Update 2 (December-January)

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.