Language Awareness Lesson

What are we missing?

LANGUAGE!!!

Are you familiar with the story of the Magical Gold Fish? The one who grants the poor old fisherman his three wishes?

I am going to offer you an alternative version of the story with quite a different ending.

As you watch the video think of two questions:

1) Which skill is the fisherman in the story missing?

2) How would the fisherman's and his wife's and children's lives be different if they were less ignorant?

No Fishing from ELIA artschools on Vimeo.

Language is a system of communication.

Communication is connection.

Communication can be VERBAL or NON-VERBAL

Verbal communication deals with words or symbols that are used to represent words.

Non -Verbal communication deals with body language, gestures, and appearance.

Both verbal and nonverbal communication can be subdivided into either vocal or nonvocal.

                                      Communication

                                                                                                      

Verbal 
Vocal

                                                                                              

Verbal
Non-Vocal

                                                                   
                                                                                                 

                                                                      
                                                                  

                             

                                                                                 

Non-Verbal
Vocal

Non-Verbal
Non- Vocal 

 Now that you know a little bit about both verbal and non-verbal communication, let's watch a video that would illustrate the use of both verbal and non-verbal communication.

Taking place in a time no longer remembered, the film tells the tale of a dramatic meeting between two men from neighboring tribes.

A diminutive man frantically endeavors to warn a large and mysterious stranger of a seemingly immediate and terrifying threat. Unfortunately, the two men come from different cultures and do not share a common language - their interaction quickly becomes confused and frustrated.

As you watch this video, think of :

1)Are the two men communicating verbally or non-verbally?

2)What is the small man trying to tell the large man?

3)What would make their communication more successful?

After we finish watching the video discuss these questions in your small groups and report out.

Your answers will be rated by our judges: 1-3

3 - Outstanding (All questions are answered. Reasons to back up your thinking are provided and make sense.

Details and examples are strikingly interesting.)

2 - Good (Most questions are answered. Reasons that back up your thinking are provided and almost make sense.

Details and examples are provided.)

1- O.K. (Questions are answered without reasoning, examples, or details)







THE TALL & SHORT OF IT // Languages Through Lenses 2012 from ELIA on Vimeo.








Non-verbal, non-vocal communication can be referred to as PARALANGUAGE.
It is the language of gestures, facial expressions, and movement.

Some estimates are that so-called body language accounts for 65, 70, even 90 percent of human communication.

Both non-verbal and verbal communication are culture bound.



                               Anger

Smiling

Hand gestures

 

Eye Contact

Social Body Contact

High - Moderate - Low Contact Cultures

Vocalics

Dress

Now that you know a little bit more about non-verbal communication, let's watch a video that would illustrate its shortcomings.
Have you ever heard of "Gulliver's Travels?"

As you watch this video, think of :

1) Which means of non-verbal communication is Gulliver using? Gesture, sign, facial expression?

2)Why does Gulliver end up in Lilliputians' Zoo?

3)What could have made a difference in his fate?

After we finish watching the video discuss these questions in your small groups and report out.

Your answers will be rated by our judges: 1-3









3 - Outstanding (All questions are answered. Reasons to back up your thinking are provided and make sense.
Details and examples are strikingly interesting.)

2 - Good (Most questions are answered. Reasons that back up your thinking are provided and almost make sense.
Details and examples are provided.)

1- O.K. (Questions are answered without reasoning, examples, and details)

GULLIVER // Languages Through Lenses 2012 from ELIA on Vimeo.








As you just saw Non-Verbal communication may be quite tricky. This is where most of us prefer to rely on verbal communication instead. We rely on language. But which one?

Have you heard of the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?

I am going to offer you an alternative version of the story with quite a different ending.

When the seven dwarfs come home after a long day of work they find Snow White in their bed. Surprised and suspicious, they ask Snow White what exactly she is doing in their house but she replies in a language they do not understand. Luckily, all seven dwarfs know one other language. Despite their multilingual efforts to communicate with Snow White her unknown dialect leaves the dwarfs only one option...

