This week L led our discussion about two readings. The first was really old article about the so-called "linguist-informant" method for learning LCTLs whereby a small group of students would meet with both a linguist and a native speaker informant. The second was the materials that the NASILP program gives you access to if you pay to join their organization, materials designed for self-instructing learners who are working with tapes and a native speaker. L did a good job noting the similarities between the two methods in their focus on working with a native speaker but not treating them as a teacher.
I was pleased to learn that L had gained something from these readings that she is putting into immediate practice with the tutor in Uganda she is working with over skype, shifting from having him in a teacher role to more of a conversation partner. She initially planned to also have him "drill" her on pronunciation but she seemed receptive to my suggestions about other ways of using their time together to practice rather than drill.
The other students shared some minor successes and pitfalls. E shared the difficulty of reading and having to look up lots of words that end up not being useful. This is probably because she chose the text herself, at random, rather than having one assigned by a teacher who would chose one at an appropriate level of difficulty and/or of choosing one on a topic she might have more vocabulary about already. N shared the challenge of knowing what grammar to focus on when she's only been in communicatively-focused classrooms in the past and never learned the grammatical terms for what she is learning. None of the learners seemed too phased by these struggles -- they all seem determined and working hard.
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