Monday, May 23, 2011

The Unspoken Language


By Deirdre Higgins, ESL teacher 
Pasadena Language Center
Los Angeles Unified School District
Write It!   (owner)


A few months ago in class a student approached me; she was distressed about her lack of friends at work.  She was a young Korean woman who had gotten a job in Los Angeles in the art department of a small film company.  She was almost completely fluent in English and that’s why she was frustrated.  Somehow, her ability to speak the language was not enough to create friendships with her peers.   Consequently, she felt lonely and isolated.

I asked her for an example of where she felt things fell apart with her language.   She said that every Monday when she would come to work someone would ask her, “How was your weekend, what did you do?”   She would respond, “I went to shop, I bought a dress… I went out to a nice restaurant with my friend… I saw a movie on TV…”

I explained to her that when people ask those questions, they are more interested in connecting than actually hearing a list of activities.  She then said, “How does one connect?  What part of the language am I not using?”

This got me thinking.  Language is more than vocabulary and grammatical structure.  It’s more than simply knowing all the verb tenses or idiomatic expressions.  It’s more than communicating facts.   Language that really engages people includes facial expressions, physical gestures, pauses, hesitations, intonation, cadence, inflection, and high and low tonal sounds.   Language can sound robotic -- like my young student who was listing her activities as if reciting a laundry list – or, it can be expressive and alive with color, meaning, excitement and emotion.