MEMORY ACTIVATION
Following the guideline of
an Open System model for language teaching/learning within a frame focused
towards accelerated learning, I must objectively deal with the “memorisation
problems” which so much scientific and pseudo-scientific literature has been producing
during the last decades.
As
the participant finds himself actively acting during the formulation of
personal sentences about many diverse and spontaneous themes, he logically
understands the way to construct such sentences and all new sentences he will
eventually produce during the rest of the course. Let us remember that his
reference is his own language; therefore, he does not need theoretical
descriptive grammar explanations in order to learn to communicate. Instead, the
target language of the course will be gradually compared with the mother tongue
of the participant. Even the
same mistakes must be translated with the participants, given that this helps
them avoid typical errors and get familiarised with the language, as for
example, the verb “telefonear” in Spanish. Most of the
participants will fall in the trap of saying “Yo teléfono,” which is incorrect and sounds in Spanish as
if someone said in English “I am a telephone” or in Danish “Jeg er en telefon.” These types of mistakes, besides stimulating laughter in the
participants, thus creating a friendly environment, are useful in order for
them to compare how ordinary expressions would sound if they were mistakenly
used by foreigners in their own language. Such discernment stimulates them, so
they will pay more attention to little phonetic, syntactic, and semantic
details, for it is obvious that they would not like to speak the target
language as foreigners do when the latter speak incorrectly their own language.
Here, fear of shame plays a relevant psychological role, stimulating the
participant to pronounce words the best way possible, to structure phrases and
sentences with the greatest coherence possible and, likewise, to construct
complete ideas with the best congruence possible.
In
the example given above, the instructor simultaneously indicates the
participant that even the last letter must be pronounced, when he is dealing
with any regular verb, before reaching the infinitive form’s ending, placing
the appropriate ending depending on the corresponding personal pronoun. Well,
instead of giving the participant such a grandiose explanation
as this one, he is simply told “Careful: ‘yo teléfono’ is as if I said ‘I am a telephone’
in your language.” Once the initial laughter is gone, the person immediately
pays more attention to verb conjugation.
We have to face the known fact that, in any European
country, or more generally, in any country where Western culture is dominant,
80% of its inhabitants ignore their own language’s descriptive grammar. Therefore,
it is illogical to try to teach a language based upon grammar rules and it is
even worse to use “grammar explanations” which are not adequate for a common
mortal, but rather for Linguistics and Philology specialists. We must take into
account that all people who want to learn a foreign language by means of an accelerated
course are only and exclusively interested in communicating in that target
language, not in becoming phonetic, morphosyntactic, or – even less – semantic
specialists. The only thing intended is to speak it and understand it. Once the
participant controls his speech, perhaps he will later like to write it
correctly, for which purpose I would recommend him a little grammar in order to
know writing rules. But in that moment, he will not need any language
instructor, for he already masters the language, and what he has to do is to
train himself to write it skilfully. It is practically the same way in which we
learned to study grammar in our own language. In other words, pure and formal
grammar courses started when we were 7 or 8 years old. In that moment, we were
both mentally and linguistically ready to analyse and delve into our own
language – we already spoke it almost perfectly from a point of view of native
speakers.
I
have indeed reliably confirmed all this. It is true that there are people who,
although they are very successful in their professional and social life, have
no idea about what an Undetermined or a Determined Article is. Consequently,
the most correct way to teach those essential elements in order to construct
coherent sentences is through comparison with their own language. Thus, instead
of talking to an English participant about Determined Articles, it would be
better to tell him that “the” is “el/la/los/las” in Spanish, inducing him by means of
spontaneous exercises to understand its Gender and Number connotations, saving
him precious time that would otherwise be devoted to morphosyntactic
comprehension. All the exercises that spontaneously arise must have their
counterpart in the language of the participant – especially, as I said before,
in the basic levels.
The
other side of the coin, i.e. teaching without descriptive grammar but only
using the target language from the first day, is obviously a waste of time and
energy. Indeed, I have confirmed that those institutes which use such method
only and plainly use it for one reason: their instructors do not speak but the
target language. They do not master any other language. This, in my opinion, is
an aberrant cynicism, given that we already know that any adult needs an “explanation”
of some kind in his own language even at intermediate levels. Participants to
whom I have taught English or Spanish who had previously participated in courses
where they were “sold” the idea of the “Natural Method” always tell me that
things went very well on the first day, given that things were as easy as “good
morning-good afternoon-good night,” but from the time when the text’s dialogue
became complicated – third or fourth day – comprehension was minimal, given
that it was a process of guessing, the instructor playing the clown trying to
mimic things as, for example, “Mañana voy a trabajar por la mañana, pero no por la tarde.”
Show me how one can explain that with mimics! This way, nobody was really sure of
what the “Natural Method” instructor or text was trying to say.
