[senco-forum] spanish puzzle

I qualified in MFL before I moved into SEN, so I can speak from some
personal experience. The brain retains language learnt during a period
abroad but the neural pathways to that knowledge need to be restored before
the knowledge can be reactivated and deployed in a productive skill such as
speaking. I spent the academic year 1968-69 in France and much of what I
learnt then remains dormant until I reactivate what I know through
"warming-up exercises" or a trip to the target-language country. As a
linguist, but not a bilingual person, I can't switch to French and German at
will. I need to rehearse, create a foreign language atmosphere around myself
perhaps by listening to a foreign station or a language CD.

In the case of the Year 10 girl, her Spanish learnt during her early years
will still be there, but locked away, which is why she can understand spoken
Spanish but is unable or reluctant to speak the language. And yes, there may
be something psychological about that reluctance, as she likely associates
speaking Spanish with being different and hence being teased. It's sad that
we associate plurilingualism in this country with being different, when most
of the rest of the world treats plurilingualism as the norm. Many years ago,
I taught an able girl German ,but worried about her unwillingness to speak
the language in class. When she got to her GCSE oral exam, I was dreading
it. As it turned out, however, she did brilliantly. I can hardly get a word
in edgeways as she rattled along, using lots of tenses, fluent and accurate.
She performed when it mattered, and she preferred to listen and learn in
class. When she was ready to speak, she spoke.

So what's to be done about the girl? I would recommend a return visit to
Spain, where she would have the opportunity to merge the language she
acquired as a child with the language she learned as a teenager in the
classroom. Such a trip - perhaps to the locality where she once lived -
would place her knowledge of Spanish in a more positive context and motivate
her to use it in an authentic setting. Her "selective mutism" about speaking
the language may fade away when she meets young people of her own age who
are native speakers of Spanish and won't tease her for knowing the language.
German didn't really come to life for me until I went to Germany and heard
and read German all around me. The experience reduced my anxiety and
refreshed my appetite for the language and I returned to the UK to pass
German O-level with an A.

Hope this helps.

David Wilson
Harton Technology College, South Shields
http://www.specialeducationalneeds.com/