Today we have a guest book review of Peter Pickert's Field Manual for the LACE Method of Language Learning. Marion James' article first appeared in the January 13, 2008 addition of Sunday's Zaman. Marion is the co-owner of Greenhouse bookstore, the largest English language bookstore on the Asian side of Istanbul found in Kadikoy, where this book can be found. Enjoy!
"Language wasn't meant to be learned in an academic setting!" So says, Peter Pikkert, an experienced teacher of English as a Second Language, and a man who speaks a number of Middle Eastern languages fluently, including Turkish.
This may seem a little bit like gamekeeper-turned-poacher, particularly if you are one of his ex-students (!), but it is worth our while reading on to hear why he makes this claim: "During our high school years many of us were linguistically wounded. Forced to study, say, French, the awful experience had two effects on us: we were so-o-o glad when we completed the course, and we concluded that language learning was the most difficult and frustrating of all linguistic exercises."
I must admit, these words ring true to my experience. In the UK, at least in the 1980s when I was at school, we didn't start learning a foreign language until age 11. Then French was introduced into our curriculum, just at the time when instead of "science" we graduated to studying biology, physics and chemistry. French seemed just another academic task. Because of my family's financial situation I had never been abroad, so learning French was purely an intellectual exercise. I recall more than one occasion being frustrated when I had translated a sentence from English to French word-for-word, and my French teacher put a big red cross by it. "They don't say it like that." "Well, why not?" I asked. "They just don't." That didn't really satisfy my mathematical mind, and I would have dropped French as soon as possible after three years, except that I was told I would have to have a foreign language O Level to go to university. I persevered to age 16 and then thankfully left my French textbooks behind.
Then, as an adult, I came to Turkey. Learning Turkish was suddenly no academic exercise, it was a necessity of life if I was to survive and to be able to negotiate daily life in a busy city. It was also mandatory if I was to be able to join in conversations, to have a social life and do more than smile and nod at my neighbors when I went visiting. I felt a desperate need to be able to communicate. I actually wanted to learn a foreign language!
For those of us who are not in our home countries trying to learn a language from books and audio material, but who have the opportunity of interacting with native speakers and being surrounded by the foreign language all day, Peter Pikkert has developed the LACE method of language learning.
LACE stands for Language Acquisition for Cross-Cultural Effectiveness. The basic premise of the method is this: Children are the world's best language learners. And how do they learn? -- by asking questions and by having context-related language experiences.
I am constantly amazed by the linguistic abilities of many expat children here in Turkey. I know a family where the father is Canadian and the mother German. Their five year old can switch happily from English to German to Turkish and seems to know instinctively which adult in the room will speak which language. Even where the home is not bilingual, for example where both parents are Korean, the children seem to be able to speak Korean to their parents, turn to me and say something in English, and then explain to the other children present in Turkish what is going to happen next.
Mom and dad are usually quite a few steps behind in their language learning, have a foreign accent that their children seem naturally to avoid and often have their Turkish corrected by their kids!
Pikkert says, "To recreate the way children learn language [you need to be exposed] to a lot of comprehensible input laced with a few new words or concepts, the meaning of which can largely be deduced from the context."
The central plank of the LACE method is that you hire a language helper. Note, this is not a teacher, it is a native speaker who has the time and commitment to help you, who has a good accent and pronunciation and who is prepared to take part in a whole pile of exercises that will be led by their foreign partner.
In normal language learning, the teacher takes the lead. The teacher decides what the learner needs to learn today and decides the speed with which the exercises should be tackled. In the LACE method, the learner takes the lead, the learner chooses which vocabulary or grammar they most need to learn right now and which activities to do to learn them.
The Field Manual for the LACE method is not language-specific. You can use it to learn Turkish, or your Turkish husband or wife can use it to learn your language. It is a detailed set of activities and exercises that mimic a child's learning methods, to be used as a basis of your daily time working with your language helper.
For example, a child learns new vocabulary by pointing at a picture and asking, "What is this?" They decide which words they are ready to learn, leading their parent as they point at different things. If they forget a word, they go back and point at the same thing again. Learning is reinforced by the parent who may "switch places" and point to a picture and ask the child, "What is this?" So, if you want to learn the vocabulary for all the things in your home or office, you could arm yourself with an IKEA catalogue, learn the Turkish phrase for "What is this?" and then spend an hour with your language helper asking questions.
Because the learning is interactive and also the words are being introduced along with a visual stimulus, in context, the proponents of the LACE method state you will have a higher recall than if you had met a list of the words written up on the blackboard.
In addition the method advocates Total Physical Response. Have you seen children at a pre-school learning to respond to phrases in a foreign language such as "stand-up," "sit down," "touch your knees," "touch your toes"? At first, they may not understand the individual words, but they recognize the phrases, and the actions help reinforce their retention of the phrase. LACE integrates giving and receiving commands, using a picture book and doing simple projects into a simple, cohesive program.
The manual is rich in activity ideas, including 42 basic texts to get you started, conversation starters, nearly 600 total physical response activity ideas and a range of language acquisition projects.
So, if your New Year's resolution was to improve your Turkish and your good intentions have floundered already as you are getting bogged down with a standard textbook, you may like to try Peter Pikkert's LACE method … for a refreshing change!