SNOW WHITE // Languages Through Lenses 2012 from ELIA on Vimeo.

Obviously, Snow White is not much of a linguist...

The science that studies languages is called LINGUISTICS.

Professionals who work in the field of LINGUISTICS are called Linguists. 

Note that all the words above have the same "root" - "LINGUA" . It is a Latin root that means "tongue, language".

A person who knows only 1 language is called 
MONOLINGUAL.

A person who speaks 2 languages, is called BILINGUAL.

A person who speaks 3 languages is called TRILINGUAL.

Now by analogy, help me to define a person who speaks many languages.

1 Syllable Word - MONOSYLLABIC word (math)
Many Syllables Word - MULTISYLLABIC  (mathematics)

1 Language - MONOLINGUAL
Many Languages - 
Many Cultures -

Next, we are going to watch a video about a BILINGUAL CAT.

As you watch this video, think of :

1) Which 2 languages does the cat speak?

2)In which 2 ways does the cat use his knowledge of 2 languages? 

After we finish watching the video discuss these questions in your small groups and report out in writing.

Your answers will be rated by our judges: 1-3

THE IMPORTANCE OF SPEAKING TWO LANGUAGES // Languages Through Lenses 2011 from ELIA on Vimeo.














The Cat in the Video spoke CAT and DOG languages. People, however are a lot more sophisticated than that. As of right now, there are about 6000 languages spoken in the world.

           Which languages are you aware of?
               Competition between teams.

Round 1.
Rules:
1) A representative from each team pulls a number out of a hat to determine the order in which teams name the languages they know.

2)Teams brainstorm lists of languages they are aware of.

3) Team 1 names a language, team 2 names a language, team 3 names a language, team 4 names a language, team 5 names a language, team 6 names a language, and then team 1names a language, team 2 names a language, team 3 names a language, team 4 names a language, team 5 names a language... until teams run out of their knowledge of languages! By the way, once a language has been named, it cannot be repeated. The last team to name a language wins and gets 3 additional points!

You have 2 minutes to brainstorm within your teams to compile a list of languages to draw from when it is your time to answer.

If I were you I would keep the discussion within teams as QUIET as possible so that other teams do not steal your ideas!

And if some teams choose not to be discreet and name their languages using loud voices, I would by all means STEAL their ideas!

Now let's see if you can figure out where certain languages are spoken.

Each team gets a list of countries and a list of languages.

Your task is to match languages to countries that they are spoken in.

You have 2 minutes.

Go!

For our next exercise, we will pretend that we are traveling around the world along with the heroes of the two short films "Missing the Train" and "One Day of the Tourist".

Compare the 2 videos and think of :

1) Which problems do our travelers face?

2)Which of the travelers is in the most advantageous position and why? 

After we finish watching the video discuss these questions in your small groups and report out .

MISSING THE TRAIN // Languages Through Lenses 2011 from ELIA on Vimeo.

ONE DAY OF THE TOURIST // Languages Through Lenses 2011 from ELIA on Vimeo.











Last but not least, I 'd  like you to watch the video "The Forest Babel".

In ‘The Forest of Babel’ we see a fantasy of three children each speaking their own tongue, but nevertheless understanding each other perfectly. The movie is set in a forest in Finnish Lapland. Rauna-Aletta is a young Sami girl who needs help to lift a fallen tree. She enlists the help of Erdem and Ibai, two boys who speak only Kurdish and Basque. None of them share a common language, but miraculously they still understand each other perfectly. How this is possible remains a mystery. Through speaking and listening the children manage to work together, tie a rope around the tree, and release the reindeer that was trapped under it. 


 
The Forest of Babel // Languages Through Lenses 2010 from ELIA on Vimeo.



                   Learn Languages! Save Lives!

Nelson Mandela, the Nobel Peace Prize Winner (1993) and the President of South Africa (1994-1999), once said:

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.

I, a 6^th grader at Wiscasset Middle School school (2013) say:

We should learn different languages because…………………………………………..