Teachers need to practice, too

Being a foreign language teacher is difficult.  At first glance, these words appear simplistic and obvious.  Every person who works has a job that is challenging, and we are all willing to admit that.  The challenge facing a foreign language teacher is that no matter how difficult the job is – keeping the students interested, finding good authentic materials, teaching more preps than we can handle or dealing with a feeling that we are not relevant-maintaining the skills to do the job is the real mountain.

All foreign language teachers, even the native speakers, struggle with their own language facility in the classroom, especially in the U.S, where it is difficult to find authentic interactions in the languages we teach. While we expect that students will come in to the class with a less than perfect mastery of the spoken language, we are often don’t think about the teacher. Teachers are frequently burdened by prepping lessons for the upcoming week, balancing administrative and extra-curricular activities, correcting at home and inventing ways to make a program relevant for fear of losing it; not to mention having a life outside of work! All of this time spent takes away from a critical need: proficiency in the language.  

It is often a wish that our children take a language to develop fluency, a term all too over used.  How many times have we heard a parent exclaim, “ Oh, you know, my son is fluent in French!”,truly believing that this is the case, when in fact, it is clearly not true?  Too many times to count.  Of course, this does not mean that the child has no competency in the language.  Is it possible that one reason (among many!) that the input is not sufficient for the learner to fully function in the language, since many times the teacher is not able to continue with his/her development?The loss of teacher language skills is a problem that is not easily solved, and not one we hear much about; I have done limited research and even contacted Susan Colville-Hall, whose 1995 article dealt with this issue; she has not written anything on the subject since then.In my mind it is of paramount importance that we non-native speakers pay attention to our own development as continuing language learners, and that native speakers maintain theirs. There are ways to slow down the attrition, both of current target culture norms, as well as that of the language itself. 

One skill that can suffer without sufficient practice is reception.  The more authentic language we listen to as teachers, the more ideas we get for ways to help our students, and the more we grow.  Likewise, the more authentic documents we read the more we know about the target culture and the more our vocabulary increases.  More importantly, the more we listen to authentic sources of language, the more we are able to understand the cultures that speak the languages we teach; cultures are deep and radio and other sources can teach us the layers of knowledge and conventions and norms these cultures embody.    To this end, I have made a pledge that every day when I commute to school, I listen to the same radio station (France Culture); I always listen to the same show because it is on at the same time every day.  From this daily experience, I have not only gotten to know a radio personality, but I have listened to an embedded reporter as she accompanied Syrian refugees on their journey to safety, I have met a janitor that cleaned the offices at the radio station for 20 years and heard her sing (she was a minor sensation in her native Tunisia), and many other stories that allow me as a learner and teacher to deepen profoundly my knowledge and to feel CONFIDENT as I guide my students on their journeys.  The human interest stories, the scientific terminology, the places that exist that I have encountered are all now a part of my teaching.  This can be you, too!  I alternate France Culture with Energie (a Quebec station), as well as Senegalese and other stations; I listen on the Bluetooth in my car. As non-native speakers we should not get too comfortable with one dialect, for in my opinion it shows favoritism and does not allow for us to truly delve into the many cultures that speak the target language, but who never get any airplay, if you get my drift.

Maybe you'd like to try this?  Let me know how it goes.  I guarantee that if you do it every day- even for 10 minutes- you will be amazed at how fluently you comprehend and will be glad of the things you learn!