Just in case I don't have enough things to do this semester, I registered for Japanese classes at my university. I haven't studied one little bit in almost 2 years. I work in an English bubble, shop at Carrefour, come home to my Irish husband, watch LOST and read books in English. Apart from the odd run-in with the dry cleaning lady, when do I need Japanese? I have enough basic Japanese to manage my daily interactions and when I don't, 3 lovely ladies at work help me. So why am I bothering? Guilt mostly. You've heard of computer-assisted language learning (CALL)? Mine is guilt-induced language learning (GILL). I took the quiz that we give our students at the university to see whether they are mainly intrinsically or extrinsically motivated language learners. Both my scores were zero. I need to re-write the quiz with the following items for people like me:
- Do you think it's lame that you haven't learnt any new words in 2 years?
- Are you embarrassed that people who have just arrived in Japan know more kanji than you?
- Are you sick of miming every time you try to speak?
- Do you feel yourself cringe as you have to point at the pictures on the menu in the restaurant?
- Do you realise how pathetic it is to talk to students everyday about their language learning when you aren't applying the strategies to your own learning?
- Do you break out in a sweat when someone asks you for your phone number?
Yes, yes, yes. Full marks. I am starting a course in GILL.
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