning process:

“Hatch extends Corder’s definition of intake from that which is controlled by the learner and actually ‘goes’ in to that which the learner ‘successfully and completely’ processes. That which is only ‘partially’ processed remains input “(Rast, 2008).

In simple words, Rast’s (2008) above statements imply that intake is, what has been used by the L2 learner to build up internal memory of L2, whereas, input is the remaining knowledge that was not used much by the learner.

Thus, from the above discussion; it is clear that the major difference between intake and input is dependent on the role that they play in L2 learning. Input can not be fully processed by the L2 learner because of affective factors, variety of educational approaches and methods and interest or capacity of the learner that hinder 100 percent success of input. So, it is very important to recognize and understand ‘intake’ as the part of input that “stays in the stores of long term memory” (Pawlak, 2011).

Hence, it can be concluded that Input is a linguistic phenomenon; available for learners to take in through aural (hearing) and visual (reading, interpreting signs and gestures) systems (Puts & Sicola, 2010). But, it is necessary to recognize that if only input was responsible for L2 learning then the whole process would have been instantaneous rather than being slow and gradual. Therefore, input is a general term used for all kinds of L2 data available for a learner (Nizegorodcew, 2007). Consequently, intake is a limited amount of input that L2 learners retain, store and relate to existing knowledge. This difference between ‘input’ and ‘intake’ is vastly applied by linguists in L2 analysis to overcome the barriers that hinder effective learning of L2. However, more research is needed to explain the significance of intake in terms of output that an L2 learner gives; otherwise, it is impossible to determine that which part of input became intake and why.

Reference:

  • Yule, G. (2006). The Study of Language. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Rast, R. (2008). Foreign Language Input: Initial Processing. United Kingdom: Cromwell Press limited. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.pk/books
  • Pawlak, M. (2011). Second Language Learning and Teaching. German: Springer. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.pk/books
  • Putz, M., & Sicola, L. (2010). Cognitive Processing in Second Language Acquisition: inside the Learner’s Brain. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Corporation. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.pk/books
  • Eubank, L. (1991). Point Counterpoint: Universal Grammar in the Second Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Corporation. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.pk/books
  • Nizegorodcew, A. (2007). Input for Instructed L2 Learners: The Relevance of Relevance. United Kingdom: Multilingual Matters limited. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.pk/books

24th International Conference on Foreign / Second Language Acquisition

May17

The university of Silesia, Poland holds it’s 24th International Conference on Second Language Acquisition at Hotel META. The conference this year is themed Language awareness in second/foreign language learning. Registration forms and further details can be found on the  website.

Form Focused Instruction (FFI) Vs Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

May15

“Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)” is one of the most recent and revised version for Second Language (L2) learning experience, and has developed particularly by British Applied Linguistics in 1980’s. This approach is partially, a reaction against the artificiality of ‘pattern-practice’ and also against the belief that consciously learning the grammar rules of a language will necessarily result in an ability to use the language. (Yule, 2006) So, CLT focuses more on the practical aspect of the second language acquisition, rather than the theoretical i.e. memorization of grammatical rules. According to Longman dictionary of Language teaching and Applied linguistics CLT is an approach to foreign or second language teaching which emphasizes that the goal of language learning is communicative competence and which seeks to make meaningful communication and language use a focus of all classroom activities. (Schmidt, 2010)

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach evolved as a prominent language teaching method around late nineties and gradually replaced the previous grammar-translation method and audio-lingual method. (Warschauer & Kern, 2000) The emergence of CLT led to the re-examination of the language teaching objectives, core curriculum and classroom strategies. As a result, the teachers started emphasizing on the importance of communication, pronunciation and fluency in language learning and stopped focusing on the grammatical aspects.   

As mentioned in the question CLT assumes that “learners do not need to be taught grammar before they can communicate but will acquire it naturally as part of the process of learning to communicate”. So, the second language learning is possible and can be achieved by just focusing on the function (communication), instead of the form (grammar) but this will only help the learner to achieve fluency rather than accuracy (grammatical or syntactical structure) in that language. According to research done by two linguistics,  although the fluency of students in the CLT programs differs significantly from that of their counterparts in more traditional programs , there is often a lack of grammatical accuracy (Lightbown, 1991; Lightbown & Spada,1990). These findings suggest that some form of grammatical instructions needs to be included in CLT programs. So, the inclusion of grammar into the CLT will help the learners to acquire fluency and accuracy both at the same time.

During the late twentieth century, a lot of research was done on the topic of “Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)” and the majority research findings suggest that some form of grammatical instruction needed to be incorporated in CLT programs. Consequently this led to the renewed calls for “Form-focused instruction (FFI)”, which as suggested by the name, focuses on the forms of words and their meanings. Basically this method of learning second language draws learner attention towards not only communication and fluency, but grammar, pragmatics, spelling, pronunciation and punctuation as well (Long, 1991). Therefore the linguistics recommended that the grammar and communication teaching should not be done in isolation and they should progress side by side. In addition to this Long (1997) also suggested that learners need both communication CLT and FFI to obtain a high level of proficiency and form-oriented instructions to avoid errors.

So we can say that “communicative language teaching” is a very good method to achieve communicative competence while learning a second language, but it has one drawback that it does not focus on the grammatical aspect of that language. As discussed in the paper above, CLT allows the learner to become proficient in any language, but leaves doubt when it comes to the accuracy factor. So, the combination of CLT and FFI must be highly regarded when it comes to language learning because it will help the learner to gain full command over that language i.e. in both pronunciation and correctness.

 

Bibliography:

  • C., R. J., & schmidt, R. (2010). Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics. 4th. Harlow, Edinburgh Gate, Great Britain: PEARSON EDUCATION LIMITED.
  • Chen, Z. (2003, January 9). Communicative Language Teaching approach. Retrieved May 5, 2012, from The Integration of Internet into Language Teaching: http://www.math.mun.ca/~yliang/clt.htm
  • Lightbown, P. M. (n.d.). Form-Focused Instruction & Feedback on Error. Retrieved May 5, 2012, from Verizon.net: http://www.e-tas.ch/downloads/events/C2FormFocus.pdf
  • Long, Michael. 1991. Focus on form: A design feature in language teaching methodology. In K. de Bot, Ginsberg, R. and Kramsch, C. (eds.), Foreign Language Research in cross-cultural perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamin’s
  • Millard, D. J. (2000). Form-Focused Instruction in Communicative Language Teaching: Implications for Grammar Textbooks. TESL CANADA JOURNA , 47-59..
  • Spada, N. &. (1989). Intensive ESL Programme in Quebec primary schools. TESL Canada Journal , 11-32.
  • Yule, G. (2006). The Study of Language. United States of America: Cambridge University Press.