(If you are living in Istanbul, be sure to stop by the Greenhouse Bookstore in Kadikoy and pick up your copy today. If you are outside of Istanbul you can order it from Amazon. Just click below!)
"Language wasn't meant to be learned in an academic setting!" So says, Peter Pikkert, an experienced teacher of English as a Second Language, and a man who speaks a number of Middle Eastern languages fluently, including Turkish.
This may seem a little bit like gamekeeper-turned-poacher, particularly if you are one of his ex-students (!), but it is worth our while reading on to hear why he makes this claim: "During our high school years many of us were linguistically wounded. Forced to study, say, French, the awful experience had two effects on us: we were so-o-o glad when we completed the course, and we concluded that language learning was the most difficult and frustrating of all linguistic exercises."
I must admit, these words ring true to my experience. In the UK, at least in the 1980s when I was at school, we didn't start learning a foreign language until age 11. Then French was introduced into our curriculum, just at the time when instead of "science" we graduated to studying biology, physics and chemistry. French seemed just another academic task. Because of my family's financial situation I had never been abroad, so learning French was purely an intellectual exercise. I recall more than one occasion being frustrated when I had translated a sentence from English to French word-for-word, and my French teacher put a big red cross by it. "They don't say it like that." "Well, why not?" I asked. "They just don't." That didn't really satisfy my mathematical mind, and I would have dropped French as soon as possible after three years, except that I was told I would have to have a foreign language O Level to go to university. I persevered to age 16 and then thankfully left my French textbooks behind.
Then, as an adult, I came to Turkey. Learning Turkish was suddenly no academic exercise, it was a necessity of life if I was to survive and to be able to negotiate daily life in a busy city. It was also mandatory if I was to be able to join in conversations, to have a social life and do more than smile and nod at my neighbors when I went visiting. I felt a desperate need to be able to communicate. I actually wanted to learn a foreign language!
For those of us who are not in our home countries trying to learn a language from books and audio material, but who have the opportunity of interacting with native speakers and being surrounded by the foreign language all day, Peter Pikkert has developed the LACE method of language learning.
LACE stands for Language Acquisition for Cross-Cultural Effectiveness. The basic premise of the method is this: Children are the world's best language learners. And how do they learn? -- by asking questions and by having context-related language experiences.
I am constantly amazed by the linguistic abilities of many expat children here in Turkey. I know a family where the father is Canadian and the mother German. Their five year old can switch happily from English to German to Turkish and seems to know instinctively which adult in the room will speak which language. Even where the home is not bilingual, for example where both parents are Korean, the children seem to be able to speak Korean to their parents, turn to me and say something in English, and then explain to the other children present in Turkish what is going to happen next.
Mom and dad are usually quite a few steps behind in their language learning, have a foreign accent that their children seem naturally to avoid and often have their Turkish corrected by their kids!
Pikkert says, "To recreate the way children learn language [you need to be exposed] to a lot of comprehensible input laced with a few new words or concepts, the meaning of which can largely be deduced from the context."
The central plank of the LACE method is that you hire a language helper. Note, this is not a teacher, it is a native speaker who has the time and commitment to help you, who has a good accent and pronunciation and who is prepared to take part in a whole pile of exercises that will be led by their foreign partner.
In normal language learning, the teacher takes the lead. The teacher decides what the learner needs to learn today and decides the speed with which the exercises should be tackled. In the LACE method, the learner takes the lead, the learner chooses which vocabulary or grammar they most need to learn right now and which activities to do to learn them.
The Field Manual for the LACE method is not language-specific. You can use it to learn Turkish, or your Turkish husband or wife can use it to learn your language. It is a detailed set of activities and exercises that mimic a child's learning methods, to be used as a basis of your daily time working with your language helper.
For example, a child learns new vocabulary by pointing at a picture and asking, "What is this?" They decide which words they are ready to learn, leading their parent as they point at different things. If they forget a word, they go back and point at the same thing again. Learning is reinforced by the parent who may "switch places" and point to a picture and ask the child, "What is this?" So, if you want to learn the vocabulary for all the things in your home or office, you could arm yourself with an IKEA catalogue, learn the Turkish phrase for "What is this?" and then spend an hour with your language helper asking questions.
Because the learning is interactive and also the words are being introduced along with a visual stimulus, in context, the proponents of the LACE method state you will have a higher recall than if you had met a list of the words written up on the blackboard.
In addition the method advocates Total Physical Response. Have you seen children at a pre-school learning to respond to phrases in a foreign language such as "stand-up," "sit down," "touch your knees," "touch your toes"? At first, they may not understand the individual words, but they recognize the phrases, and the actions help reinforce their retention of the phrase. LACE integrates giving and receiving commands, using a picture book and doing simple projects into a simple, cohesive program.
The manual is rich in activity ideas, including 42 basic texts to get you started, conversation starters, nearly 600 total physical response activity ideas and a range of language acquisition projects.
So, if your New Year's resolution was to improve your Turkish and your good intentions have floundered already as you are getting bogged down with a standard textbook, you may like to try Peter Pikkert's LACE method … for a refreshing change!
(If you are living in Istanbul, be sure to stop by the Greenhouse Bookstore in Kadikoy and pick up your copy today. If you are outside of Istanbul you can order it from Amazon. Just click below!)
