colors, numbers, and animals

[Bryan James Gordon]

There's a consensus among linguists that lists of colors, numbers and
animals are a bad way to teach a language. Although I am part of this
consensus, I don't think it's colorness, numberness or animalness that's
the problem, and I doubt we're going to find anything insidious in digging
up the genealogy of this practice. Some potential sources that spring to my
mind:

   - skilled preschool and K teachers who have been trained that these are
   the things children should learn (albeit in their first language)
   - (in the case of color and number) the fact that Native names for
   colors and numbers often teach culturally important things and destabilise
   the apparent naturalness of the English color and number systems
   - (in the case of animals) obviously, animals themselves (not just as a
   semantic system) are very important in many Native cultures!

It's listness that's the problem. Working at AILDI I've often had to
discourage folks from using lists of words of any sort when they're
developing their teaching tools. But the best way to do this, in my
experience, is to recognise their value and try to pivot it over to
something else more language-acquisition-appropriate that benefits from the
same value. If a teacher is fascinated by the fact that her language has a
base-4 system, I encourage her to identify a traditional practice that
involves counting on 4 fingers (or whatever is the physical base) and to
use that practice instead of a list for her microteaching. If a teacher
really wants to teach animal names, I encourage him to teach them in
complete sentences, and also teach hyper- and hyponyms that include those
animals, and to include some of the flora that those animals interact with
regularly - or anything culturally important about the animal that goes
beyond just naming it!

Teaching lists of colors, numbers and animals is a well-established
practice in many Native language programs. This has had obvious negative
consequences in terms of the ratio between effort and money input and
acquisition output. But I worry that, by identifying this practice as a
problem instead of as a potential source of utility, we are furthering the
alienation between linguists and community members. My two cents.

Bryan James Gordon


2014-08-07 8:01 GMT-07:00 Wayne Leman <wleman1949b at gmail.com>:

>   A number of methods are used for teaching indigenous languages. One
> that seems commonly used for teaching Native American languages in the U.S.
> is a focus on memorization of colors, numbers, and names of animals.
>
> Does anyone know where this approach to language teaching originated?
> Might it reflect how the teachers themselves were taught English in
> boarding or reservation schools? Might it reflect perceived requirements on
> the part of school, state, or federal administrators?
>
> Do any of you know of any programs where there has been a shift from
> memorization of word lists toward creating conversational fluency in the
> indigenous language?
>
>
> Wayne
> -----
> http://www.cheyennelanguage.org/
>



-- 
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Bryan James Gordon, MA
Joint PhD Program in Linguistics and Anthropology
University of Arizona
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