Stories from Exceptional Language Learners Who Have Achieved Nativelike Proficiency 9781800414334

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
1 A Unique Bond
2 Escaping the Everyday
3 A New Generation
4 An Ear for Languages
5 The Desire to Blend In
6 Shifting Identities
7 Success Breeds Success
Concluding Remarks
Index

Citation preview

Stories from Exceptional Language Learners Who Have Achieved Nativelike Proficiency

Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www​.multilingual​-matters​.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK.

Stories from Exceptional Language Learners Who Have Achieved Nativelike Proficiency Katarina Mentzelopoulos and Zoltán Dörnyei with Capucine Trotignon

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Jackson

DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/MENTZE4334e British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-80041-433-4 (PDF) ISBN-13: 978-1-80041-434-1 (ePub) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK. USA: Ingram, Jackson, TN, USA. Website: www​.multilingual​-matters​.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www​.facebook​.com​/multilingualmatters Blog: www​.cha​nnel​view​publ​ications​.wordpress​.com Copyright © 2023 Katarina Mentzelopoulos and Zoltán Dörnyei. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India.

‘How I enjoyed reading this beautifully curated collection of stories! They are filled with characters sharing their experiences of learning, living and loving languages. This book is an inspirational project. It is thought-provoking and informative. Readers will find something to enjoy and learn from in every single story. Definitely worth a read.’ Gary Barkhuizen, University of Auckland, New Zealand ‘A unique collection of oral histories, this volume provides unparalleled understandings of the experiences of learners who form a personal bond with another language. Like good literature, the narratives are compelling and rich in psychological insights.’ Alastair Henry, Högskolan Väst, Sweden ‘A vital contribution to the literature on exceptional learners. We learn the fascinating stories of thirty learners, similar in achievement but different in talents and situations. We also learn much more about language learning itself. With the more research-oriented Lessons companion volume, a creative pairing of two important books.’ Peter Skehan

Contents

Acknowledgements viii Preface ix Identifying Exceptional Learners x Collecting the Stories xvi Offering a Roadmap xvii 1

A Unique Bond 1 Joy: A Sense of Home 1 Judith: All Roads Lead to Norway 7 Kerry: L’amore della Lingua 13 Heidrun: A Cultural Craving 20

2

Escaping the Everyday Amelia: Creator of Opportunity Sarah: Sehnsucht – A Longing for the International Capucine: A Safe Space Kristin: Finding Another World

26 26 32 38 45

3

A New Generation Carl: An Electronic Take on Immersion William: A Competitive Streak Samuli: A Knack for Languages Ira: One Foot in Front of the Other

51 51 56 60 65

4

An Ear for Languages Colin: The Imitation Game Uwe: Following the Light Kristopher: The Listener Peng: Enriched Aesthetics Denny: The Journey to Intimacy

72 72 79 85 90 97

5

The Desire to Blend In Timur: Diving Down the Rabbit Hole Lesley: Challenge Accepted

vi

104 104 109

Contents 

Ranko: Linguistic Gateways Marjan: Confidence is Everything

vii

114 120

6

Shifting Identities Livia: The Road to Acceptance Lou: A New Persona Shinhye: Finding Empowerment through English Rianne: An International Orientation

127 127 132 138 144

7

Success Breeds Success Sara: A Series of Challenges Lisa: Knowing It Can Be Done Hanna: Part of Your Everyday Life Thamarasie: A Linguistic Tool Theresa: Interest and Osmosis

151 151 157 162 168 174

Concluding Remarks

181

Index 184

Acknowledgements

Many thanks are due first and foremost to our 30 research participants, without whom this project would not exist. We hope you understand the depth of our appreciation for not only your willingness to share your learning stories with us and our readers, but also the enthusiasm, engagement and (constant!) encouragement you brought with you along the way. We hope the experience has been as enjoyable and meaningful for you as it has been for us, and that you continue to achieve whatever dreams you aspire to. Second, we would also like to extend our gratitude to our colleagues, mentors and loved ones for their unfaltering patience and support as we chased this heart project from start to finish. Finally, our special thanks go to Capucine Trotignon, who generously agreed to jump on board the project with us in 2021, contributing her own story and editing the stories of this book with the eyes of an ‘insider’, as well as helping us to process our interview data and finalise the structure of this book’s companion volume: Lessons from Exceptional Language Learners Who Have Achieved Nativelike Proficiency: Motivation, Cognition and Identity. Having you on the team was a breath of fresh air!

