Stories from Exceptional Language Learners Who Have Achieved Nativelike Proficiency

Zoltán Dörnyei, Katarina Mentzelopoulos

Description

Presents 30 autobiographical learning stories of exceptional language learners

It is generally understood that most language learners beyond a certain age are unlikely to ever reach nativelike proficiency in their second language. However, there exists a unique population of gifted adult learners who do triumph against all odds and achieve nativelike proficiency, and their learning experiences have thus far remained a largely untapped gold mine. The companion to Lessons from Exceptional Language Learners Who Have Achieved Nativelike Proficiency, this volume presents the autobiographical learning stories of 30 such exceptional individuals, opening a narrative window into their learning experiences. This rich corpus of success stories reveals the many steps of these language learning journeys and the learners’ pathways to success. A fascinating and readable collection of personal stories, this volume will be of interest to non-specialist language learners as a motivational primer for their own studies as well as researchers working in language learning psychology, who will find the unique database of learner narratives a useful tool for future research.

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

Sujets

• Disciplines
• Language Arts
• Sociologie, société et politique
• motivation
• Linguistics
• Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics
• Professional
• Personality
• Psycholinguistics
• Postgraduate education
• General officer
• Language acquisition
• General
• Research
• Postgraduate
• SLA

Informations

• Publié par: Channel View Publications
• Date de parution: 25 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800414341
• Langue: English

Extrait

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.channelviewpublications.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.
Endorsements
‘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
Preface
Identifying Exceptional Learners
Collecting the Stories
Offering a Roadmap
1 A Unique Bond
Joy: A Sense of Home
Judith: All Roads Lead to Norway
Kerry: L’amore della Lingua
Heidrun: A Cultural Craving
2 Escaping the Everyday
Amelia: Creator of Opportunity
Sarah: Sehnsucht – A Longing for the International
Capucine: A Safe Space
Kristin: Finding Another World
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
4 An Ear for Languages
Colin: The Imitation Game
Uwe: Following the Light
Kristopher: The Listener
Peng: Enriched Aesthetics
Denny: The Journey to Intimacy
5 The Desire to Blend In
Timur: Diving Down the Rabbit Hole
Lesley: Challenge Accepted
Ranko: Linguistic Gateways
Marjan: Confidence is Everything
6 Shifting Identities
Livia: The Road to Acceptance
Lou: A New Persona
Shinhye: Finding Empowerment through English
Rianne: An International Orientation
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
Concluding Remarks
Index
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!
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 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 well-rounded 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 asses