The GaelMinn Gazette: February 25, 2014 http://ezezine.com
THE GAELMINN GAZETTE (#105): February, 2014
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The GaelMinn Gazette, a monthly e-newsletter from Gaeltacht Minnesota,
carries helpful items for anyone studying the Irish language, anywhere,
as well as news of interest to local and regional students.
Please FORWARD this newsletter to any friends who may want to learn
Irish. And if you received this Gazette from someone else, go to
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To read this newsletter as a web page, go to
www.gaelminn.org/lastgaz.htm .
Content (C) 2014 Gaeltacht Minnesota
CONTENTS
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Tips, Tools, & Tricks
"Should" Is Not Motivation
GaelMinn News & Announcements
NOTE: April 5 Workshop!
Lessons Learned
Don't Handle The Truth
About Gaeltacht Minnesota
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TIPS, TOOLS, & TRICKS
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----------"SHOULD" IS NOT MOTIVATION
How many "shoulds" pop into your head when you think about your study
of Irish? "I should study more often, I should work harder, I should be
farther along", do those pop up? "I should have more vocabulary, I
should understand more, I shouldn't have to look up the same word again
and again," are those on the list?
How do you feel when you get into that kind of internal dialogue? Most
of us feel discouraged and guilty, if anything.
And that is hardly motivating.
Many students think about scheduling and managing their study
activities. They figure out what they are going to do, and when, and
where, and with what.
Yet too few think about managing their motivation. Maybe they assume
that they "shouldn't" have to work at keeping up with their studies,
that "if they are seriously interested," the study activities will
naturally follow.
But life is more complicated than that. Work and family and the common
cold all intervene, and actively reinforcing our interest in the
language, and our willingness to sit down with our materials, is a much
better bet for making real progress than relying on a bunch of
"shoulds".
Here are a few ideas for boosting motivation:
* Awareness: Notice when that "should" conversation starts in your
head. Then try to rephrase those statements as "I would like to" or "I
want to" statements. Focus on your own desire to explore the language,
rather than on some mysterious obligation.
* Know What You Like: Some students really like working with drills,
others are much happier translating, others want to work on songs or
listen to media. Arrange your activities so that your favorites come as
rewards for your less favorite activities. If you prefer the
orderliness of drills and textbook exercises to the challenges of
listening to audio, do the audio first, and take the drills as your
reward.
* Don't Beat Your Head Against A Wall: Pay attention to activities you
are doing because you "should", even if you're not getting much out of
them. For instance, some relative beginners find listening to RnaG
Irish language radio streams motivating, even if they don't understand
very much, because it reminds them of where they are headed, in a
sense. Others are so discouraged by how little they understand that
they fall into despair when listening to radio. If an activity is just
discouraging, put it aside until you are ready for it, regardless of
what other students do.
* Reframe Challenging Items: Another approach to the audio stream is to
redefine the task. For the audio stream, instead of the goal being
understanding, make the goal to recognize simple words in the stream --
tá, sé, bhfuil, inniu, etc. -- and to repeat them out loud when you
hear them. If you say a few words along with the broadcast, you are a
success.
* Social Support: A study buddy or group can help keep you going. Many
people find the value of workshops to be the boost in motivation, as
much as any specific things they learn about the language. And these
days, there are plenty of ways to connect with someone on-line, to have
a study buddy at a distance. (Keep in mind, though, that in workshops
and study groups, you may encounter "toxic friends", as they are
called, people who appear to be helping you but who are actually
discouraging for whatever reason. There is no reason you "should"
continue to work with them any more than you have to.)
* Soak Up Culture: The language is part of a broader culture, and it
may be a cultural element that drew you in in the first place --
heritage, lore, and music are common starting points. Incorporate those
cultural elements into your study sessions now and then, or use them as
rewards for your less favorite activities. It will remind you why you
got into this, and help you keep going.
* Learn from Other Habits: If you manage to exercise regularly, or
perform other tasks on a consistent basis, see why those efforts work.
Then see what you can steal from those goals to apply to your task of
learning Irish. You are already good at continuing to work toward
certain goals, and the same strategies will work for Irish.
Motivation in the face of a challenging task like learning a language
doesn't just happen by itself. The more explicitly you manage your
motivation, the more consistently you'll tackle your studies, and the
more you will enjoy the steady progress you make.
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GAELTACHT MINNESOTA NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
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----------ANNUAL ONE-DAY WORKSHOP SATURDAY APRIL 5
Circle Saturday, April 5 on your calendar. We have scheduled our
annual one-day workshop for that day at the University of St. Thomas in
St. Paul. We're excited to return to St. Thomas, and we have an
excellent line up of instructors for this event.
