Self-conscious three point five year old

My three and a half year old son has been saying ‘Voglio un papa Italiano’ recently – this means ‘I want an Italian dad’.  He still wants me to be his dad, luckily, but he would prefer me to be Italian, which is a little difficult seeing as I’m English and all that.  What he really means is that he wants me to speak to him in Italian, which is something I will not do, at least not until he is able to speak English as well as or better than myself.

I have to admit to being a little taken aback by his comments and also somewhat surprised that a 3.5 year old must be feeling a little self-conscious, which is a phase I thought most youngsters went through in their teens.  I was wrong.  He is obviously aware, even at this young age, that he is different in that he has a dad that speaks to him in a language that nobody else he knows uses, apart from all those people speaking on the films I bombard him with, but he does not seem to have made the connection between the films and me just yet.  This is possibly a good thing as it shows that he has some awareness of what is real and what is not.  He is also convinced that he is 100% Italian (He can sing the Italian national anthem quite well!!), which he is really.  It’s a little difficult to explain to a little one that he has mixed-blood.

Oh the problems of being a parent, especially a parent who has a son whose father insists on speaking to him in a funny language too!

Skeletons

While walking down my street I notice them tied to lamp posts or fixed to the upside down U shaped things designed to stop people from parking on the pavements.  Some appear to be in perfect condition.  But the poor objects seem to have been forgotten, no longer cherished, but abandoned by their owners.  Their loneliness does not, however go unnoticed by others who often give them a cruel kick hard enough to cause a once essential part of their anatomies to buckle.  These objects start to look a little unwell and, if they had not truly been abandoned before, then they surely will be now.  And they are.

They sit there looking forlorn and pieces of them gradually start to disappear.  First the saddle rides off into the sunset, followed by someone putting a stop the existence of the brakes, next the chain becomes the missing link, the unguarded mudguards dematerialise , the pedals are spun off somewhere, the sprockets go for a run and finally the wheels revolve away into nothingness.  All that remains is a destitute naked frame,  which sits there looking rather like a modern sculpture that never made it to the Tate, and lingers for some months more until it too mysteriously goes down the tube.

After a short period yet another bicycle will appear, often in the same place as the skeleton which resided there before it.  The cycle, if you will excuse the pun, is repeated and another wheel is kicked and the slow process of disassembly over time begins once more.

The bicycles subject to this process of ‘delayed theft through disassembly’ look ever so sad, almost as if they are some kind of poor defenceless animal.

Alas there is no society for the prevention of cruelty to bikes in Milan, Italy.

Language level test

Quite a while back I cooked up a 90 question multiple choice test to help me divide groups of between 30 and 50 people into two or four sub-groups.  My test has proved to be very effective and certainly speeds up the process of dividing classes into groups.

The test attempts to assess both grammar knowledge and an individual’s ability to use commonly used English expressions and structures – use of English.  It is specifically aimed at Italian learners and has a focus on so-called business English.  The test takes around an hour to complete – much less if someone knows English well and more time if someone is at a lower level.  While I won’t explain exactly how it works, because I would quite like to market it someday, I would like to say that it bucks the trend as far as multiple guess tests go, possibly because multiple-choice tests are not really in widespread use here in Italy.

The test also allows me to identify those who are border-line so I can carry out a short interview and is quite good at identifying people who have picked up the language through using it, rather than having studied all the rules and then gone abroad somewhere to perfect their conversational skills.  I used to incorporate an extra comprehension test, but abandoned it after a while because I found that there was a high correlation between those who scored highly on the multiple choice parts and their ability to understand the spoken word.  I have had some circumstances in which the results have proved to be highly inaccurate, but I can count them on the fingers of one hand.  I have tested over 1200 people over the last four years, which means the accuracy is more than acceptable to me.  Sometimes people do ask to be moved between groups but this is usually a reflection of their confidence and the fact that some ambitious students think that they can learn more from being in a class of higher level learners.  If they have the right motivation and are not too far behind, I agree to movement between groups, but only within the first two or three lessons.

I believe that the test could become more accurate and could even be used to establish levels and progress, so if anyone out there is interested I’d be happy to discuss how it works and how it could be improved.  It could easily be adapted to learners other than Italians, I reckon and it could also be modified to test either more general or more technical varieties of English.  I’m sure it is not perfect, but it works very well for me – but then I did design it, so I understand how it works.

When banal is good.

I spoke to someone who complemented me on my work website – englishisin.com.  She said that although the advice on it was ‘banale’ it actually made sense.  The part she was referring to was my technique for training your mind to think in English.  The method I propose is to start by looking around and naming objects in your head directly in English, then start trying to form simple sentences describing your environment, again in your mind and directly in English.  Once you are adept at this you can start thinking about your plans for the day and so on.

