LEARNING SLOVAK: ANOTHER LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE                        

 

     It is wonderful to get in contact with a language that you have never heard. My curiosity aroused when my professor of First and Second Language Acquisition subject told the whole class that we were going to learn Slovak. As a first step, I began looking for its origin in order to know if this language had any similarities both with Spanish or English. Then, I searched some basic Slovak phrases, so as to be prepared when the Slovak teacher arrived the class. At the moment that Sylvia, the Slovak teacher, started the class I remembered immediately the experience I have had both as an English learner and as a teacher.

     Having learned Slovak for 30 minutes brought me some memories about my experience as an English learner. It is quite natural when hearing a language for the first time that you do not understand many things the teacher says; nonetheless, you can resort to your intuition in order to grasp the general ideas from the new language. Noam Chomsky states that all human beings have in their brain a language acquisition device (universal grammar) in which the grammatical rules are common to all human languages. I consider that this may be possible because at the beginning of a foreign or second language learning process, the learner does not hold much vocabulary, but he can make some associations from his native language in an attempt to understand what is being said. Fortunately, the Slovak teacher used the appropriate techniques such as pair work, mimics, and repetition which helped me understand the main topic of the class. Something important to highlight is that as a learner I could enjoy this class and interact with my classmates.                                                              

      On the other hand, this experience also made me reflect on my role as an English teacher.  Something that any teacher should take into consideration is that first impressions are everything in the learning process. I am aware that teachers must create an environment of understanding and trust in their first class, so students feel less inhibited and can participate freely in the different tasks. Returning the Slovak class, the teacher took this aspect into account because she was kind, recursive, and patient at the moment we did not get what we had to do. The more pleasant the first class is, the better impression the students will have in order to continue learning.

     Finally, learning Slovak was such an interesting experience. I could connect the experience I had as an English learner and the whole process I lived till I became a teacher. I remembered that learning a new language is not that easy; nevertheless, teachers have to resort to his intuition and spark in order to make the students keep on learning and can fulfill their competences in the foreign or second language.

References

·       Chomsky, Noam, 1986. Knowledge of language: its nature, origin and use.Praeger, New York.