Once
the beginners have understood the logic of the target language by means of
phonetic, morphosyntactic, and semantic exercises, it will be time for what we
call “Memoristic Retention” to start operating, not before. It is impossible to
remember things which we do not understand. Our memory does not work by accumulating
illogical data. On the contrary, it is essential for our memory that the
information with which it is working in a given moment is totally logical and
as transparent as possible. Therefore, all those fake courses about “improving
your memory” or “exercising your memory” have no room in any way whatsoever in
the way I perceive language teaching or any other type of teaching. And that
was one of the fundamental errors of Lozanov with his
Suggestological Method.
To Lozanov, it was essential that people would “memorise” hundreds and
thousands of words during his sessions. The small but transcendental mistake
consists in not understanding that, in order to master a foreign language, the
goal is not to learn “by heart” a countless number of words, but rather to
learn from the first moment how to coherently structure known words in order to
create a correct sentence, congruently structuring the sentences being produced
with the intention of creating a reasonable and fluent conversation. I call
this the Process of Speech Spontaneity. The important aspect is not the number of words that a
participant “remembers” in a given moment, but rather learning how to
spontaneously use already “remembered” words in many different situations. The
fact of knowing many words in the target language does not imply at all that
the person is able to speak that language fluently and correctly. Indeed, many
participants coming to my Spanish courses know a great number of words in
Spanish and have lived in Spain during 5, 10, 15, 20, or – I have had some – 25
years. Obviously, these individuals had listened and learned many words and had
participated in many conventional courses, etc. Nevertheless, they came to me
because what they needed was to learn to construct coherent sentences and hold
congruent conversations. They made such huge mistakes as “Yo gusto,” which translated to English would be
something as “me like” or the Danish “mig kan lide.” Such expression, as it was used
for many years without ever realising that their strongly rooted habit was a
mistake, is very hard to erase from the participant’s lexicon. By the way, it
is very difficult to work with this kind of participants: one must first “clean”
all the errors they have acquired throughout so many years and then teach them
to speak properly.
For
this reason, in brief, memorising material which makes no sense for the
participant is a waste of time and, in the end, the participant subjectively
believes he has a “bad memory,” given that “he is already too old to learn a
foreign language,” as well as many other false conclusions which frustrate and
inhibit people in their attempt to learn something new. They do not even
realise that this is due to the method or methods with which they have been
tried to be taught. This is so true, that when participants come to my courses,
many amongst them tell me that they always – for many years – have been only
using the Simple Present tense. “And clearly, people understood what I meant,”
they tell me, “but now that I know how to use the Past and Future tenses, I
realise how ridiculous I sounded.” A typical example would be: “Ayer voy a la playa,” which translated to English would
be “yesterday I go to the beach” or Danish, “I går, går jeg på stranden.”
In
many courses, I have been astonished to find out that many participants between
the ages of 78 and 82 had a fantastic memory capacity. But of course, they
first had to logically understand the contents of what was being exposed and
then their memory started to operate wonderfully. I am not at all saying that
they retained information as quickly as participants aged 20 would. They did
not, but they retained most of the given material and learned how to use it
effectively in their social environment. And that, I believe, is the essential
aspect of their achievement.
Therefore,
once the inner logic of the target language is understood, memory activates
itself. This activation of memory, by means of logic, implies that the organism
learns through experience. The participant himself has to “discover” that logic
in the target language. The instructor’s duty is to guide him towards that “discovery.”
When the “Aha"
experience takes place and the participant realises how mechanical the
procedure indeed is, as it happens, for example, with all regular verb conjugation
in Spanish, his
memory triggers and the fact of creating an infinite number of sentences as he “plays”
with these regular verbs is a real pleasure for the participant, enabling him
to create true spontaneous conversations with the instructor. When the
participant has assimilated the mechanics of regular verbs, I actually proceed
to teach him, little by little, irregular verbs – exceptions. Doing the
opposite
is absurd. Many participants in my courses have told me that the first thing
they had learned in Spanish was the verb “ser” (to be), which is irregular. And
besides having spent several days “memorising” said verb, they thought that all
Spanish verbs possessed such characteristics (they thought there was no logical
mechanics), which is not true for the vast majority of verbs.
This is why I find the Chomskian
idea that language is a creative activity as totally correct. The instructor’s
role as a motivator is essential. Without a good motivator, any intensive
language course would be doomed to fail. As I explained before, it could be
said that the participant’s interest indeed already exists innately, his acting
being the one to produce the necessary energy to learn quickly. However, if the
instructor does not give the proper spontaneous and effective feedback to
acting, interest declines drastically and results, consequently, are not the
same. The instructor must know at all times the specific cognitive structure of
the participant, the one which must possess what David Ausubel called “logical
meaning,” which we must be able to intentionally and substantially relate to
the corresponding and pertinent stage in which the cognitive structure of the
participant is available in a given moment. This “logical meaning” obviously
refers to the inherent characteristics of the elements to be learned and to
their nature.
This
way of learning apparently existed already – although not for language
teaching, unfortunately – in Ancient Greece. Mimetic poetry was first developed
in Greece in the VIIIth century B.C. Homeric works were learned by
heart by the students. Writing was almost never used, but rather any everyday
message required a mimetic poetry effort. This gave place to the development of
poetry in Ancient Greece, where rhyme was of great help for the quick and
effective memorisation of verses. This conception was eventually carried on to
Plato’s era (IVth century B.C.) with the name of dialectic poetry.