viii

Preface

When we set out to learn a language, what goal do we see for ourselves at the end of the tunnel? For many, that answer is nativelikeness. While it can often be difficult to set clear benchmarks for proficiency in language learning, having the same ability in an additional language (L2) that one has in their first language (L1) is a fairly imaginable and easy-to-set goal for the average learner. Unfortunately, it turns out that this goal is much more complex and out of reach than the novice learner might suppose, and learning a language to the point where one is indistinguishable from a native speaker is nigh impossible for most adult learners. Yet, there exists a small cohort of remarkable learners who do achieve the impossible – a set of exceptional learners about whom we actually know very little. Thus, in late 2020, in search of some positivity after a difficult and strange year, we set out to find these few exceptional learners who had achieved this benchmark in the hope of discovering how they managed to attain such a goal and if their experiences could be applied to those of ‘ordinary’ learners. The idea for this book originated in Zoltán’s ‘Psychology of Bilingualism and Language Learning’ course, for which he asked students to search for and subsequently share with the class the success stories of otherwise ordinary adult learners who managed to ‘beat the odds’ and attain nativelike second language (L2) proficiency. The results were astonishing: his course participants were able to identify a range of such exceptional learners within their extended networks, and we were captivated by the dynamic energy and fascinating idiosyncrasies they brought to the table. From this assignment, the idea soon grew for the companion volume of this duology, Lessons from Exceptional Language Learners Who Have Achieved Nativelike Proficiency: Motivation, Cognition and Identity (hereafter referred to as Lessons), which summarises the theoretical and practical lessons to be gained from the autobiographical life narratives of such exceptional learners, and soon after, the present volume (Stories), which presents an anthology of the actual success stories we have compiled. Thus, for those interested in a systematic analysis of the new research directions and themes that arose from our investigation, we would encourage you to refer to Lessons. Readers can expect the present volume instead to delve ix

x Preface

into the distinctive journeys of each of our exceptional learners, complete with their own idiosyncratic takes on the language learning process. Due to the nature of this volume as the storybook accompaniment to its analytical counterpart, we have limited our commentary here as much as possible in order to give our learners’ voices adequate space to shine. Identifying Exceptional Learners

Exceptionality in language learning generally manifests in one of two ways: either the individual becomes a polyglot, maximising the number of languages they learn, or they become nativelike, maximising the depth to which they learn a (usually) single language. In this project, we focused on the latter form of giftedness, or exceptionality. Yet, defining nativelikeness turned out to be a more complex endeavour than we had anticipated; after all, how does one measure if an individual has attained nativelikeness? While we will only go into brief detail here, a more wellrounded discussion of this topic can be found in Chapters 1–3 of Lessons. The use of nativeness as a learning standard – or indeed an assumption of a particular level of L2 proficiency – is actually quite debated in academic circles. To put it briefly, native speakers themselves have varying levels of knowledge about their own L1, and indeed there are often many different dialects and varieties of a language that can make demarcating a single sense of nativeness – or using nativeness as a proficiency benchmark – a complex and somewhat circular endeavour. However, there remains the distinct, phenomenological experience of ‘passing’ as a native speaker, meaning being assumed to be a native speaker by other native speakers despite speaking the language as an L2. This makes nativelikeness a little like Schrödinger’s cat: it is difficult to define one’s nativeness and/or nativelikeness in scientific terms, and yet L2 speakers are judged as native or, more frequently, non-native on a daily basis. In practice, this means that the term ‘nativelike proficiency’ is a bit of a misnomer, as being nativelike can coincide with a range of language proficiencies, and as such, it would be arguably impossible to create a written test or assessment identifying nativelikeness. For example, one may have advanced L2 proficiency with the ability to write an academic paper in their L2 but might retain certain markers (e.g. accent) that cause them to never be mistaken for a native speaker. Conversely, an L2 speaker’s ability may only extend to a limited number of conversational domains, but they might be nativelike in those domains. (We do find, however, that the likelihood of the latter is significantly lower; usually in order to be taken for a native speaker, one must have an exceptionally high L2 proficiency and have an in-depth and nuanced knowledge of the language in a robust range of contexts.) Fortunately, despite the complexity behind nativelikeness and what this means about an individual’s scientific proficiency, it is actually quite simple to identify nativelike L2 speakers – in fact, we already have: with passing.

