My name is Enza and I was fortunate enough to have been born to parents who communicated in Italian, having migrated to Australia a few years before I was born.  At this time in history TVs were a novelty. This meant I went to school only knowing basic vocabulary shared at home and only in Italian. English was learned at 6 years of age – luckily at a time my ear was fine tuned to still be able to hear and authentically duplicate the language I heard.

At age 6, I decided I wanted to be a teacher and to this day I have taught many a subject and still enjoy teaching others though these days I call it facilitating learning as each and every one of us has different learning styles. There are essentially 4 main learning styles but each of us has a unique combination of all, some or only 1-2 of the styles. Identifying your style is crucial to understanding the best way for you to learn, whether it be a language, a life skill or even embracing the best relaxation techniques so that challenges in life charge us forward and fuel our spirit rather than make us feel backed up int a corner.

How many people have you come across that felt like failures at school? The education system seemed to just make things so hard! Having had the pleasure and experience of face to face teaching in schools until 1995 – this inadequacy in the education system was very obvious to me. I spent hours, sometimes days thinking of ways to reach all students and there I began to understand that every learner was unique.

Every language learner also had a unique background where Italian learning was concerned. Some came from Italian background where only dialect was spoken at home and whilst the cultural richness that came with the Italian upbringing (home made wine, lasagne, sausages, salami, tomato sauces and of course the vegie patches and fruit trees in the back year) – no one had explained to these children that there exist 94 main dialect in Italy, which continue to be spoken and some are so different from standard Italian that the best they can share during an Italian lesson is that they have the experience that comes of learning to speak another language – though sadly that language is not Italian and whilst some similarities exist – mastering Italian is a whole new ball game.

Then there are the monolinguals who have only ever heard English, have only ever spoken English and who find it almost impossible to conceive the fact that people can and do think in more than one language – that people can and do dream in more than one language. The fact that they learn to read and write and understand passive/written Italian for them is an accomplishment. The dream of ever joining those who can think and speak in another language seems to be beyond the scope of possibilities which they blame on time passing – it’s too late for me to learn a language like others who can. It’s not for me.

Imagine the buzz of discovering that it is not only possible to learn a language at any age but it’s possible to learn to think in a language within 6 month – 3 months if daily activities are carried out.

These people have spent years thinking that was a dream beyond their reach. They believed – it’s just not for me – I have tried and tried. I have attended course after course – I have even travelled to the country and still – in the end I still cannot speak the language. I have mastered some basic reading and very basic writing skills, I sort of understand some of the language but when I go to open my mouth – I wonder if languages are for me.

As I frustratingly start to think hard and long about what I wish to express, an internal war wages inside of me – I know the words – but there is always a delayed response. The same happens when I hear others communicating in Italian – I hear many words I recognise but it’s spoken to fast for my brain to piece together the words in a coherent fashion – the end result – I give up and just adapt to hearing the odd word. What really makes me mad is that the minute I see it written – I get it! How is it that I have learned the vocabulary so that I can speak and understand spoken Italian yet all those hours, months and years of study translate into just passive understanding of the written language with some light bulb moments of ecstacy the few random times I pick something up!

WHAT if I shared with you that I too have felt your same frustrations. I studied French in High School for 5 years and dedicated hours daily to mastering this language. I was proud of the level in which I could express myself in French (written) & the way I understood magazines and newspapers. Obviously there was still a lot to learn but I had covered the basics.

Imagine the shock when the 1st ever opportunity arose to speak with French people.  For 3 hours I could hear random words I understood but no sentences flashed in my mind – I was utterly lost – I had no idea what they were talking about. What was even more frustrating was that all the French that I had learned seems to be stuck between my ears and wanted to take its time to process being expressed only via the written form!  Even though my mouth lies a little south but still between my ears – it just was not happening for me. I was unable to express what I knew how to write in spoken form.

I found I was thinking in English, then desperately translating in my head, then painstakingly expressing word by word as if a total beginner.

What purpose did it serve to spend all that time studying and learning things off by heart when my passion was to speak with French Speakers and that was something I was unable to do and that I would have to learn to do from scratch.

As languages fuelled my fire within, I spent 6 months attending conversations nights and slowly, very slowly learning to express basics in French. What make things hard was that the French I had mastered was just written French and the spoken language is quite different. Full sentences disappear – the words that express thinking before responding take up space in the communciation – words like …Well … let me think about that … to tell you the truth, I have always wanted to speak French but … obviously … etc etc etc You get the drift – None of these conversation fillers that create mental pause as we think were ever taught during school hours. Idiomatic expressions differed in spoken French and pronunciation was only clear to me if people spoke slowly but hey – that is not real conversation and that only ever identified me as a student learning the language with a long way to go.

Maybe as you are reading this, you may be relating to some of what I shared.

I went to university keen to understand how languages are learned. I undertook the study of applied linguistics,  phonology, phonetics, semantics and  semiotics – none of which are requirements for teachers but I wanted to truly understand how language is mastered like a native. After a year of learning some mere basics … I took a trip overseas and lived with an aunt in Italy to practice my Italian – which being bilingual, I thought I spoke almost like a native.

To my surprise, everyone complimented me on my Italian and said that it was impressive that I could communicate in Italian. What started as compliments soon became clear to me that they were commenting because it was obvious to the native ear that I was speaking Italian like a foreigner, with foreign intonation, foreign expression and some pronunciation errors that revealed that Italian was not my mother tongue. I remember being outraged at the time, especially as I only heard Italian from birth to 6 years of age.

My 2 months in Italy fuelled me with the desire to observe what Italian do, how Italians speak, what facial muscles are sued as they speak, what intonation patterns emerged if I listened long enough and how is it that my expression and intonation and pronunciation differed from theirs?

I come back and undertook courses that specialised in just that, not only in my Italian studies but i my French studies as well. the French Linguists seems to have done a lot of work on this subject and the best literature was written just in French. In my English studies I also undertook the study of language in practice and realised that those who start life speaking a foreign language such as Italian have a tendency to use more verbs than nouns when speaking. Why was this important? I was frustrated that no matter how hard I tried to write an academic essay – credits were the norm. Distinctions and High Distinctions seems out of my reach UNTIL 1 sentence in 1 book triggered a though I decided I would test out. The paragraph explained something that gave me insight into something else. Rather than go into detail using linguistic jargon, I’ll simplify the light bulb that shed light on why I never got a high distinction. To see if what I had observed had any merit, I took an essay I was just about to hand in and spent few hours rewriting it – the content remained the same but I changed the syntax and put into practice what I had believed would make a difference. I handed the essay in and got my very 1st high distinction – in my 3rd year at university and was ecstatic about my discovery which paved the way for more of the same results … Do feel free to ask me to explain just what this was in person – here I will simply share that the study of language was suddenly taking me to new heights.

To be continued …
I will continue this story sharing how I decided to undertake the study of German and to test many a theory …

I will also share what happened when I returned to Italy 2 .5 years later and was asked which part of Italy I came from  – a far cry from sounding like a foreigner.

What’s wonderful is that all this and the 30 years experience in teaching languages has allowed me to make a difference in the lives of those I had the privilege to teach.

And now I am extending an invitation to you – if you wish to learn to think in a language within 6 months -let me help you invest time in the activities that support that … and share the buzz when you succeed …