Social Training Time

Just like my fancy Philips UV-C box, sometimes, the biggest leg-ups to our language learning come from unlikely sources. So it is with community volunteering as a kind of social training, which, as a shy linguist, is something I try to throw myself into – sometimes against my kicking-and-screaming inner child – at every available opportunity.

This week, I had another opportunity for just that. In April, Brum is hosting the Union Cup, an exciting, international and inclusive sporting event that has been a couple of years in the waiting after Covid disruption. After last year’s Commonwealth adventures, it was a no-brainer to volunteer. A chance to showcase the city, support communities and get some valuable exposure therapy when it comes to interacting with lots of people. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that there’ll be speakers of lots of other languages around too.

It’s all an antidote to a very specific language learning problem I’ve experienced. It’s that reluctance to step forward and speak in a situation where I can use my languages. I’ve felt it at home and in my target language countries. It’s a complex beast, with several components: fear of making mistakes, looking silly, feeling a nuisance or a bother, and such like. Most of us feel these things from time to time, but there’s nothing like a foreign language to up those stakes!

Targeted Therapy

But the social training that volunteering offers is almost perfectly suited to target all this. For one thing, in many roles, you’re almost constantly dealing with people face-to-face. And you never know what to expect. Sometimes you’ll get the whole spectrum of moods – good and bad – in the course of a morning. Someone might ask a question you have no clue about. Something might happen that requires you to think on your feet.

In short, it’s a social training that focuses on coping with the unpredictable. And if there’s anything that typifies using language in the wild, it’s unpredictability. What else, for something as varying as its human hosts?

So, into the fray we step for our social training. And even for shrinking violets like me, people work can get addictive. I now count amongst my friends serial volunteers who go for everything that comes along. Of course, it doesn’t have to be volunteering. I have a polyglot friend who is getting lots of people exposure from bar work, which he unexpectedly loves, and is thriving on.

On that note, fellow shy polyglots – and even those not-so-shy ones who want to keep their oar in – volunteer! It’ll be so good for you – and your community, too.

Sport and languages - the Sandwell swimming venue for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games

Languages and Sport : Cast the Net Wide!

It’s not all about the languages. Sometimes, something else comes along to catch my attention, and this last ten days, it’s been sport. The Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games have transformed my home city in a bustling hub of joy. And, as ever, there’s a way to bend it back to languages. Bear with me…

After a stint as a volunteer performer in the Opening Ceremony, I was lucky enough to have a games pass to attend the sports. Now, as someone who was rubbish at PE at school, I didn’t know where to start. Since those difficult childhood years, I’ve made up for it a little bit. I gym now and again. And of course, I do the obligatory big of flag-waving sport, when there’s a big international tournament on. Surprise, surprise – anything with flags gets the Eurovision fan in me going.

But beyond that, I haven’t a clue.

So, to make the most of my sporty fumblings in the dark, the approach I adopted was a bit of everything. The aim? To cast the net wide, and see what I liked. And I liked a lot… 3×3 Basketball, Beach Volleyball, Hockey, Powerlifting… it turns out that there’s a lot more to sport than school football and cross-country running!

The thing with ‘sport dipping’ is that it’s a lot like my approach to languages: exploration and dabbling. Like watching lots of new sport, you might call language dabbling a spectator-driven approach. You take in bits and pieces here and there to build up a very broad picture of what’s out there. After that, you can choose to go big and become a superfan of one or two, if the fancy grabs you.

In any case, I’ve come out of this week feeling vindicated in that approach to new things, whether sport or languages. My language brain is impatient for some attention, having been in maintenance mode during the Summer madness. But it can take it now and again.

It’s a good sport, after all.

Languages and sport : Beach volleyball at the Smithfield site for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games

Beach volleyball at the Smithfield site for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games : Birmingham and Rwanda gearing up for the bronze medal match on Sunday 7th August

Sport and Languages : Adam Peaty in the line-up for the 100m men's breaststroke at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games

Adam Peaty in the line-up for England in the 100m men’s breaststroke

3x3 Basketball at the Smithfield site for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games

Sri Lanka and Australia battle it out in the 3×3 Basketball at the Smithfield site

football

Football: beautiful game, beautiful way to learn languages?

As an Englishman (despite being based in Scotland), I must admit to getting a wee bit excited over the past couple of weeks. And I think I can be forgiven. It’s not incredibly often that the World Cup goes our way. You see, it’s not always about Eurovision with me – football gets a look-in, too.

It was a long time coming for me, this love of football. As a sports-shy teen, I was more interested in books than boots. But there’s something wonderfully enticing about international sports competitions – something that plays right into the hands of language lovers. Pelé’s jogo bonito (beautiful game) can be a beautiful way to switch on to languages, not least in the role model department.

