My grandmother always says, “You have two ears and just one mouth.”

So, shouldn't we spend double the time listening to the foreign languages we are learning?

Every language has its own intonation, its own rhythm, its own style of being spoken. In order to learn effectively we have to train our ears to hear what's being said. Per D. Renukadevi’s research, “Listening awakens awareness of the language as it is a receptive skill that first develops in a human being.” This highlights one of the main reasons we perceive listening exercises to be a critical language learning method at Key Babel.

As an example, the Mandarin Chinese language is known for being a tonal language. It technically has five tones, while the Cantonese Chinese dialect has nine! The falling 4th tone sounds harsh to most American Chinese language learners. You should see how some of the children react to being corrected on the fourth tone initially in our children's classes. We always send parents messages to remind their child that our teachers aren’t angry or criticizing them. It is also not as easy to understand Chinese linguistic art forms, such as song lyrics, children's chants, etc.,  due to the inability to decipher rhyme and rhythm in Chinese poetry. Adult students may take more time than children to get used to it.

Language learners of tonal languages such as Chinese are usually quick to feel intimidated by the fact that they do not hear any differences in vocabulary, or struggle to differentiate inquiries from commands. It definitely takes some getting used to, but lessons that uphold traditional teaching methods such as dictation and audio repetition are quite useful in building your ability to process what you are hearing. Teachers may also exaggerate their pitches to try to help get the point across. However, even in "tone-less" languages like Spanish or Russian, learning to hear what is actually being said will be crucial to your fluency success.

Most of the research done on this topic of the role of listening in language acquisition agrees that we gain 45% of our language competency from listening alone. In Key Babel classes, we start with listening activities right from the first lesson. Of course we do not expect for students to understand every word (or any word if they are completely brand new to the target language) as we embark on your language listening journey.

While the listening focused media used in classes will vary in speed and accent, you should not feel any pressure to understand what is being said initially.  The teacher will also not interrupt often so as not to distract student ears from acclimating to what is being heard.

As we work on increasing vocabulary through various methods, Key Babel students are excited and more confident when they realize that they hear much more than then they previously could. Our teachers also love to hear the reactions of students reacting to themselves understanding the listening portion of each lesson.

Besides your nose, the ears are one part of your body that cannot be closed. Focusing on that fact alone, you can see how making sure that we are listening correctly is taken seriously even outside of foreign language learning classes. Being able to hear the tone of someone's voice; the specific style or pronunciation they use on certain words are all part of the process that builds our understanding. This is one of the main reasons many arguments are started when it comes to text messaging or email.

So, while you get ready for Chinese classes at Key Babel Institute, keep in mind the reason we put so much emphasis on having "two ears to hear".

“The wise will hear and increase their learning.” - Proverbs 1:5

Many parents these days are quite worried about having their child take classes in a foreign language. They have a belief that there's an underlying burden in a full immersion environment. However, research shows that there are plenty of benefits and an overall success rate in learning a language through an immersion program. Schools have been teaching in this style since 1965 in Canada, and surely back when in something thousand BC where much migration took place. Today, let's look at some of the things we can generally expect to go through a language learners mind.

We begin much like babies. We sit back and listen in silence, watching various facial contortions and actions take place in front of our curious eyes. Depending on how receptive we are to experiencing new things on an individual level, this period can last a few weeks or a few months. This doesn't seem to change much when we look at classes done in-person or virtually. Willingness to engage is either already present or emerges here. 

It's important to note that the learner is not completely silent during this period. There is actually quite a bit of repeating that goes on. As the language learner continues with class they are bound to find that the teacher is using either characters they are familiar with, songs that they recognize the melody of, or objects that they genuinely have an interest in. This prompts them to repeat whatever it is that the teacher has just said in connection with the character, song or object in immediate view.

Personally, I've seen students go from just staring to "I like tomatoes!" in their very first immersion class. They fully understand that whatever they are saying, it's positive about the tomatoes that they like. I've also had students get to their 6th month of classes and suddenly burst out with "If you don't want a tomato, just say 'no'" in the target language. At that point, they could still be mimicking a phrase they've heard in class, but this time they fully understand its implications.

After all of that mimicking and hearing the same certain words over and over and over again in different forms, language learners realize they should either be saying 'yes' or 'no'. They also realize they should be sharing their own feelings about what they do and don't like, where they do and don't want to go.

My favorite in-person experience is with a child that suddenly gathered that he could not just repeat 'do you want one or two?' inquiries at lunch-time. One day his eyes got wide and he took a deep breath and said 'you want two'. 

To which I replied, "I only want one, but I see that you want two." He was so pleased with himself that he almost skipped back to his table. After that, he ended up using numbers for just about everything we did. Throughout classes he'd say 'I want four papers!', 'I want 27 pencils' 'do you like eating 100 burgers?' and so on.

Just like that, he was able to connect what was expected of him by using the basic numerical vocabulary that we went over occasionally and the themes of the stories we'd read, songs we'd sing and discussions we'd have off-hand. The brain is able to take this repetitive information and store it in different files of experiences. It learns that 100 is not just about the pencils from the May 27, 2016 class. 100 can also apply to the June 2, 2016 hamburger class, even though we didn't see or eat 100 burgers for real.