Anne-Marie Lafortune joins me to talk about authentic conversations in a second language. Maybe this is something, being summertime, that makes me think of travel. This year the numbers on international travel are up and we see how ardently people are wanting to explore and connect, even in the face of flight delays and lost luggage. There is no doubt that learning a language helps us explore distant lands and cultures.
My own trip a few years back to South Africa, a country of 11 official languages, had me reading the local writers and among them, this gem from Trevor Noah:
Nelson Mandela once said, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” He was so right. When you make the effort to speak someone else's language, even if it's just basic phrases here and there, you are saying to them, “I understand that you have a culture and identity that exists beyond me. I see you as a human being” (qtd in Born a Crime).
Anne-Marie will explain how, no matter if we are old or young, introvert or extrovert, we all can get closer to that heartfelt connection through conversation in a second language, even while at home. But if practice is key, it is not always easy to find conversation partners! And it can be downright intimidating when trying to find your words in another language.
Having taught English as a Second Language (ESL) in Korea, France and Australia, now as a professor at Gaspé Peninsula and the Islands College in Quebec (or Cégep de la Gaspésie et des îles), Anne-Marie has created a new possibility of conversation exchange for learners through the platform www.worldchat.live. With this platform, as students connect to non-native speakers from the four corners of the globe, she reflects on the benefits of these exchanges, going far beyond grammar, that open up the empathic world of knowing other peoples and, ultimately, becoming a better person.
Anne-Marie has received the 2018 award from the Canadian Association for Teacher Education and is working on the impact of distance education and Community of Inquiry. I first came to hear about her projects in the cafeteria line-up from a mutual colleague and I am very grateful for what I have learned since. I invited her to come on the show as soon as we met with my own hope that her words may reawaken, as Mandela says, speaking to the “heart” through each others` languages.
Anne-Marie recommends... How Learning Works, by Susan A Ambrose et al; Why Don’t Students Like School, by Daniel T. Willingham; If You Don’t Feed the Teachers, They Will Eat the Students!, by Neila A. Connors; Happy Teachers Change the World, by Thich Nhat Hanh and Katherine Weare.