This was, let us say, the summit of Socrates’ methodology of refutation and
elenchus dialogue. This way, a different form or orality was born and developed.
This was an orality created by philosophers. Dialectic poetry, used exclusively
by Thales of Miletus and Socrates, had as its purpose to stimulate logical
thought in the individual. Indeed, dialectic poetry’s full development is the
basis of our so-called Western culture. The use of logic for learning and not
only pure and simple repetition of mimetic orality which is, as I have said
before, important but only using it sporadically and not giving it unlimited
importance, caused dialectic poetry to also influence the development of
writing. All written texts have to be somehow related to the world of sound,
which is language’s natural environment. It is true that writing has created
civilisation, but it is also true that “reading” a text means to turn it into
sounds, either out loud or inside one’s mind, syllable after syllable. Writing
never holds without orality, dialectic orality being the one that makes us
understand logically the inherent mechanisms in a given system, in our case, a
new language. However, without making it less important, mimetic poetry becomes
part of the Open System of dialectic poetry, and not the opposite. I make
myself clear: good memorisation depends on the good logic of the contents. It
is necessary to first be able to understand things in order to memorise them. Not
as was done in Homer’s era,
where children learned “by heart” several episodes of the Iliad and the Odyssey
in order to recite them in public without understanding anything at all about
its logical meaning. Fortunately, dialectic orality ended such state of things.
However, it seems that, with the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of
the Middle Ages, the method of dialectic poetry was left to oblivion.
I
hope this explanation makes clear that the role of the instructor in
accelerated language courses must be that of a facilitator and not of an
inhibitor. It is obvious that the participant’s knowledge of his mother tongue
facilitates the task towards his learning of the target language. The Chomskian
concept of “competence” is itself integrated to the vernacular language of the
participant. It is equally obvious that during the unfolding of the course, the
participant learns to apply his own instruction strategies. It is necessary that
the instructor develops the ability to allow the strategies, maybe innate, of
the participant determine our way of teaching in a specific moment and under
specific circumstances and that said participant determines our Open System as
well. It is more effective, because of the results’ speed, as well as for
psychological connotations already exposed, to learn to adapt to the needs of
the participant rather than imposing on him and inhibiting him with our
preconceived ideas about how to learn, what to learn, and when to learn it,
following the guide of a simple “textbook” conceived by then current “experts.”
I think that the idea is even more precise and explicit as stated by von
Humboldt: “Indeed, we cannot teach a language, but only create the conditions
in which it develops properly and spontaneously in the mind. We shall never be
able to improve our ability to create such favourable conditions until we know
more about the way in which the student learns and the characteristics of his
internal program.”
The latent language structure already described
by Eric H. Lenneberg leads us to conclude the
same statement regarding a Teaching/Learning Open System. Of course, I believe there
is a latent psychological structure which is waiting for the moment to be
activated when an adult tries to produce sentences and dialogues in the target
language he is learning. The participant’s own language is an essential part of
this latent psychological – and I would dare say physiological – structure. This
is also clear to me, as it is certain that the most “difficult” language for an
adult to learn is the second language, for all the information is at first
totally new for the participant who only speaks one language. But for those
participants who already master two languages, learning a third one is easier, and
a fourth one is even easier, etc. This is why, when people ask me which
nationality is “better” or “worse” when it comes to learning languages, I
emphatically reply that nationality is not a condition for that purpose, but
rather the number of languages a person masters already. It does not matter if
languages are correlated or not. I make myself clear: I have had participants
who spoke perfect Portuguese or French, for example, and given the similarities
between these two Latin languages and Spanish, the course has been easy for
them from the very start, results showing quickly. Likewise, I have had
participants who master Finnish, Russian, or Swedish, for example, and who have
been as quick as those who mastered Latin languages, for they were aware that
what they had to do at all times was to get fully and deeply involved with the
new linguistic system, and nothing else. Therefore, inhibitions, fears, and
other barriers in the participants who speak only one language do not exist and
learning becomes more fluent.
Similarly,
I have had participants who spoke seven or eight languages and, when they came
to me, reached level 3 in
50 sessions. If we
take into account that for each normal participant, reaching level 3 requires
150 sessions, one may very well appreciate the difference. Besides, I want to
add that those persons who learned in a rather vertiginous way came from
countries as different as the Netherlands, Iran, and South Africa.
Now
we may confirm that learning must conduce to a significant change of the
experience, in the words of David Ausubel: it must be a simple change of
behaviour. It must enrich the participant in all senses. Not only, as in our
case, for the acquisition of a new language in the short term, but also and
consequently, I would say, for personal development which provides the
participant with increasingly satisfactory and healthy self-confidence in his
development of the target language and directly in his whole personality. The
use of what I consider as the creative memory, together with the dialectic poetry,
is the basis of the Speech Spontaneity Process, which will be analysed later.
