Four professors from four different departments in the College of Humanities all work toward the same goal—they help students improve their language skills.
At this year’s Education Week, BYU professors from the Linguistic, Spanish & Portuguese, English, and Asian & Near Eastern Languages Departments combine their language experiences with their disciplines to share how important mindsets, practices, cultures, and communities are in language acquisition.
Seeking Failure
In all his years of testing students, Associate Professor of Linguistics Troy Cox (Language Learning and Assessment) learned a very important lesson: Failure is a good thing. In his lecture “Failing Forward: Strategies for Learning a New Language,” he shared the lessons he discovered about failure while helping missionaries and students become better language learners.
Over the course of his career, Cox has tested for language acquisition by analyzing challenge exams, language needs at the MTC, and the Web Computer Adaptive Placement Exam (WebCAPE), a system BYU used for missionaries who came home during the pandemic, to name a few. Cox realized that he wanted students to choose to push themselves, so he started including reflective aspects to his tests, hoping it would help students progress in their language skills.
Cox used the Language Ability Self-Evaluation Resource (LASER) to test the connection between students’ ability to self-assess and increase their language proficiency. As students shared their thoughts, Cox started to see a relationship between their perceived willingness to learn and a higher proficiency in language skill. Cox said this happened because these students “sought discomfort.”
“The more uncomfortable they are with learning a new language, the more they are learning. More discomfort equals more mistakes. More mistakes equal more learning opportunities and less chance of repeating them,” Cox said.
He believes that purposeful willingness to learn changes the game in language acquisition. He said, “I think the Lord will bless you when you’re doing the work, and He will magnify your levels to accomplish His needs when it needs to be done.”
Becoming Interculturally Competent
How many Portuguese speakers live in the US? Professor Rex Nielson (Luso-Afro-Brazilian Literature and Culture) said there are more than we think. In his lecture “Understanding the Cultures of Those Who Speak Portuguese,” Nielson explained that with about three million Portuguese speakers in the US, it isn’t enough to learn about the surface level of Portuguese culture; learning the culture requires diving deeper, especially if you want to continue your own language skills.
Historically, Nielson said language instructors have focused on one goal: “native fluency.” However, realizing this wasn’t achievable, they began to focus on teaching students to interact competently with people from another culture.
To become interculturally competent, Nielson believes in using the three p’s: products (paintings, cathedrals, educational systems, laws, etc.), practices (social interactions and behaviors), and perspectives (beliefs, ideas, values, meanings, etc.). Learning about these p’s helps language students become more aware and understanding of differences between cultures.
For example, while getting his PhD, Nielson worked and studied in a very Brazilian environment in the US. He said, “I became very accustomed to kissing my professors [on the cheek] . . . and I knew them all by first name.” Some might be offended by this variance in culture; in fact, one professor saw a student calling Nielson by his first name and was shocked at what he saw as disrespect.
When these situations occur, Nielson recommended “try[ing] to avoid labeling [customs] as good or bad.” Instead, he suggested that language learners think of another culture “as a new adventure. Allow yourself to be curious about the way things are perceived and done in this new environment.” As Preach My Gospel states, “One of the greatest things you can do to gain people’s trust and love is to respect and embrace culture in appropriate ways.”
Language Is Culture
In 1986, a group called the Lord’s Resistance Army tried to overthrow the Ugandan government and, in the process, kidnapped Acholi children. When the conflict ended, the Acholi people, one of the largest ethnic groups in northern Uganda, were left with a unique problem. The kidnapped children—who were forced to kill their own—wanted to come home, but the tribe was unsure if reintegration was lawful and fair for everyone.
Associate Professor Peter Leman (Postcolonial Literature and Theory, African Literature) shared this story in his lecture “Understanding the Cultures of Uganda,” to emphasize Acholi cultural beliefs of justice and forgiveness.
Leman believes that every language is a culture. He said, “It’s a way of seeing and experiencing the world.” Because of their language and culture, the Acholi people “were willing to approach this [tragedy] with a desire for forgiving and healing,” Leman said. And therefore, their “traditional holy justice system focuses more on forgiveness and mercy.”
In order to be forgiven and healed, each kidnapped Acholi needed to go through an old ritual of cleansing called mato oput, which means “drinking the bitter herb” and symbolized reconciliation. Leman said that, in the past, this ritual showed that warring clans were willing to “accept the bitterness of the past and promise never to take such bitterness again.”
Acholi culture doesn’t seek punishment—something the Western World disapproves of—but rather “seeks to restore modern social harmony in the affected community,” Leman said; and harmony was found through a few simple words: mato oput.
Building a Community Through Language
According to the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, Korean is one of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn. But that fact hasn’t seemed to deter many people from trying.
In her lecture “Understanding the Cultures of Those Who Speak Korean,” Professor Julie Damron (Korean Linguistics and Pedagogy), remarked that Korean entertainment has captured the attention of thousands around the world, causing an interest in the Korean language. But what she finds more fascinating is what keeps these students engaged and what helps them become life-long language learners.
While language study has generally decreased among college students, interest in Korean has increased by 128 percent. Damron explained that this spike is likely because South Korea became popular in mainstream media, “and people are loving it.”
When Damron asked her Korean 101 students why they were learning the language, 46 percent said they liked K-pop, about 34 percent wanted to travel, nine percent needed a GE credit, and zero percent wanted to take the class with friends.
Shockingly, when Damron’s students moved onto Korean 102, she asked the same question; While the number of students taking the class because of K-pop, travel, or GE requirements generally decreased in percentage, Damron found that the number of students taking the class to connect with friends increased to about 30 percent. The people were helping students make the choice to stay and become lifelong learners.
“We’re going for a community of speakers,” Damron said. “Whether it’s in the classroom, whether it’s in Korea—wherever—we want a community, where they want to be involved with people they care about, people they love.”