Imbibing Language, One Morsel at a Time

When I was in middle school, I enrolled in French class. We were permitted to choose our own names, and for some reason I was reborn as Vivienne (in 7th grade). And then Annick (in 8th). And eventually Angelique (in high school).

We learned the usual stuff: J'habite à Paris. C'est mon frère. Où est le Louvre? But we also learned that language and culture can be imbibed through food.

Yours truly, fourth from left, in 1979

Mme. Sandburg told us tales of her year in Paris, when she had very little money and would often buy a can of peaches to eat on a park bench, pretending that the drunk on the next bench wasn't drooling in his sleep and that her near-starvation was somehow romantic rather than debilitating. She coached us on our irregular verbs and introduced a couple of different tenses, and she brought us to triumph on a National French Exam, where as I recall I scored about 7th in the country in knowledge of 1st year French language.

So I was clearly imbibing something. My most vivid memories of 8th grade include Mme. Sandburg (yes, we called her that!) showing us how to make a French omelette aux fines herbes. She very deftly demonstrated her technique in cracking the eggs one-handed while whisking away. Impressive. Another day when we assembled a salade Niçoise in class and a small green worm crawled out of the lettuce. I still can't make that salad without thinking of the worm.

What is language learning, and how do students approach it? We talk now about "learning styles," something that our own teachers way back when surely sensed, but perhaps were hard-pressed to accommodate. Or did they? I recall dictations, memorization, and grammar drills, but also stories, and explanations, and vocabulary games; and also hands on opportunities, like cooking, so that we didn't just study the language and its culture, we experienced it. We imbibed it.

Did I ever read those prize books? No. But do I still have them,
and the program from the official ceremony? You bet!

As a language teacher, and continual language learner, myself, I am always thinking about how that process happens, the imbibing: taking a foreign language and making it your own.

For me, it is a process of transformation. I become a different person in a foreign language (if not quite Vivienne or Annick), and though I never became fluent in French, I learned to approach the world from an unfamiliar angle, to realize that if you live your life in French (or in Portuguese or Polish), whole concepts appear in an utterly other light.

That other person who I become isn't afraid of drunks on the bus, for example, or of being humiliated in public, but tries to enter into the spirit of it all. (See my post from last year about using all of Warsaw as my conversation partner.) I am patient when waiting in long lines, and persistent when I cannot make myself understood, and ready to make fun of myself if necessary. And I am so tuned in to the language that vivid recollections emerge not just with food memories, but also with individual new vocabulary words and cultural practices: I can remember exactly when and how I learned the Russian word маститый (venerable), and how I learned about the Russian Orthodox holiday Forgiveness Sunday. If I had tried the classic Polish tripe soup at the Magiel Cafe last year, I wouldn't have struggled the other day to produce the word flaki.

What I don't recall, for some reason, is making Mousse au Chocolat with Mme. Sandburg. But recently my friend and classmate was going through stored boxes as he prepares to move and discovered not only the fabulous newspaper article and picture about our success in the French contest, above, but also this recipe on torn-out notebook paper:

Food stains and all. Maybe this was a home project? He doesn't remember salade Niçoise, so he must have been absent for the little green worm, but why was I absent for this?! Now that my daughter is studying French, I guess I'd better try out the mousse. We can drill some vocabulary while we are at it.