Lesson Four: The Tongue Twisting Reality and a Teacher's Role in Revealing It

     When you logged onto your computer today, you probably didn't realize much. Sure, you might have noticed that somebody you hardly know broke up with her boyfriend on Facebook, and, if you're really astute, you might have noticed Google's new doodle. However, there is a complex, prerequisite understanding that you must possess in order for any of this to happen. However basic or trite it may be, this first-things-first principle is language. You read and interpreted the fields “Username” and “Password,” and knew what to do.

     Indeed, if you can read what I'm writing, if you know what I'm saying, and you know that I haven't made any grammatical mistakes thus far (or so I hope), then you have mastered something vastly difficult. Imagine, for instance, somebody had played a prank on you and switched your browser's default language to Italian. Anything except that which is in memory would be completely unintelligible. It would take anywhere from several weeks to several years to master Italian and regain ability to use your computer (or, of course, you could ask your friend to change it back).

     The point is this: language is complex, involves many rules, and can appear overwhelming; however, it is within human capability to master not only one, but multiple languages. In spite of their complexity, however, languages do share a handful of things in common.

     The first shared characteristic is that language is “dynamic,” meaning it can—and does—change. Twenty years ago, “Google” was nothing but a mathematical figure, and ten years ago, a “facebook” was nothing more than a photo directory. Now, both terms represent nouns, verbs, and participles. New words are introduced into languages at an accelerating rate. Queen Rania of Jordan, for instance, invites her Internet followers to “twisit”—a combination of “Tweet” and “visit”—her other online outlets.

     The second characteristic is the level of complexity. No language is “primitive,” or in any way less complex as a whole than other languages. English students studying Spanish may find the constant noun gender-conjugating a nuisance, while Spanish students studying English may find the number of irregular verbs in English staggeringly difficult.

     The third similarity among all languages is structure. There are only so many phonemes (individual sounds such as /m/, /b/, or /e/) in each language that speakers can combine to form words. Also, there are rules in each language for which phonemes may be placed together to create morphemes, or units of sound that have meaning. In Spanish, for example, /s/ + /p/, or /sp/, is an unacceptable phoneme arrangement, and will cause difficulties among native speakers, who will often add an /e/ to the beginning forming /es/ + /p.../. The same goes for English, in which Ndawlktx would be an unacceptable phoneme arrangement. Beyond that, at the level of words and sentences, there are rules that govern syntax, or the ordering of words in a sentence.

     Beyond spoken or written language, there is an antecedent form of communication that often lends certain contextual clues such as mood, urgency, and importance, to the speaker. This ancillary form of communication is body language. Leaning forward or backward while speaking, standing or sitting, slouching or standing upright, and maintaining eye contact or avoiding it can all indicate extra information beyond that which is coming out of your mouth.

     Problematically, certain body language can signify different things in different cultures. A teacher of mine once gloated that she could detect whether a student was lying by their level of eye contact; a few weeks into the semester, a foreign exchange student whose cultural upbringing taught to avoid eye contact with superiors proved her embarrassingly wrong. People of one culture may be certain that specific body language—such as nodding your head, or giving a thumbs up—is innate, whereas in actuality both mean different things in different cultures.

     As more and more Language Minority students enter the American classroom, further and further accommodations will have to be made. Be them after school programs, weekend English or tutorial classes, or even in-class teacher-directed strategies, changes will have to be made so that the issue of language—as well as culture—can be dealt with.

     In my classroom, I hope to promote understanding of multiple languages and cultures.  Exposure to other cultures is often limited in classrooms—especially in more rural areas.  This can bar a students' understanding of how large our world actually is, the host of different types of people there are, and the extent to which cultural differences, well, differ.  

     There is a lot to learn—more than just the content area.