I had a year of French in high school. Then, in college, I continued taking French. In my second semester, I went through a personal loss, and it affected my language learning. Expressing yourself in your L1 during a traumatic time is sometimes difficult enough. I think I couldn't open myself up to a new language. The cognitive load was too much.
Because my French was limited, I couldn't express myself fully. Therefore, there was no way for me to accurately represent myself in French. I could only speak about frivolous things. No one knew how I really felt.
2 comments:
Dear Suzanne,
I'm sorry that you weren't able to have a better learning situation due to uncontrollable circumstances. I've seen students who had similar "shutdowns" in L2 communication and motivation, and I think the emotional overload you experienced is a very normal, natural part of grieving. Hopefully the experience has made you stronger somehow, and someday if you have a student who is in a similar situation they will benefit from the fact that you are a teacher that is able to empathize with their feelings and recognize their need to be silent for that class, that week, or however long they need.
Claire
Hi, Suzanne.
I am sorry for your loss, and that you had such a hard time. I hope you have had better language experiences since then (although French probably won't ever be the one). It's remarkable how completely our affective filters can block out any new information.
On an unrelated note, if you could email me from my blog what/who the titles and authors are of our excerpts, I will gladly post them with the results of our elaboration/simplification exercise. Thanks for finding the readings, by the way. They really worked, I thought! See you Monday.
Post a Comment