This is a good point. Like not fully understanding someone due to an accent or the language used not being their first. You can still hear things and get clues, and often decipher what’s been said. Or, you can focus on those differences and miss the entire thing altogether! Then, double down and claim people need to learn the language… It doesn’t always work, but it’s a skill if you can understand people in this way.
While I was in college I took a TESL course (teaching English as a second language) thinking I could learn some strategies to apply to language learning in general, selfishly for myself.
I was wrong, it was intended for teaching kids, but it opened my eyes to a really open blending way of doing things. One that literally teaches empathy and racial/ethnic equality without explicitly doing so.
There are some hybrid classes that aim to teach mutual language skills to native speakers of two to four tongues (each kid having one home language of course), so they start early, move on as a group, and everyone is on the same unequal footing. They see each other struggle, they help each other learn. It is literally a way to teach empathy with diversity and make everyone better :). And the best part is these are all early education programs so they get them in elementary and stop before highschool because they know enough to keep going and have a social support structure to practice with.
I hope something like this picks up more widely, since it’s gaining traction in “large minority” areas and can only benefit literally everyone :)
This is a good point. Like not fully understanding someone due to an accent or the language used not being their first. You can still hear things and get clues, and often decipher what’s been said. Or, you can focus on those differences and miss the entire thing altogether! Then, double down and claim people need to learn the language… It doesn’t always work, but it’s a skill if you can understand people in this way.
While I was in college I took a TESL course (teaching English as a second language) thinking I could learn some strategies to apply to language learning in general, selfishly for myself.
I was wrong, it was intended for teaching kids, but it opened my eyes to a really open blending way of doing things. One that literally teaches empathy and racial/ethnic equality without explicitly doing so.
There are some hybrid classes that aim to teach mutual language skills to native speakers of two to four tongues (each kid having one home language of course), so they start early, move on as a group, and everyone is on the same unequal footing. They see each other struggle, they help each other learn. It is literally a way to teach empathy with diversity and make everyone better :). And the best part is these are all early education programs so they get them in elementary and stop before highschool because they know enough to keep going and have a social support structure to practice with.
I hope something like this picks up more widely, since it’s gaining traction in “large minority” areas and can only benefit literally everyone :)