The theory behind this banality is that it becomes easier to find the words you are looking for when you are speaking because you do not need to translate them.  I do this automatically in Italian, mainly because developing this skill happens quite easily when you are using the language regularly, but when you cannot speak very often in English, it is hard to develop the ability to think directly in the language.  Hence this invisible mental training.  I cannot prove whether this technique obtains results, although some of my students who have followed my advice have appeared to be speaking more fluently and their comprehension appears to be better too.

It would make for an interesting lesson.  Have all in class just sit there in silence, thinking, although anyone observing would think the lesson was nuts – this is perhaps why I encourage trying the method out when you are waiting for the bus or stuck in a traffic jam.  If nothing else, it should help students regurgitate vocabulary, which cannot be a bad thing.

There is method in madness.

I thought I would continue this subject a little because it fascinates me. I’m sure I’ve written about thinking in another language before, but I want to talk about it again. So, first of all a question: Why attempt to think in another language? The answer to this is simple: because it reduces the need to translate. Non translating helps in other ways too. It means your ability to speak speeds up and you start to become truly fluent. Not having to translate means you can find words more quickly in your target language – after a bit of practice. You should also note that your ability to understand others will increase – because you can understand without having recourse to translation. The benefits of thinking in another language are really enormous. I’d quite like to have a brain scan done while I flicked from Italian to English and back. It would be interesting to know just what part of my brain is being used. Whether it would be possible to ‘see’ which section is clearly responsible for which language I don’t really know. My brain is much less able than someone who is bilingual, I’m sure.

As to what is going on in the brain of someone who is capable of speaking three of more languages, well, I don’t know what a brain scan would reveal.

Brain analysis could be tomorrow’s way of assessing language competence. A fascinating thought if ever there was one.

Antique terms

My other half, who works in the antiques trade, often sends me texts to translate, check and correct. The only trouble is that I am not all that hot on expressions such as bombature, rocailles, modanate and baccelliere (this last one is ‘bachelor’ sometimes…). But I got ‘ebanistici’ to be ‘cabinet maker’, which seemed to fit quite well. Our usual way round this is to leave them as they are, in Italian, and hope that those working in this field know what the blazes these terms mean. Maybe I am wrong, but attempting to translate some furniture terminology is quite possibly like trying to translate words used on musical scores such as ‘allegro’, ‘forte’ or ‘pianissimo’, ie not really necessary. At least I hope so.

If anyone out there on the www wishes to point out the error of my ways, I’m all ears or even modanate??!!

PS ‘modanate’ could be related to ‘moda’ – which is fashion or way or method. The ‘ate’ indicates that the word could be the second person plural of an Italian verb such as ‘andate’. Don’t know. Enlighten me.

Being Accused of Arrogance

I have been accused of being arrogant and self-opinionated, which of course is totally untrue, says he lying through his teeth. The other day an old friend from the UK asked me if I was still self-opinionated and I, honestly I thought, said that I was, or rather I am. While I’m not that proud of this aspect of my character, I have to admit that it has helped me a little bit. After all, believing in yourself is not always such a bad thing, but if you believe in yourself too much you become labelled as arrogant. This is possibly, no definitely, why some people dislike me at first contact, although such people are, thankfully, quite few and far between and others seem to be able to look deeper and understand that there is more there.

Maybe all writers or rather people who write, I would not classify myself as a writer but I like writing and reflecting and expressing my opinions (as some will have noted..) may be considered to be arrogant and opinionated. Speaking personally, if people agree with me, then that is all well and good, if they do not, well, that’s fine too. By expressing opinions we create reactions, and either people start thinking about something or even better they actually act. In which case something may eventually change for the better.

Many of my ex-students are hopping from one internship to another with what appears to be only a slight hope of beginning a career and this is leaving them dispirited which is something that annoys me and being arrogant and self-opinionated I want to do something about this situation. I actually signed up for a meeting of Beppe Grillo supporters, and I was due to go this evening, however my other half is going to get home later than normal meaning that I will probably not make it to the meeting. This annoys me too, because I wanted to see whether I could make a contribution towards nudging the wheels of change forward in this complex country. What exactly I might achieve is uncertain for much greater people than my little self have attempted and failed to break the status quo. At least I want to try to do something, not out of self interest, not totally, but to try to give young people some hope and to make the future seem at least a little sunny. Yes, I’m an arrogant idealist, I guess. I once dressed up in a silly monster costume and spent the day scaring people into donating money to charity. It was during one of those red nose days a long time ago in the UK. Marks and Spencer did not let me scare their customers into donating, which was a shame, but understandable. I raised more than 500 pounds I seem to remember and got my photo in the paper – but not dressed as a monster. It was an act of arrogance, but it helped people.

I shall impose my arrogance on one of these Beppe Grillo meetings another time, in the hope that I can, maybe, possibly, remove the film of apathy which glazes too many of us nowadays. Will I actually achieve something? Who knows, but at least I will have tried. Words are great things, but when they are mixed with actions they can move mountains. And I, arrogantly, like the idea of being someone who took part in the inital planning before the mountain got moved.

Yep, I’m arrogant. Sorry.