Using your intuition to learn a new language through world similarities

A new technique to teaching foreign tongues takes a starting point as word similarities rather than differences, writes Conor Power

After 25 years of pondering the language-learning process — including 10 years living in France — Kinsale-based language coach and author of language-learning courses Conor Cullen has come up with an approach that places the emphasis more on what languages have in common rather than their relative “foreign-ness” to one another.

“Intuitist looks at the conventional thinking in language learning that says French is a foreign language for English speakers,” says Cullen. “Basically, with my approach, we make a very strong argument that English is half-French.

“We’re all told that English is a Germanic language and French is a Latin language and we tend to put them into two different boxes and that creates a disconnect for children and for people who are starting out learning French.”

Many people might be surprised to learn that they already know 5,000 words in French ever before they put their minds to learning anything about the language. All basic small words in English come from its Germanic roots but all bigger words tend to be the same or similar in French.

All English speakers, ”without exception”, have a very strong intuition to learn French, says Cullen; an intuition that is not awakened by our traditional teaching methods and this is an idea that can be followed through most modern European languages, to lesser or greater extent. He also teaches English to French people using the same approach.

Cullen begins by showing people these “bridges” between the two languages (e.g. all words ending in “ion” are the same in both languages and all words ending in “y” are the same in French, except that they end in “é”) and building expression and comprehension around that.

“You’ve got confidence building from the first hour and then you’re bringing in the words that are different because they’re popping up in a coaching situation.

“I’ve been working in language teaching for the last 25 years now and since I’ve been working the Intuitist way, I have almost systematic delight from 99% of the people I teach… They all say, without fail, ‘Why didn’t my teacher tell me any of this in school?’” The courses he has written are available in download-able format online and he also does one-to-one coaching.

“It might sound strange, but the methodology of Intuitist works as well for a first-year student as for someone who’s in sixth year.”

It raises the question on the attitude to language training in Ireland. The vast majority of children in this country don’t begin learning foreign languages until commencing secondary school at around age 13. Should we be introducing foreign languages earlier as they do in most other EU countries? Are our teaching methods faulty and out-dated?

“On the whole, I think that they probably are,” says David Little — retired Professor of Linguistics at TCD. “Where it all comes from is the fallacy that has existed for probably centuries, that you can teach people languages by telling them.

“Across Europe, there’s a widespread tendency to begin learning English earlier and earlier, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that learning outcomes are enhanced.

“It’s too easy to say ‘Well, we’re not really satisfied by where they get to by age 15, but we’ll start earlier and then it’ll work’. If what you’re doing starting at age 12+ is not working and you do the same thing at primary school, then it’s not going to work either.”

It all comes down to motivation and methodology, he says, pointing to the results of First European Survey on Language Competences. The EU study set out to establish how competently languages were being taught around Europe. One of the interesting findings was in the Swedish case.

There, the teaching of the first foreign language (English) was highly successful: they were the best in class. When it came to teaching the second foreign language (Spanish), however, they were bottom of the EU league table. The study found that although there was nothing new in the way that English was taught in Swedish schools, teachers always spoke exclusively in English in class, creating a living dynamic and a motivated need for students to start thinking and communicating in English. Teaching Spanish was almost always taught through Swedish.

Within our schooling system, French is by far and away the dominant foreign language, the number of people who sat Leaving Certificate French last year being roughly four times the number of the second-choice German. French is a natural first choice for a variety of historical and societal reasons, but many believe we should change the emphasis to other languages, such as Spanish or Chinese.

According to Little, that is something that could require about 50 years of strategic planning. Whether or not such an effort would be worth it is another story:

“It’s a nice idea — going around learning Mandarin,” says Cullen, “but If we’re not making a good fist of teaching our kids modern European languages, teaching Asian languages and beyond is going to give us even less result.” Perhaps with the increasing dominance of English, it all feels like a bit too pointless for us English-speakers?

“However powerful English may be as a lingua franca of international communication at all kinds of levels,” says Little, “the Germans are going to go on organising their affairs through German and the French through French and they’ll continue to develop an infinitely large cultural hinterland in those languages. And you can’t get access to that if you only have English.”