{"id":9648,"date":"2016-10-13T08:21:44","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T15:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=9648"},"modified":"2016-10-13T08:21:44","modified_gmt":"2016-10-13T15:21:44","slug":"akisomere-angajep-ngaturkana-how-to-study-a-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/akisomere-angajep-ngaturkana-how-to-study-a-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Akisomere angajep ngaturkana– How to Study… a Language"},"content":{"rendered":"

Derek Rowntree, a founding member and retired Professor of Educational Development at UK\u2019s Open University\u2014one of the largest universities in England and Europe\u2014presents a \u201crealistic approach\u201d to studying. He suggests that what he offers is not a model, or especially, the<\/em> model for studying, but rather, an opportunity to understand how we learn, how we approach learning, and how we can strengthen our learning.<\/p>\n

How will this book help me be a better learner? (93)\"language<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Before we moved to Kenya, we spent a month learning how to learn a language. We were entering a context that did not have language classrooms or language teachers. Our month-long course gave us the tools we would need to direct our own learning of any language (ie. we practiced our tools learning Vietnamese in order to learn Turkana) (55). In the class, we were reminded of humility\u2014people will<\/em> laugh at your pronunciation, and that\u2019s okay, and the need to approach the language and culture with a learning attitude\u2014we were not going to arrive in Turkana ready to lead the Turkana to Jesus, without knowing how to communicate with them.<\/p>\n

Rowntree suggests that \u201cone\u2019s early days as a student are often full of uncertainties and self-doubt\u201d (5), which was certainly true as we landed in Turkana, unable to speak more than a single greeting, \u201cejoka<\/em>?\u201d (\u2018is it good?\u2019 ie, \u2018hello\u2019). We became, full-time for a year, students of the language and culture of Turkana. I discovered that I had to work hard and take initiative on my own to understand my neighbors. We hired a \u201clanguage helper\u201d a bi-lingual speaker, though we were the ones directing our own learning; he was there to assist us. Many days were spent struggling to pronounce words correctly (I accidently discovered that the words for \u201cold woman\u201d and \u201clantern\u201d are nearly identical, as are \u201csleepy\u201d and \u201chairy\u201d). In the midst of our struggles with the language and the challenges of the culture, we had to consistently remind ourselves of our purpose\u2014\u201cWhy are you studying? What do you hope to get out of it?\u201d (9). We were learning the language of our neighbors to communicate with them, to walk together in understanding the way of Jesus. The vocabulary and grammar were more frustrating for me than for Kip, but I captured the pronunciation quicker. We met often with our language helper, crafting conversations, recording and listening to him speaking, practicing stories. We started out with simple words, greetings and phrases, but throughout our year\u2019s learning, progressed to the level of preaching, teaching, understanding, and even appreciating the nuances of humor. But it was a lot of hard work, discipline, and drive.<\/p>\n

I share this minute window into the beginning of our time in Kenya with you, reader, as a way to suggest that learning is something that\u2019s not simply contained in a classroom, and most likely for all of us in this doctoral program, has been a continual part of the practices of our lives. My attempt here is to \u201cbe able to relate what I\u2019ve been studying [in this book, in this program] to my own life so that I see a different significance in things\u201d, that is, approaching learning as understanding and application (19). While I believe Rowntree\u2019s purpose in this book is meant primarily for classroom learning, it seems to me that his approaches can be applied much more broadly to studying in our life experiences.<\/p>\n

While I am inclined toward a serialist learning style (25) rather than holist (26), there must be room for both approaches in certain contexts. It was easy for me, when working with my language helper on the vocabulary for a Bible study on Luke, to focus on the details, the step by step understanding of the text in Turkana (arai ayong akasuban a etich a Akuj\u2014<\/em>\u201cI am the Lord\u2019s servant\u201d). And I missed the bigger picture of my learning\u2014 in this case, how to ask questions of the study participants and comprehend their responses.<\/p>\n

From Rowntree\u2019s alternate learning styles, I gravitate much more towards the activist and pragmatist styles, preferring relevancy, teamwork, and role models to emulate over the theoretical, reflective styles. Studying the Turkana language was an ideal environment for my preferred styles, whereas reflecting on theories and concepts are much more challenging.<\/p>\n

Departing from my Turkana experience and landing back here with you, fellow cohort peeps and adviser, I confess this was the most difficult reflection to date for me to write, primarily because the content of the book focused on me<\/em>, as reader and student. Rowntree\u2019s method of asking direct questions of the reader, on our purposes, styles, and preferences forces me to confront, not only my own approaches to studying, but my own habits<\/em> of studying. At this point in each of our lives, we\u2019ve had many years to perfect our habits of organizing, reading, and studying\u2014sometimes sloppily. However, hopefully, we\u2019ve also had years of disciplined studying, inherently following Rowntree\u2019s suggested approach of SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recall, Review) (83). By the conclusion of the text, I felt confirmed with my study strategies, and appreciated his delineation of various approaches to studying\u2014for instance, understanding that my concentration preference is to study and write for short intense periods with frequent breaks was not \u201cwrong\u201d (74).<\/p>\n

akisomere lokojokon tokona kotere ngakiro keng<\/em>\u2014I will be able to study better now because of this man\u2019s words<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Derek Rowntree, a founding member and retired Professor of Educational Development at UK\u2019s Open University\u2014one of the largest universities in England and Europe\u2014presents a \u201crealistic approach\u201d to studying. He suggests that what he offers is not a model, or especially, the model for studying, but rather, an opportunity to understand how we learn, how we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[918,919,913,920],"class_list":["post-9648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-kenya","tag-language","tag-rowntree","tag-turkana","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}