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Pastimes : SI Grammar and Spelling Lab -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jbe who wrote (2936)	6/12/1999 4:33:00 AM
From: Dayuhan	Respond to of 4711

More associations with language labs. Some years back a group of Americans arrived in Manila, with a contract to film instructional materials that would be used in language labs where State Dept. types would be learning Tagalog. I've never met a State Dept. type who had any interest in learning Tagalog, but they seemed to think there was a need for it. Their script required an American who spoke Tagalog; not surprisingly, they ended up with me. Their script had been prepared by a Filipina who had apparently lived in Washington DC for the last 30 years, which she had spent teaching Tagalog. Apparently she was the acknowledged and only expert in Tagalog instruction, and they were under instructions not to change a word she had written. Unfortunately, Tagalog, like many 3rd world languages, is developing very, very, quickly. When I first saw the script, I told them that nobody actually talks the way people did in the script. They didn't believe, so they checked with a few other locals, and got the same answer. They checked with the higher-ups in the US, and were told not to change a word. We tried not to, though it was difficult, like trying to do a whole new language. We did occasionally break into extemporaneous routines (the other cast members were local stage actors, pretty amusing people), which I'm sure shocked the great Tagalog expert horrendously. So someone, somewhere, is off in a language lab watching me, and studying a language that is as dead as the dodo. I have to wonder how many times this has happened.

To: jbe who wrote (2936)	6/12/1999 11:07:00 AM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4711

Joan - that's a great story. It goes to show (regionalism?) that a noble method can either be made to sparkle or to ooze depending on the abilities and devotion of the staff. When you take non-native instructors, rote tapes and not enough teaching staff to fill all the gaps, you get the recipe for my memories. Your situation sounded ... wonderful. It heartens me that mine might be the minority impression. Fwiw I STILL really like "Our language in cyberspace - the Final Frontier". I really don't see the pretentious tone. But then I am the Engineer type. Your faithful Geek consultant. You want pretentious? "THE WRITTEN WORD". lol