Carlos Slompo
Photo: atakan, iStok.
Gerard Van Herk (2018) writes in the first person and invites readers to enjoy the discovery of Sociolinguistics and purposefully weave in one’s personal stories. Sociolinguistics has helped me revisit and reorganize previously unseen or ignored linguistic events where I was the actor.
By expanding the definition of Sociolinguistics (the relationship between language and society), Gerard Van Herk (2018) brings back questions that suit every individual wanting to play the “amateur sociolinguist” and states that what language and society mean “depends on who you ask and what you want to find” (p.11).
We, adult players: our time, our scenarios, our interests
Here I state my experience. The project of learning three languages as an adult (Italian, French, and German) had a broader scope, and I was unaware of it. They were situated and goal-oriented: they helped investigate documents, improve my status as a language teacher, and help me understand the history of my heritage and why the hell I ended up in Brazil.
Coincidently, they have an emotional heritage and educational taste linked to historically bilingual regions: Bolzano (Italian-German) in Italy, in Trentino-Alto Adige, land of my father’s ancestors and Colmar (French-German) in France, in the region of Alsace, land of my mother’s ancestors; and Montréal (French-English), Canada, in the province of Québec, where I have been studying at University McGill (Anglophone university) and UQAM (francophone university).
Changing languages, from my native Brazilian Portuguese to the other two, has been a significant, rewarding accomplishment since I had begun learning those languages as an adult.
In 2007, before being admitted for a Certificate Teaching English as a Second Language at McGill, I had been admitted to the glotodidactics preparatory course for future application to the DITALS (Certificazione di Competenza in Didattica dell’Italiano a Stranieri) in Rome. Since Italian is not my native language, it was necessary to possess a C1 or C2 level proficiency certification according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. I have a C2 Italian proficiency certificate, the CILS (Certificazione di Italiano come Lingua Straniera), from the University of Siena. Still, I knew that this fact would not ensure my easiness among Italian students besides studying in Italian. I would need to read, listen to lectures, debate and produce in that language. I was terrified! I remember being in a position of quietness and avoidance. That period of summer studies in Italy confronted me with the subtle but significant components an adult has to account for when going from theory (language learning) to practice (language use).
Hey ! I am an “adult language teacher”! I have studied languages and didactics to understand better what happens in the students’ universe. That promoted loops of self-assessment initiatives and, why not, fears in the then-adult learner.
To conclude, one can create and recreate the language-learning playground one wants, even being an adult. My mixed feelings are about whether I wish I had lived it before, or if I still want to repeat it with a new language.
Ah! I passed the Italian exams and got the certification! 🙂
How about you guys?
Have you been in the adult learner playground? What languages have you learned and why?
Reference
Van Herk, G. (2017). What Is Sociolinguistics? : Wiley.
