The biggest challenge to learning a language abroad is
immersion.
This becomes infinitely more difficult with my accent. The
Italians instantly recognise me as English and I wistfully watch as my
opportunity to practice the language flits away gaily. Not to say that I am not
persevering; I am, I do and often! Despite my stubborn refute to reply in
English, recently I seem to be engaging in more Anglo-Italian conversation than
I feel comfortable in. It’s cyclical, unproductive and often leaves me with an
undue sense of frustration.
Nonetheless, I am coming into my fourth month abroad and
have linguistic progress (or lack thereof) to discuss.
Much of what I have implemented for myself is taking
fruition, albeit somewhat gruellingly. My language class has become an
invaluable source, working as a refresher to concepts already familiar,
revision for more complicated aspects of grammar and a comfortable transition
environment for concepts that I am unfamiliar with. An added bonus of this type of work is the
invaluable sociolinguistic tit-bits I readily internalise, it’s beneficial to
understand when an Italian is feeling less than polite. This is an example of incidental vocabulary learning as explained by Gass and Selinker in their 2008 text 'Second language Acquisition', the acuqisition of such vocabulary is meaning driven. Basically, my curiosity towards why that drunk Italian man keeps shouting that particular phrase motivated me to go off and understand it. My retention of such terminology has, so far, been longitudinal. I deeply suspect this is on account of it being interesting.
Beyond this, I have been intermittently reading La Repubblica
as the language does not seem overwhelmingly complex. However, I say this as a
person for whom listening comprehension still heavily relies on contextual cues
and successful reading practice results in a gleaning of 40% of the text. But
any practice is good practice and it is important not to become disheartened.
My Dictaphone is perhaps the most invaluable tool that in my
artillery. This allows me to record and revise lectures and my leisure. The
only downfall of this is proximity. I have to be pretty close to the front of
the theatre in order to capture a clean recording. This increases my chances of
being asked a question/spoken to/looked at or interacted with in general, in any
way, by around 300%. The anxiety fights but the will to learn soldiers onwards.
At least half of the time, anyway.
My speech-anxiety, however, still rages unchained. Slow and
frequent conversations, accent practice and a stubbornness of will, should
hopefully relax this tension in time.
One of the most striking progressions within linguistic achievement
that I have noticed within myself is the ever-growing proficiency surrounding
linguistic comprehension. Basically, I can eavesdrop with surprising success now.
I can pick up vast amounts of conversation around me, a definite increase in comparison
to a few short months ago. I attribute this to, along with attendance of
lectures, copious audio-practice in the form of film. Specifically, my
favourite films. In particular, a children’s film. The 2009 animation ‘UP’. As
humiliating as this is to admit to an audience, as the dialogue is simplistic
(and, admittedly, committed to memory) it was relatively easy to understand in
full. (This also works with; Harry Potter, The Nightmare on Elm street
franchise and The Lion King.)
Amusingly, after the above paragraph, I have yet to locate a
stable tandem partner.
