10 Feb 10


A wonderful day in the Rockies of learning and stretching. I walked early up in the mountains watching the night sky shade itself into morning with streaks of purple slewing into pink over Mt Hermon. It was good to savour the beginnings of a new day.

Much of the work day was spent shaping my mouth and mind around non-English sounds that slither, growl, hiss, and slide out the side of my mouth--feeling silly and embarrassed that my small group neighbor just got a special spit shower … . I’ve never examined the inside of my mouth with a small mirror so much in my life! Did you know your mouth can articulate over 1 million different vowels? That last bit was free of charge.

Later, this evening, after sitting round a dinner table with “20-somethings”, all single. It was a good time of blessing them with a little caring from “mom and pop” taking the time to listen, bless, encourage. Felt our age, and it felt good. Reminds me of Longfellow’s quartet:

For age is an opportunity no less

Than youth itself though in another dress,

And as the evening twilight fades away

The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

He's got the Whole World of Languages in His hands

Bethyl and I are just beginning our new Program In Language Acquisition Techniques (PILAT) started this afternoon. A good group of about 27 adults and 17 children. We’ll learn phonetics and pronunciation for sounds outside of the normal 44 sounds we comfortably make in the English language (the “44 box”). Think, listen, speak, and read--outside the box. Lots of homework. Drills. This isn’t a “touchy-feely” enterprise like SPLICE. It’s linguistically oriented, not relationally. The student is in charge of pulling the new language rope into the self; the teacher can’t push the rope up the tree to you. You outsource the learning assistant role to the teacher; you keep ownership of the learning. The group is helpful around you—big and small break-out drill group—but the skill set being learned is about words not people.  tough stuff.

9 Feb 10

Second day of learning here. I’m struggling to get my mouth, tongue, voice box, lips and brain to re-tool in order to learn non-English sounds. I’m learning new phonetic words like: glottal stops, fricatives, explosives, articulated and non-articulated vowels, and so on.

It’s been explained that there are two ways to learn a new language: hard and harder. This is designed to help you learn a new language in the hard way.

PILAT gives you a linguistic platform--above where you are--to jump to another language from your own language. The program focuses on listening a lot first before you speak, then using your whole body to move while you see, speak, point, and in the process make a lot of mistakes.

They say that you have to make a million mistakes to learn a new language so you might as well get some out of the way now. Murder the language before you master it! It’s good and humbling. Thank you, Lord, for this two week chance to be humbled and be educated, both, at the same time.

While Vance is correct about the style, technique and goals of our present learning situation, for me the academic, hard push is pushing me around the block of my own insecurities.  Strange as it may seem, given my academic qualifications, learning and taking in new information isn't easy.  I've been reminded of old learnings such as Mom's old comments "you can't learn that, I didn't" or the fear of passing Jonathan up and that means "leaving him behind."  Not something I ever want to do.  So, I've found mysef leaning into HIS Chest for acquisition of His Goodness, Wisdom, and Power.  I'd love your prayers for me about this.  Thank you.  Bethyl Joy