Limits Turned into Opportunity
Something extremely poignant happened yesterday in the classroom. My students asked me a question about what to call citizens who move from city to city. I said, "movers?" They laughed and asked me again what you call people who emigrated out of their city.
And I had no English word for them.
In Vietnam, when locals want to move to another city, they have to apply for citizenship. if the do not, they can't take advantage of the "public" school system, own a house, or any other number of things. I had to explain to my students that when you move around in the U.S., or England or Australia, for that matter, (I think?) you're still considered a citizen of that country, not just the city you live. I told them about property taxes and gave them in-depth descriptions about how our taxes were what allowed us to use the public facilities of that state and city.
The most similar situation we have to this is when university students have to live in a state for a year before they don't have to pay out-of-state tuition.
They were using the word immigrant, but I told them "immigrant" has to do with going to a different country, not just the city. It was so fascinating to come across a situation where English just didn't have the words, not because it left it out, but because we hadn't needed a word like that.
So my shining teaching moment? I told them to make up their own English word for it. After all, Western countries didn't have that distinction, it seemed to be solely Vietnamese (or maybe communist?), so I told them they were perfectly in their rights to come up with a word for it. To their confused searching eyes, I told them we do it all the time. How else did we get so many nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, etc.?
Here was a chance for my students to become interactive with a language so many struggled with, but few really understood. A dialect that is confusing because it is so different from their own cultural language. They not only have new vocabulary words, but they also have to enter a new way of thinking - changing word forms instead of just adding a word, using tenses, trying to understand this new concept of subjectivity and time constraints (in Vietnamese, when they say something, it's is very concrete, thereby making it complicated to explain all the qualifiers and nuances we use). It was a chance for them to own a piece of this international communication tool, an opportunity to say, "Oh, that word comes from Vietnamese."
What a crazy thing, language is.
And I had no English word for them.
In Vietnam, when locals want to move to another city, they have to apply for citizenship. if the do not, they can't take advantage of the "public" school system, own a house, or any other number of things. I had to explain to my students that when you move around in the U.S., or England or Australia, for that matter, (I think?) you're still considered a citizen of that country, not just the city you live. I told them about property taxes and gave them in-depth descriptions about how our taxes were what allowed us to use the public facilities of that state and city.
The most similar situation we have to this is when university students have to live in a state for a year before they don't have to pay out-of-state tuition.
They were using the word immigrant, but I told them "immigrant" has to do with going to a different country, not just the city. It was so fascinating to come across a situation where English just didn't have the words, not because it left it out, but because we hadn't needed a word like that.
So my shining teaching moment? I told them to make up their own English word for it. After all, Western countries didn't have that distinction, it seemed to be solely Vietnamese (or maybe communist?), so I told them they were perfectly in their rights to come up with a word for it. To their confused searching eyes, I told them we do it all the time. How else did we get so many nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, etc.?
Here was a chance for my students to become interactive with a language so many struggled with, but few really understood. A dialect that is confusing because it is so different from their own cultural language. They not only have new vocabulary words, but they also have to enter a new way of thinking - changing word forms instead of just adding a word, using tenses, trying to understand this new concept of subjectivity and time constraints (in Vietnamese, when they say something, it's is very concrete, thereby making it complicated to explain all the qualifiers and nuances we use). It was a chance for them to own a piece of this international communication tool, an opportunity to say, "Oh, that word comes from Vietnamese."
What a crazy thing, language is.
posted by Vivi at 10:44 PM
3 Comments:
you stated: in Vietnamese when they said something it is very concrete..... that is the impression that you have as a foreigner speaking Vietnamese. The true VN speakers can rearrange the way a certain word comes first or next, and change the whole meaning in context.
You can´t pick up nuences until you are proficient with a language. I am struggling with same issue in Spanish.
yes, cau Phu will call me out to say that I am being anal. I am not trying to correct, only to exchange.
i'm curious as to what was the vietnamese word they use for "immigrant".
interesting how a little slacking off on facebook led to a good snippet :)
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