Rediscovering My Love Of Languages At Women In Language 2021
Simple Story Prompts
All About Women In Language
Having just celebrated International Women’s Day, it reminds me just how far we are from gender equality, and therefore the absolute necessity to raise up and actively support women in all industries and in all locations. Maybe that’s why the Women In Language conference appealed to me, as they specifically champion and amplify female, trans and non-binary voices in language. 35 speakers talking on a broad range of language topics sounded appealing. Also, my language teacher friend Kate from Conversations with Kate had been to all of the sessions across all of the years (I believe they started in 2018) and was a huge fan, so I was curious to experience it myself. Not to mention that she also invited me to co-present a session with her, which I nervously agreed to.
What I Talked About
It turns out that Kate and I have similar missions in terms of our work in English language teaching: to use stories as a tool for personalisation, liberation, as a linguistic challenge, and, of course, fun! So there was a lot of synergy in our joint presentation, not only talking about our over-arching teaching goal to share stories, but also the desire to make connections with people across languages. In this way, by revealing important steps in our language learning and teaching journeys, we were able to directly connect with our audience, which was a wonderful feeling. Indeed, I felt lucky to have a platform to tell our stories!
What I Discovered
Did you know I am language lover? That I have learned a few languages quite well, and couple more quite badly? That in my downtime I secretly plan how I will start learning languages again? It’s all true! But I had almost completely forgotten that part of myself, until now. Being present at WiL was a reminder of the rusty intermediate Mandarin & Spanish, and upper intermediate French I have wish-washing inside my brain, all ready and waiting to be used. I guess it’s being mum to a toddler which has made many of the ‘old’ parts of Karina disappear. But I’m hoping it’s temporary. I hope I can jump back into the language learning saddle once again. And when that does happen - I will be sure to let you know!
My Favourites So Far
So I was planning not to watch the sessions live, seeing as access to the recording for 6 weeks after the event is available. However, at some point I put one on in the background while I was feeding my little one, and I was immediately HOOKED! I’ve pretty much devoured them all. And I look forward to watching the ones I’ve missed, plus my favourite ones again soon!
That said, I thought I would share some of my favourites with you here, including the speakers’ social media links. So if you are interested in their stories, you can check them out yourself.
Books in translation: 30 books to enjoy along your language journey by Elle Charisse. Elle is the creator & producer of the Speaking Tongues Podcast, “the podcast in conversation with multilinguals”. A lifelong New Yorker, language, culture & travel lover, she has studied seven languages to varying degrees and traveled to four continents. She started her podcast in 2020 as a way to connect with other language learners and culture lovers after years of being in awe of her multilingual friends and struggling to become multilingual herself. She discussed novels and short story collections from around the world that have been written in other languages and translated into English. Great for anyone interested in learning about cultures around the world. And great for me, because I now have a small list of short stories I really want to read and that I hope to share with you in the near future!
Three Language Learning Methods That Have Worked For Me by Ambie Gonzalez. Ambie is an American linguist who speaks a total of 5 languages. Ambie is a part time flight attendant, and runs her own language learning business, turning her language learning hobby into a career. Ambie speaks Spanish, Portuguese, English, Korean and Mandarin. She is currently learning German now. In her Spanish/English bi-lingual talk she discussed 3 different language learning techniques that have worked for her: 1) “ interpret to learn” method where you record yourself on a audio recorder and interpret out loud, 2) journaling weekly to search for and learn new vocabulary and 3) getting a job within that target language community. It gave me lots of ideas to apply when I next start learning languages again.
Native Tongues: Language as a Tool of Sustainable Travel by Acacia Woods Chan. Acacia is a language and culture advocate, entrepreneur and business owner. She is multilingual and speaks English, French, Portuguese and Spanish and counting. She is currently growing Ethnic Ties, a travel agency specializing in language and culture preparation for new and repeat travelers. Language is such an important tool for connection globally, yet historically there so many linguistic abuses have taken place, creating inequities around this foundational tool for communication. In this way, her talk highlighted that before we engage in travel or enter into new cultures, we must perform our due diligence to avoid extractive tourism, and maintain conscientious travels. As someone who has had the privilege to travel freely and frequently in the past, ethical and sustainable travel is on my mind, and I gained a lot of insight and good advice that I can apply to future travel.
Of course, there were more favourites…but maybe I will share more with you next time!
Some Questions
What are your language learning stories? Are there any other passions you don’t have time for anymore? Are you planning to return to those passions soon? How? Do you have any language learning resources you want to share with the SYSWC community?
Depending on the response, I can write another blog post about this and share your recommended links!
Image courtesy of Women In Language