Make Mistakes

I was reading a mailing list for bilingual families, the Bilingual Families mailing list today and there was an interesting post that caught my eye. Normally I don't have time to even open the messages but I opened this one. A 17 year old had just joined the list and was introducing himself. He is a bilingual Spanish-English speaker. He was talking about how now he rarely speaks Spanish because maybe, he doesn't have confidence in his abilities. He's afraid of making mistakes. In the very first response to his message, one list member said:

My husband, a native Spanish speaker, who didn't learn English until late in life, always encourages me to just speak - don't let mistakes stop you from connecting with people. He says, "The important thing is to be able to communicate. If people can understand you, then you've accomplished the goal."

It is such an obvious suggestion and one that is reiterated over and over again and one that can't be stressed enough. That is don't let mistakes stop you from connecting with people! Teachers almost always say the same thing to their students. Don't let fear of making mistakes prevent you from connecting with people. However, at the same time, we put fear of making mistakes into the students by testing them and giving them grades and by forcing them to perform in front of a group and then making a big deal of their mistakes by correcting them in front of everyone. That's like being publicly whipped for some students.

If you are interested, you can get more information about the Bilingual Families at the Bilingual Families Web Page.
URL: http://www.nethelp.no/cindy/biling-fam.html

Fresh Butter on the Run

I was just considering the feasibility of making my own butter for baking and eating. Butter as you probably know, has gotten expensive and hard to come by, at least here in Japan. That means you have to bake without it. Bread has also gotten expensive. This is just terrible! No buttered toast anymore. My wife is a yenny pincher, you know. So in order to be able to eat yummy butter and have yummy buttery cookies and yellowed greasy popcorn, I’m considering making my own. I run almost everyday, so I figure maybe I can just put some milk in a bottle and carry it with me. What do you think? Do you think I can make fresh butter on my morning jogs? After all, one of the great pleasures of running is making up for the calories lost.

いやぁ、よくクラッシュしますね。

最近、仕事のパソコンでIE7を入れましたが、よくクラッシュしますね。ダウングレードしなきゃ。

外国語は勉強しますか。

外国語は勉強しますか。それとも習得しますか。習得？習って得るものですか？そうです。手ぬぐいを巻いて、机に向かって一所懸命勉強しなくても、言語を習得することが出来ます。その言語を習得する過程について話したいと思います。子供は自然に周りの人と接しながら、遊びながら母国語を習得しますね。その子供が使う過程は大人でも使えます。日本人の子供は勉強して日本語を話し始めることはないでしょう。お母さんなどと日常生活をしながら、遊びながらごく自然に覚えてしまいます。

A Little Extra Help

We went to America for the holidays. We spent over 3 weeks there with my parents. I was really hoping that this would get Noelle started speaking English.

The first two days on the airplane and on the road were tough for her. On the second day she was tired and rejecting English. She said to her mother, "I'm tired of Daddy's". She didn't know what to say but we knew what she meant. She was tired of everyone speaking English all of a sudden all of the time. It was difficult for her to understand and foreign. But she knew it was the same "language" that her daddy uses.

Pretty soon she became the center of attention. Everyone was trying to talk to her and everyone was trying to play with her. She started to warm up. She started trying, trying so hard, to communicate.

In the end she learned a lot of English and got started talking in English. Now she is back in Japanese mode and trying to speak Japanese to me more and more but I am resisting. We have been back now for a month. Right after we got back both Noelle and my wife were speaking a lot of English. I was so happy. They are reverting back to Japanese now. I must do something to keep up their English. We just have to speak more English at home.

元気ですか？

最近、次から次へと風邪をひいています。寒さは平気ですけど、なぜか身体がだるい。朝は起きられません。でも今日はちょっと元気が取り戻しつつあるように感じます。明日、走ります！
実はサロマ湖の100キロマラソンに申し込みました。もう4ヶ月しか準備時間がないのにこんな休んでいられません！頑張れClint！

Number One!

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Originally uploaded by mr_caffeine74

I don't know why Noelle was holding up one finger like this but I love this photo. Noelle and I spent an afternoon playing in the fallen leaves at the park on the hill. That's our truck in the background and my shoes in the foreground. In her hand she has some chocolate milk. We had stopped playing for a snack. We were gathering leaves to make an orange garbage bag full of leaves for the yard. We bought the bag in Wyoming for 2 dollars or so. It had a Jack-o-lantern face on it. I wanted to get it out in the yard for decoration before Halloween.

Noelle's Japanese continues to astound me. She speaks so fluently sometimes. She talks to herself a lot and it is so cute. She says things like "Hmm, I wonder if this is the right one?". On the other hand her English is coming along rather slowly. We will be going to Wyoming for a month and I hope that gives her a big enough boost that she can keep talking even more English when we get back. She tries, sometimes, to speak English but she can say SO much in Japanese that it frustrates her to not be able to say it in English. I think though, that she has the right personality to learn to speak languages well. Time will tell.

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