I grew this big, before I experienced
how to study a foreign language and enjoy it!
The study group has to be small and possess a good sense of humour. In such a
way,that anybody can interrupt the teacher at any
time and ask questions. Not necessarily relatingto
what the teacher is just then saying but about anything her words might lead to.
During the lessons it is important to be able to nibble on something delicious.
And not so that everybody is eating their own tucker but so that everybody
brings some goodies to share.
The teacher should not isolate herself behind a big table. She has to sit around
the same big round table with others and get up and stir a big pot of food if
need be. There might be a smell of coriander about, a pot of dal simmering for
later on.
Students should be able to walk about if they feel so, wobble off to the
adjoining room if so.Teacher’s voice can be heard
there, too. Or why not stretch on a gym bar, learning is as effective as in the
chair.
Homework should be sweet to the ear. That is, between lessons students listen to
music in the language they are learning and search the net for the lyrics of
their favourite songs.
When a new song is insistently singing in the head, it is easy to ask the
teacher the meaning of this and that word and check the grammar in a verse or
two during the next lesson.
Perfect writing skills are not necessary. It might be possible to communicate
with small written notes, if spoken language is not yet readily in hand or
mouth, but I dare say that even the mostelementary
efforts to speak a new language are much more fruitful.
Whenever you think you are able to express something in a foreign language, you
have to spurt it out. Particularly in a class. It doesn’t matter one bit, if it
is wrong – a laugh in our class is allowed!
The more laughs in the class, the better new words
stick into your brain.
These are well-tried methods in our Urdu class. And yes, I have an Urdu book by
my bed and aCD in my walkman. I have a stack of
questions to ask next time.
Next time, the main official topic is the degree of politeness in Urdu, but we
might as well talk about how traditional grannies see the world or how a
particular song represents the local culture, or about the uses of tamarind, or
how to express love in Urdu. “Main tum se pear karti hu”.
You see, compared to ”I love you”, Urdu has a more
complicated grammar pattern here…..