Preface 

xi

Essentially, to find our exceptional, nativelike language learners, we reached out through our extended social networks and applied a simple ‘duck test’. If an individual was identified by others as someone who could pass as a native speaker to other ‘real’ native speakers for at least five minutes, agreed with this assessment and could supply evidence of having done so in a range of situations, they were considered nativelike for the purposes of our investigation. In essence, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck – and is assumed by other ducks to be a duck – then it probably is a duck. In addition, as nativelikeness is significantly more difficult to attain for post-pubertal learners, we further limited our participant pool to learners who did not have any heritage links with their language and had not been immersed in their L2 in any meaningful way (i.e. more than a month) before the age of 18. Table 1 provides further demographic information of the final 30 nativelike L2 learners of our project, presented in the order that they appear in the present volume and some of whose names and data have been anonymised as per their wishes. For readers seeking an extended explanation of how and why we identified our exceptional learners in this particular way, we explore the topic in more depth in Lessons. The collection of individuals we were able to gather presents a diverse range, representing ages between 16 and 67, 16 different native languages, 18 countries of origin and 9 target languages in which they became nativelike. By definition, all have been nativelike for a prolonged period of their lives, and most continue to be at the time of writing this book. Many of them work in or around the field of linguistics or language teaching, but still others work in professions that have very little to do with linguistics. This said, our recruitment method did result in a bias towards White European and female participants, and as our interviews were necessarily conducted in English, participants were either highly proficient or L1 speakers of English. At this point, it may be relevant to make a small disclaimer. Nativelikeness, as will be obvious to any individual undertaking the beautiful but arduous task of learning a language, is incredibly difficult to achieve, and is likely impossible for most of us for a range of reasons. Historically, it has been used as the standard against which L2 speakers were compared – and still is – often resulting in inevitable disillusionment when learners fail to reach this celestial goal. This volume is not meant to enforce nativelikeness as any such recommended goal or standard – indeed, learners’ goals can be so varied and idiosyncratic that the question of linguistic standards is much broader and with distinctly heavier repercussions than our present undertaking. However, we would encourage those interested in a more detailed and nuanced explanation of our take on the particulars of nativelikeness to refer to Chapter 3 in the Lessons volume of this duology.

Upper F middleaged

67

Middle- F aged

50s

40s

50s

Early 20s

20

Joy

Judith

Kerry

Heidrun

Amelia

Sarah

Capucine

Kristin

F

F

F

F

F

F

Age

Name

English

L1(s) Icelandic

Nativelike L2(s)

English

Student

University student

Voluntary worker; former EFL teacher

Professor in foreign language teaching

French

N/A

French

English Danish, Spanish, Swedish

Spanish

Hungarian French, German, Italian

German

English

Italian

Norwegian English

French

English

English

University German lecturer; secondary school English teacher

University instructor

Age of starting to learn nativelike L2

7

Primary school

22

13

10

18

21

French, Early 20s Portuguese

Other L2 experience

Professor of English, Norwegian French, Viking studies Hungarian German

Language educator

Status/ Gender profession

Table 1  Contributor demographics

2 years

3 years

10 years

15+ years

1–2 years

1–2 years

2+ years

10+ years

Norway

France

UK (England)

UK (England)

Austria

Canada

USA

Canada

Time spent in L2 Country of environment origin

UK

UK

UK

Austria

Austria

Canada

UK

Canada

Country of residence

Nativelike Portuguese as a child

Comments

N/A

N/A

(Continued)

Lou’s sister

Hungarian Zoltán’s wife; Colin’s former pupil

N/A

English

N/A

N/A

Icelandic

L1 of spouse/ long-term partner

xii Preface

M

M

16

25

20

66

60

William

Samuli

Ira

Colin

Uwe

Kristopher 41

Peng

36

M

16

Carl

M

F

M

M

M

Age

Name

Freelancer

Associate professor of Japanese literature

Teacher trainer

Retired language teacher

University student

University student

Student

Student

Status/ Gender profession

Mandarin

English

German

English

Dutch

Finnish

Swedish

Swedish

L1(s)

Table 1 (Continued) Contributor demographics

English

Mandarin, Japanese

English

French, German

English

English

English

English

Nativelike L2(s)

French

N/A

2 years