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A Helpful Process to Gain Fluency in Another Language

by BenT
7/17/2022 / Missions

Background

In the mid-90s the Mongolian People's Republic had just begun to recover from the chaos of transitioning to a free-market economy. Mongolia was a satellite state of the Soviet Union until late 1988, when the USSR began to dissolve. Hundreds of government agencies, non-government organizations (NGOs), missionary sending agencies, and relief workers flooded the country during this period.

At one point, the only textbook available for a foreigner to learn Mongolian was written in the Czech language.

This was my language learning context in 1994, when I landed in Mongolia to work for an NGO as an English teacher at a state university in Ulaanbaatar, the capital.

I was expected to acquire at least a survival level of the Mongolian language. My organization paired me with a language helper (not a professional teacher), who was a student with only slightly higher than beginner-level English. Thankfully, I was also given a copy of Donald L. Larson's book, Guidelines for Barefoot Language Learning: An Approach Through Involvement and Independence, in which Larson outlined a learning process that served me well for years to come.

If you've begun to learn another language, or if this is a serious consideration of yours, then I hope my description of how I used Larson's process will be helpful for you. I'd like to say something first about motivations and expectations, critical areas of self-examination as you take initial steps toward fluency.

Motivation

I believe any effort to learn the language of the people you will relate to is a good thing. If you're about to leave on vacation for two weeks in Greece then you might decide to use an app to learn how to greet people, order food or a taxi, or ask for drinking water or directions. This is better than expecting people around you to understand English (or your first language), or to stress out trying to find translators at every site you explore.

To grow in fluency in a longer-term effort is an exercise of the heart. Along the way, I learned from seasoned mentors that my primary goal had to be relationships, not proficiency in language. If growing in participation with my new community is not what drives my learning, then maintaining the motivation to become fluent will be nearly impossible. At times I found it less stressful to study alone, but if I had persisted in that mode my language learning would only have become a sterile academic effort.

No one enjoys feelings of helplessness or disorientation. Staying motivated in language requires willingness to humble self and become like a child again. During my first few weeks in Mongolia, when I went out for groceries without my language helper, I could feel some excitement and nervousness as I approached the market, wondering if I had the vocabulary to get what I needed. This is a normal part of culture shock.

But after 6 months to a year, the inevitable culture stress plunges many learners into deep discouragement. Everyone living in another culture experiences this stress to some degree: nothing seems exciting or new anymore, and you feel the temptation to quit and return to your home country. I spent three days in my apartment one winter in Ulaanbaatar, barely going outside and feeling much distress before finally reaching out and processing with others who had been through the same situation. I found that when people get the support they need and move through the culture stress phase, the best language and culture acquisition and adjustment can take place after that, when local friends become a primary source of strength and support and you find yourself feeling more at home.

I stayed motivated through these difficult seasons of learning because my orientation was well done, and I had already been made aware of the difference between culture shock and stress, and that better days were ahead if I could keep moving forward.

Sometimes a total, immersive learning environment, like going to live in another country, is not possible. You might explore and discover other options for becoming fluent. What places near you might work as language/culture "bubbles" for concentrated learning? Is there a Vietnamese neighborhood in your city? Does your city have a Chinatown? Do you have Spanish-speaking neighbors or a community center nearby with speakers of the language you want to learn? This kind of exploration can be inconvenient and uncomfortable, but you may be surprised how early victories in language can boost your motivation for more involvement and relationship-building.

Expectations

I think the first rule for managing expectations that you place on yourself for language fluency is to fight the urge to compare yourself with others. You'll always find someone who is more fluent than you are, as well as those who have not reached your level, yet. We all have different learning styles, and each one of us learns at a different pace.

What are some reasonable expectations, then?

From a broader, cultural perspective, if you live overseas in community with locals, it's tempting to believe that you can become a local. But a healthier, more realistic goal may be to become an acceptable insider, someone who "makes sense" to be there.

In the mid-90's in Mongolia's capital, to teach English at a university made complete sense to Mongolian students and faculty. I was considered a foreign expert. Medical students and doctors needed English as a bridge for further study, both at home and overseas, as they participated in trainings and conferences.