For new students, completing this workshop will get you into our
regular Monday classes.
We just have a few catering details to work out, which we hope to do in
the next few days. We'll have complete details and registration forms
-- in plenty of time for early registration to receive a 20% DISCOUNT
-- on our web site at www.gaelminn.org within the week.
----------WEATHER REMINDER
Winter seems to be hanging around, so pay attention to local media when
there are school closings. Sometimes evening activities go on even if
day classes are cancelled. If St. Paul Schools announce cancellation of
evening activities or of Community Ed classes, that includes us.
We try to get an announcement up on our web site at www.gaelminn.org if
we cancel, although we cannot always guarantee we'll have time to do
that. But if in doubt, at least check the web site before you head out
the door.
You can also see the St. Paul Public Schools site at www.spps.org/ .
----------SCHEDULE NOTES
No class (Spring Break) on March 31.
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LESSONS LEARNED
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Sharing ideas we learn from both instructors AND students.
----------DON'T HANDLE THE TRUTH
In the 1992 movie "A Few Good Men" about a military trial, there's a
famous line that Jack Nicholson, playing a Marine Colonel at
Guantanamo, shouts at defense lawyer Tom Cruise:
"You can't handle the truth!"
Well, when it comes to learning Irish, you probably can handle the
truth. But a lot of the time, it's a better idea to abandon the truth,
as it often just distracts you when you are trying to express yourself
in Irish.
We see the problem all the time in simple conversations between
students in classes and workshops. One person asks the other a question
of the "Are you X?" ilk, as in "Are you tired?" or "Are you happy?" or
"Are you smart?" In Irish, all of those questions start with, "An
bhfuil ...?"
Now, the answers to those questions are pretty much limited to "yes"
and "no", or to "tá" and "níl" in Irish. So it is surprising how long
it takes us to answer simple questions like that sometimes.
The problem? We're thinking about the factual answer, that is, whether
or not we're really tired, or we would call ourselves smart.
Now, if this is a side conversation where the questioner really wants
to know the actual answer, maybe it is worth a little thought. But if
this is really about using Irish, about practicing conversation, forget
about the truth. Just blurt out an answer.
Questions and answers are among the most challenging topics in learning
Irish, because there is no simple Irish equivalent to "yes/no". That
means you want to get as many repetitions as you can with questions, to
practice responding in real time with an appropriate answer.
Not honest, or true, or factual. Just appropriate.
In other words, it is important that you answer a future question ("An
mbeidh tú ...?") with beidh/ní bheidh, and not get that mixed up with
An bhfuil > tá/níl. Keeping those straight is much more important than
telling the truth. Indeed, it's a good idea to choose your yes/no form
as soon as you hear the verb in the question.
After all, if you don't care about the truth, you don't need to hear
what "X" is in the question, "An bhfuil tú X?" to answer "yes" or "no".
As long as the answer is right grammatically, forget about whether it
is right factually.
The same approach can be taken with nouns and other forms. Again, when
we first learn the language, we have limited vocabulary. If we care
about speaking the truth, then, we tend to slow down and search for the
right word to complete a sentence, holding up the conversation while we
dive into the dictionary or troll our memories.
Let's say you are practicing a tense with several verbs, so you want to
use the correct verb forms over and over, getting as many repetitions
as possible until the correct form comes to you automatically. You
might be learning to say, "I eat ...", "I kiss ...", "I sell ...", and
so on, all to practice the correct verb endings, or mutations, or
whatever aspect of verb formation you are focused on.
Typically, students want to find several different words to complete a
sentence like, "I eat ...". They don't have much vocabulary in that
realm, so they get very little practice using the verb, and lots of
practice using the dictionary.
But what if you could only think of a couple of nouns, one of them
being "dogs". What's wrong with saying, "I eat dogs", "I kiss dogs", "I
sell dogs"? Sure, it sounds a little weird. But with that approach, you
can practice with half a dozen verbs in the time it would take you to
look up one more noun to use to complete the sentences truthfully.
Let go of the truth in your study exercises. Get more and faster
repetitions for a more automatic command of grammar by eliminating the
bottleneck of always saying something that makes sense. You will find
that you will be able to focus more of your attention on what matters,
the grammar point you are practicing. and that will speed up your
progress.
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ABOUT GAELTACHT MINNESOTA & THE GAZETTE
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Gaeltacht Minnesota is a volunteer organization that has been teaching
free weekly classes in Irish for more than two decades. Besides free
classes, we offer several workshops each year, publish a printed
newsletter for learners, and participate in a wide variety of community
events.
The GaelMinn Gazette is distributed to our subscriber list on the 25th
of each month: Will Kenny, editor.
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