John's Trials and Tribulations Learning Amharic

John’s Trials and Tribulations Learning Amharic

DAY ONE….
Well, I broke down and bought a book/CD set called colloquial Amharic – The Complete Course for Beginners. It was wickedly expensive - $85! – but it’s seems to be the only available Amharic language course around.
This is BEGINNING Amharic? In the first couple of pages, they have covered THE ENTIRE WRITING SYSTEM, AND my, your, his, her – possessive phrases. ( In my beginning ESOL 1 text book, possessives don’t come until Unit 4! ) Wow. I have a lot to learn…

Anyway, the book starts into the writing system. It’s called the “fidel”. It’s a really complex writing system – a syllabary. It’s similar to Japanese – it’s not an alphabet as such, but rather each symbol represents a syllable. There are 276 shapes to learn! It is frustrating – I can’t even tell if the shapes are right side up, or upside down! The system is divided into orders of ä, u, i, a, ï, and o.

Amharic is like Japanese - it has it’s own set of symbols for numbers as well. Interesting!...

ENTRY TWO:
The history of Amharic in the book is fascinating. Amharic is spoken by 17.5 million people and is understood throughout the country of Ethiopia. Despite it’s long history, it has only been the written language of Ethiopia since the second half of the 19th century. It is a Semitic language, in the same family as Arabic and Hebrew…

ENTRY THREE:
…I am going over the book. The sounds in Amharic are quite different than in English, like Mongolian, so I can handle this. Amharic has “golottalized” consonants, kind of like what we have in English in BOTTLE and BUTTON.
… I’m really not liking this book! They stop writing out the English pronunciation with the readings by Unit 6! (There are 14 Units in the book.) I guess by Unit 6, you should be able to read things fluently! AND NO PICTURES!
Speaking and listening are so much easier for me! I think I should focus more on conversational Amharic, rather than reading and writing. This book doesn’t even have pictures!
I think I will put an advertisement on Craigslist for a private Amharic tutor. I would really like private lessons, maybe once a week…

ENTRY FOUR:
I was digging around and found an old National Geographic with an featured article about Ethiopia. This is great! I really want to learn more about the culture – about the food, the houses, the people – as well as the language. There is this old church in the article, in the town of Gondor, hewn entirely out of rock…

I am going to be downtown next week. I should stop by the TEMPO bookstore. They specialize in all different kinds of foreign language books. They have a ton of great stuff – dictionaries in Mongolian, language tapes in Slovak.. Maybe they have an easier “Spoken Amahric” language series available

ENTRY FIVE:
Well, I just got back from TEMPO. They have some really great stuff for teaching English. All kinds of ESL Resource books. They even have a translator called a “Quictionary” – it’s a pen-like scanner that you can scan any text and it will translate into the foreign language! I could really use that for Japanese, since I have difficulty reading kanji! The problem is that they are very expensive - $200! They don’t have any in stock, anyway. Oh well! Maybe, I will invest in one later.

But back to the Amharic – they ONLY have the one series for learning Amharic. No luck.

Good news! I just checked my email, and I think I found someone who might be interested in giving me private Amharic lessons! This is great! Hopefully, I will be able to actually be learn to communicate in Amharic, learn about the culture, learn some new vocabulary, order food in a restaurant…

TO BE CONTINUED!......

Learning Strategies Diary

Thursday, June 14th -



My learning strategies for creating our research-based expert group presentation are varied and consistent with how I learn most things. First, attacking the research articles was somewhat intimidating considering I still have not taken the quantitative methods course yet. I read the introduction first and then skim the articles and look at the tables. Then, I read the conclusion. Second, I read the whole article again (sometimes out loud) and highlight what I think is important. Afterwards, I summarize what I learned and note what I had questions about.



I think I learn the best by summarizing and asking myself questions. However, many times, during the weekly readings, this step gets skipped due to lack of time.



When I don't understand part of the research, I read it again out loud and slowly. Because the field-based vocabulary is still relatively new to me, it takes me longer to digest. Words such as "attrition" and "coefficient" and "heuristic" aren't part of my working vocabulary, so I have to think about them as I read. I have to refer to my notes or the book.

In order to learn the information to present, we made predictions and summarized from the research articles. We "personalized" the information by trying to relate it to our teaching experiences. It is nice to "cooperate" or work with others because it creates a dialogue out of the information which, in turn, makes you more apt to absorb and understand it.

Friday, June 15th.

I drop Isabella at her daycare. We have established a routine. I have to let her carry her lunchbox and tell her the whole time in the car that we are going to school. When we get there, she has to help me put the food in the refrigerator. I am learning to make a quick exit, but she still cries and reaches out for me, and it is extremely difficult.

My main learning experience right now is trying to be a mother. I am learning how to manage my two year old.

When I take her to daycare, she cries. She is also starting to push other kids and, occasionally me, and say"STOP". She also likes to cry and lay on the floor, fight not to put on her diaper, and she hates to get in her car seat or bath. These are all relatively new behaviors that concern me, so I have been trying to learn how to cope.

First, I know and refer to the background knowledge: She was born in Brazil and lived with only me until she was one and a half when we came here and pluncked her in daycare during the day. She stays with her dad at night.

I can "predict" that most of this behavior is normal "two" behavior. However, some of it could be rebelling from the lack of attention. It could also be "spoiled".

I "observe patterns" to see when she is typically exhibiting these behaviors and why. When she is dropped off or picked up at daycare, when she is hungry or tired, and when she is around other children. Many times, I take "notes" to remember what she is doing and when. I also take notes on what other people say.

"Cooperating" has helped me learn some. I cooperate with her teachers, her father, my mother and her school. We try to figure out what to do together. I learn from my friends who have small children. I try the techniques that they say or I use what they say to rule out certain options.

Finally, I consult books, magazines, and the internet to try to find out what to do. I am reading "Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline," by Becky A. Bailey and "How to talk so your kids will listen" whenever I have time. They suggest using "positive intent" (assuming that they awill do what you ask of them if presented correctly and using lots of options to give them some control of the situation. I was struggling with time-out because that is what I had learned. This book suggests against time out. My mother paddled us, so I chose not to consult my mom on this matter.

When the behavior occurs, I definitely engage in self-talk to calm myself down and to think about the options that i have learned. I have established routines that seem to help and giving her options does as well. Explaining why you do things also seems to make sense to her.

However, I am still having a hard time learning a strategy to deal with the pushing of other kids and ugly faces that she makes at them.

Saturday, June 16th

We went to a barbeque at our friends. Isabella stayed on my lap almost the entire time. However, she did eat which is good, and she wanted to see the cat. I remembered to leave before 7:30 because our routine has her in bed by 8:30 after eating and bath.

Sunday, June 17th

We met with my friends from NY who have a one and a half year old. They have recently had a newborn baby boy. Isabella was extremely curious about this and didn't push or make ugly faces. I made a inference, drew a conclusion and predicted that I will not have any more children based on this breakfast.

Yesterday, June 19th

We went to the grocery store to get food. When Isabella sees things that she wants in the store. I let her pick them up and look at them. We appreciate them together, and I learned to ask her to put them back in their houses. She seems okay with this. As of yet, we have never had a problem with "objects" like this.


In conclusion, I am learning everyday, mostly by trial and error. I do a lot of intuitive work and mental note-taking about what I think works. However, the books do seem to think that there are right and wrong ways of doing things. I always have to consult the doctor to see if she is actually sufficiently cognitively developed to handle something like time out and understand a "consequence" like this.