In terms of specific language proficiency levels, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Proficiency Scale begins, at the bottom, with Novice - low, mid, high - then moves upward to Intermediate - low, mid, high - Advanced - low, mid, high - and tops out at Superior and Distinguished levels.

An appropriate, base-line goal for fluency is Advanced Intermediate level. Why? At Advanced mid-level, a learner is generally considered to have sufficient speaking, listening comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, reading and writing skills to continue in self-study without a need for more formal learning. At this level, you have the tools you need to learn-as-you-go toward superior and distinguished levels.

Structure and Process

Barefoot learning might sound completely carefree and bohemian, but without some kind of structure you may develop poor learning habits and/or get stuck unnecessarily on one aspect of language (like reading and writing all the time, instead of engaging in meaningful dialogues).

After my initial few years as an English teacher in Ulaanbaatar, I switched from a work to student visa and concentrated on language full-time. My initiation into barefooting, using Larson's GLUE process described below, gave me a great foundation to take into the classroom. I continued to take a practical approach to my learning after lessons at school, but seeing how the language "worked" in terms of grammar and syntax somehow gave me a sense of confidence in the language that I had lacked before.

This process is, in many ways, how we learn our first language. We start babbling and pointing, we begin to hear and recognize patterns of speech, we build and build until we are fluent in the language we first encountered audibly while still inside the womb. And - later - we learn the names of the structures and rules of how our first language works.

Mongolian is one of the most difficult languages in the world for an English speaker. From my first "hello" in Mongolian, seven years passed before I reached Advanced mid-level. If I had to do it over, I'd still follow Larson's GLUE process.

Whatever your learning context, I believe this process can serve you well.

As you consider these, keep in mind that GLUE is not overarching. For example, you may be at work on U on a specific type of sentence pattern, but on G with vocabulary that's oriented to a subject you need to know.

G - Get what you need

Is there something you want/need to say? How can you get it?

In my first few days in Mongolia, I needed a lot that I didn't have, but a great place to start for me was learning how to say, "What is that?" and "What is this?" Sometimes, just pointing and shrugging my shoulders had to translate somehow to "What do you call this?" Although his spoken English was limited and derived mostly from pirated US movies and television shows (you might be surprised how many people learn English from the US series, "Friends"), I was thankful my language helper had enough English to understand what I needed when signs or symbols were not sufficient.

Textbook learning usually begins with subjects and sample dialogues you might not actually need right away. But in the process of learning how to live in your host culture, your immediate needs will quickly come to the surface. Practical expressions, pronunciation, verb tenses, vocabulary and sentence patterns are other language features you'll need.

L - Learn what you get

Once you have 8-10 new vocabulary words that are related to a topic you need, for example, think about them, imagine using them in real-life situations, and memorize them. If it's a new sentence pattern (for example, "If _____________, then __________" statements), then start plugging in different words to that pattern and say the pattern over and over again.

U - Use what you learn

Hooking those new vocab words and sentence patterns to a real-life experience in which you use them, however, will help cement what you've learned into your fluency foundation. Once you've used those words and patterns, or a new verb tense, multiple times in different contexts, they'll begin to stick. Also you'll find that learning a little and using it a LOT proves to be more effective than trying to learn a ton of material that's difficult to put to immediate, real-time use.

E - Evaluate

Most local friends would tell me my language was excellent. They were being very nice. Objective evaluation via ACTFL or some other proven assessment tool can help you see how you're progressing with the language. This may mean you have to contract out with some organization or company that already assesses their own personnel, but to have a reliable report on both your strengths and weaknesses will be worth the money and will help move you toward fluency in a more efficient way.

Further Exploration

Another great resource for developing your fluency in another language is Language Acquisition Made Practical: A Comprehensive "How To" Book for Learning Any Language, by E. Thomas and Elizabeth S Brewster.

Over the last few years, I've moved into the area of personnel training and development with an international company. I enjoy learning and following my curiosity.

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