Learning difficulties and Chinese

This morning I saw a program on adult literacy in the UK which detailed the programs and methods by which people can learn to read and write well. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to try to get around in the world these days without being able to read or write, but I had to admire the courage that these people have in seeking help to overcome this barrier. It was extraordinary to think that some of the people featured on the program were at one time labeled as stupid and retarded because of their learning difficulties. It was like people had just given up hope on them immediately and abandoned them. For some though there was a light at the end of the tunnel and they managed to overcome their difficulties and master the written word. Inspiring stuff. There are many groups and resources available now today to help the adult learner and it is a far cry for the state of affairs that labeled people with learning difficulties as "unhelpable".

A reading group was featured and two members of the group were singled out on the program. They were brought to bookstores and libraries and they were presented with different books. One of the group members, a lady, wanted something that she could read to her grandchildren . The other member, a man near seventy, was extremely difficult to please and was very fussy about what he wanted to read. He said that he often never gets past the second page because he gets bored. It was rather easy for the lady to find something she wanted to read but the other group member took some persuading. He was shown a machine that can scan in the page of any book and read it back to him. After scanning a few pages he was excited enough about what he heard to give the rest of the book a go by himself. It was still a struggle to read an entire book from cover to cover but there was a great feeling of accomplishment when they had done it!

This brought up in my mind once again the importance of the material being used for language study to be relevant to the student and being available in a variety of formats. From the viewpoint of studying Chinese the same ideas ring true. Not only has the material to be interesting in order for the student to stick with it when it becomes more difficult but it should be available in many different forms. Students should be able to see it written, hear it spoken and speak it themselves. What works for one person may not work for another and this is perhaps why schools have such mixed results when it comes to language learning. New technologies and resources should be exploited by schools and in that way new avenues of learning can be opened up to students.

The same issue of how languages are being taught in schools was raised in the blog article Changing how we learn by Ken Carroll on the Praxis Language website. With the British government announcing that they want to ensure that non-European languages are going to be studied in schools, you have go to ask the question: Is it going to make any difference when they are still using outmoded language teaching methodologies?