First Meeting With My Vocabulary Guru

In my first post, I promised to be authentic about the successes and challenges of my process in implementing Language Storytime as a method for learning and teaching a new language.  And while I'd carefully planned the method based on previous success as a teacher using this method, when I put myself in the position of learner of a new language, that first challenge was not long in coming... 

The Plan:

In preparation for reading the first story to my son in Farsi, I set out to collect the vocabulary words listed on the Dictionary Page for Going to Sleep on the Farm by meeting with my "Vocabulary Guru" - my husband.  We sat down for about 15 minutes total and covered vocabulary for two books.  A good start - I proved that the prep does not take much time at all!  

The Challenge:

As we got started discussing vocabulary, we realized anew that language is multifaceted.  My wonderfully patient husband was happy to translate the individual words I asked for, but we quickly got lost in the beautiful variety of the language.  Nouns were the easy part.   They were fairly straightforward: cow, horse, pig...  Verbs, on the other hand were a challenge because of the nuanced meanings of different synonyms.  For example, the difference between "say" and "speak"....  In English, I had not given too much thought to the distinctions between the two words, and as I inadvertently used them interchangeably, I was expecting the same translation for both words.  However, my husband naturally translated each word according to its appropriate usage in Farsi, which confused me, as in my beginning stage of Farsi learning, it was too many words to absorb at once.   

The Pivot:

As the challenge dawned on us, I realized that because communication does not utilize vocabulary in a vacuum, vocabulary learning - specifically verbs - must be learned within a simple sentence structure.  The Dictionary Page layout will lend itself to sentence manipulation through substitution of different nouns, verbs, etc., but this is only effective within the framework and structure of the language.  This must be planned and explicit or the speaker will sound stilted and awkward in the target language.   

Once I changed tacks and asked my husband how to say specific sentences, our progress continued more constructively.  He helped me piece together simple question/answer sentences as a starting point, and showed me where to substitute a different noun or question word within the basic structure.  These simple sentences will now appear on the Dictionary Page for each subscription package. 

Success:

Armed with simple sentences instead of a list of isolated words, I was able to complete a "first pass" of Going to Sleep on the Farm as a simple pattern story for my son utilizing the pictures in our chosen storybook.  The repetition and practice with substituting different animals and their sounds into the same basic sentence framework helped me familiarize myself with vocabulary, but with Farsi sentence structure and syntax as well ("cow what say").  

The Lesson and New Plan:

I learned a tremendous amount from this first "guru meeting" and "first pass" at the story.  I realize that it's not so easy to call upon isolated words on demand - even if you are a native speaker of the language.  Words in context are much easier to translate.  Easier still... and more useful to my future independent language learning will be to attempt to collect vocabulary in advance of my next guru meeting and use the time to confirm that google translate and/or my instincts for the structure of Farsi grammar are on target.  At least, that's the plan for next meeting.  I'll keep documenting my experiences and updating tips in the subscription package accordingly.