The Force of Silence

Originally uploaded by amaroak – quite a life

Our mission at WAL is to facilitate cross-cultural communication. But is all communication achieved through speech? No, people communicate through silence as well as spoken language. It is a way to express oneself non-verbally and it can be very powerful.

Different cultures understand silence in different ways. In Western and Middle Eastern cultures, people tend to be uncomfortable with longer silences and may even view extended silence as asocial or anti-social.

Contrarily, in many eastern and Native American cultures, longer silences are the norm and carry positive connotations of respectfulness, discretion or truthfulness. Negative connotations such as embarrassment or defiance are also possible. I once had a Japanese student who found her employer to be demeaning. At the time, she could not quit work, so she handled the situation by refusing to speak at all until she was able to leave the job six months later.

While a Westerner starts to feel discomfort after 6 or 7 seconds of silence, a Japanese speaker may be quite comfortable after 20 seconds. As a result, the length of silent periods may cause someone outside of the culture to misinterpret what is occurring. For example, a Western teacher may infer that their Asian student doesn’t know the answer or is not willing to speak. A Japanese speaker, on the other hand, may find a western speaker rude or foolish when they jump into commenting without much pause.

Silence can speak volumes, so they say…

Close up of The Thinker

Originally uploaded by marttj

What have I learned about second language acquisition?

1. That it is systematic, rule-governed and yet it is a creative process of discovery.
2. It involves acting on received language input by trying to make responses and by making plenty of mistakes in the new language.
3. It involves interacting with others and using language as a tool for differing purposes.
4. Learning is accomplished by people with different personalities and different learning styles.
5. It takes time.

A classroom should be a rich environment providing for a variety of experiences. Each learner has to be encouraged to use his/her languages in new ways. Each student needs to speak with peers and instructors should recognize and respect individual differences.

The learner must take risks. Risk taking is essential in second language learning. It can be a little scary but risk taking was the way each of us acquired our first language. Social interaction and cultural understandings are essential to learning a language as well. Learning a language is a wonderful mind altering experience which lasts much longer than any artificial mind altering experience.

At WAL we accommodate diverse learning styles within the context of our semi-intensive language program.