Multilingual football players

Football players often get a bad rap for being overblown idols. We all know the stereotype of the precious, overpaid divas (perhaps fairly earned by a few!). But look a little closer, and there are some remarkable people hiding behind the headline-hoggers. Some of them make perfect polyglot pinups.

As a prime example, Belgium’s Romelu Lukaku is a standout. With six languages – or more, if you count the fact that he is currently learning German – he earns the badge of hyperglot football star, let alone polyglot. Truly a world citizen. And Lukaku has more than that to celebrate right now, with Belgium making the final four for the football trophy this week (allez les diables!).

Breaking the stereotype

On the other hand, Brits have a pretty poor record when it comes to language learning. For whatever reason, it’s a reality language teachers are working hard to change in British schools. But with international signings going both ways, some British players, like Gary Lineker, have managed to overcome this national stereotype in the past. Modern football is anything but an exclusively anglophone field (pitch?). The message to sports-mad kids is clear: love football? Then embrace language as an integral part of that!

For an inspirational line-up, there is a handy YouTube video profiling polyglot players with four or more languages (with rather more recent examples than Gary Lineker!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8tVB8j6Psw

Multilingual football teams

It’s also notable how multilingual teams are the norm these days. Players drafted from all over the world must learn to communicate with each other from day one.  Just look at Tottenham Hotpur: its current squad includes speakers of Dutch, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Swahili.

And it’s not always the case that English rules all as lingua franca. International sports sites must cater for all areas of the world, and English is not spoken by everybody. The FIFA site reflects this nicely in its language options, with material in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Russian and Spanish. The multilingual nature of sites like this make for excellent target language resources.

Football news

Similarly, it goes without saying that the World Cup is a fantastic time to access foreign language content about national teams in particular. And if you get into the football, you benefit from that boost to learning that is personal interest. Learners are much more likely to stick with texts that contain exciting, valuable info, rather than those with little relevance to their lives.

Most media outlets will have dedicated World Cup mini-sites, like this section from French newspaper Le Monde. ‘Unofficial’ news sources such as this YouTube channel on football in Spanish can also be great stretch goals for comprehension.

So, football can be a wonderful way in to the world of language learning, whether you need resources, or just some new, inspirational role models. Could it be what you, your language buddies and colleagues, your kids or your students need to spark the passion? With a week of the World Cup to go, milk the multilingual excitement for all it offers!

Finally, best of luck to Belgium, Croatia, England and France next week… With perhaps an understandable, healthy and sportsmanlike bias towards England on the part of this proud, international linguist!

The Commonwealth Games offer local linguists some amazing opportunities.

Commonwealth Games 2022 : Birmingham’s Local Language Boost

In December, you might have noticed the fanfare around my hometown, Birmingham, winning the chance to host the Commonwealth Games in 2022. The decision has generated a lot of local pride. No wonder, as all four corners of the world will grace Brum for the two-week event. But as well as a wonderful opportunity for local commerce, the event represents concrete opportunities for linguists.

Languages of the Commonwealth Games

The last UK hosting was the hugely successful Glasgow games of 2014. For that event, Capita Translation and Interpreting produced a really useful infographic to illustrate the languages spoken in competing Commonwealth lands. Due to the origins of the Commonwealth, English dominates.

However, quite a few ‘mainstream’ foreign languages make the list, too. In 2022, locals have the chance to hear French, Portuguese and Spanish on the streets of Birmingham. And with both volunteering and commercial job boosts going hand-in-hand with hosting the games, speaking one of them might well be a route to opportunities for local learners.

Ready-made motivation for the classroom

For local language teachers, the chance for games tie-ins are unmissable. What better motivator can there be for languages than the chance to use them practically on the street?

What’s more, international games also offer rich pickings for fun lesson topics. Much like the Eurovision Song Contest, they are great for topics like countries, numbers, like/dislike phrases, descriptions and more.

I’ve used an Excel spreadsheet to create sweepstake-style cards to play classroom games with country names, for example. You can easily spool cards from Excel in a mail merge. Here is a sample list I have used (in CSV format). Although this one is based on the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest final, it is useful for other events, and – of course – extendable!

Beyond Birmingham

There are plenty of events to work into your learning or teaching beyond Birmingham, of course. While local pride make Brum a special highlight for me, forthcoming extravaganzas include:

  • 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang (the official site is available in Chinese, French, Korean and Japanese)
  • 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia (the official site is a bit of a goldmine for linguists, with French, German, Spanish, Arabic and Russian versions!)
  • UEFA Euro 2020
  • 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo (the official site is also in French as well as English and Japanese)

Plenty of resources for languages-sport crossovers there – have fun mining them!