THE LANGUAGE LEARNERS
LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AT MY AGE? WITH MY WORK LOAD? YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING!

SARAH JORDAN, SDLS
PHOTOS: VÉRONIQUE MAGNIN

English ‘a tool for life’

When Ildephonse Mbabazizimana arrived in Geneva seven years ago from Rwanda with smatterings of school English, he found himself completely out of his depth at the Lausanne business school where he had enrolled: most of the classes were taught in English. “The first semester was catastrophic”, he recalls. Outside of the classroom he had virtually no exposure to the language – he spoke French with his classmates – and he had the additional hurdle of no budget for private lessons. But he wanted to succeed in his postgraduate studies. As he explains, he had “no choice”, so with the encouragement of a finance teacher who urged him to acquire this “tool for life”, he studied English by himself in the evenings and earned himself two master’s degrees. With his arrival on the job market, again he found there was “no choice” – fluent English was required everywhere, and so he continued studying using more sophisticated self-study methods that comprised software and DVDs.

Ildephonse now works as a statistical assistant at UNCTAD. His self-acquired English allowed him to join the SDLS course at Level 5 and he is currently following the Level 7 English course and enjoying the more convivial context of group classes. English hasn’t yet brought him what he aims for though. He can see his progress but his aim is to be fluent – and to succeed in the Language Proficiency Examination (LPE). His tips for other language learners: make an effort every day, read as much as possible, be patient and do not be afraid of making mistakes.

Russe – le collectionneur de langues

Pour Eric Roguet, de nationalité française, tout a commencé en 2004 quand, lors de vacances en Russie, il a suivi deux semaines de cours de russe à Moscou, hébergé chez une journaliste à la retraite du journal Izvestia. Eric est en quelque sorte un « collectionneur » de langues. Après avoir appris, à l’âge adulte, l’allemand, l’espagnol, le portugais et l’anglais, grâce à de solides bases scolaires en grec et en latin qui lui ont « finalement servi », il a été profondément attiré par la langue russe car elle est « complètement différente des autres langues ». « Malgré le fait que la Russie soit très proche de l’Europe, l’alphabet et la prononciation n’ont rien à voir avec ceux des autres langues européennes ; il faut changer son fusil d’épaule pour apprendre le russe ». Eric est doué pour les langues, certes, mais les découvrir et les pratiquer fait aussi partie intégrante de sa vie : « il faut partir dans le pays – c’est une passion, c’est une habitude ».

Il en trouve aussi l’utilité dans son travail à l’OMPI. Examinateur au Service des marques, il peut, par exemple, lorsqu’une marque est déposée, identifier et contrôler une date de valeur sur un document bancaire écrit en cyrillique. Pour les contacts en face à face aussi. Ainsi quand il reçoit des visiteurs d’Europe centrale, sa connaissance de la Russie et du russe font qu’il comprend mieux leur mode de pensée.

Au Bocage, il a tout d’abord intégré les cours au niveau 2 – et depuis, bien aiguillé par Elena et Natasha dans son cours de niveau 3, il continue, avec cinq ou six camarades, à acquérir les bases grammaticales « essentielles » et le vocabulaire, « souvent emprunté à d’autres langues européennes et donc plus facile ». Quelques conseils : allez en cours régulièrement, et même si vous n’arrivez pas à faire vos devoirs, vous progresserez.

Français – l’intégration à tout prix

Notaire de formation, Lorena Viscio a quitté son Argentine natale en janvier 2008 pour venir se marier à Genève – avec un compatriote, certes, mais sans connaitre un mot de français. Trois mois de cours intensifs dans une école de langues et elle intègre rapidement le cours de français niveau 3 au Bocage en tant qu’épouse. Depuis, rejetant ce qu’elle estime être le piège de la Genève internationale – communiquer en anglais – son leitmotiv a été « apprendre le français pour m’intégrer ». Et elle n’y va paspar quatre chemins : aujourd’hui, à peine un an et demi plus tard, elle suit déjà le cours de niveau 5.

Dans son travail à la Fondation suisse du service social international (SSI), elle utilise le français au quotidien. Elle est aussi très fière de pouvoir communiquer avec ses voisins genevois dans leur langue. Inspirée par des personnes multilingues qu’elle a rencontrées ici, elle prépare, ce trimestre, un diplôme en protection des droits des enfants, enseigné en français. Elle lit et écrit en français pour son travail et va même au théâtre. Elle a le français dans la peau ! Elle apprécie le programme de langues tel qu’il est proposé au Bocage, et il va sans dire qu’elle est bonne élève. Ses conseils : suivre un cours où il y a le même niveau oral et écrit au début – l’un ne va pas sans l’autre si l’on veut progresser.

Spanish – the applied linguist

Maja Drazenovic, who is in charge of linguistic services at WMO, the World Meteorological Organization, is a language professional. Croatian by birth, she trained as a French-English-Croatian interpreter and has interpreted for many international organizations, including the UN, while working as a freelancer in Paris before joining the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) in The Hague in 1994 and coming to Geneva in 2002. She has employed her considerable language skills in high-pressure situations, serving as an interpreter not only for an array of international organizations, but also for European royalty, French Presidents, other political leaders, and even indicted war criminals. Her latest linguistic acquisition is Spanish – she took the LPE exam in September after just one year of study at Bocage. Her approach to language learning is tried and tested, surprisingly simple yet highly effective. Her tips for UN Special readers are particularly enlightening: “I am a natural but I also work hard – you can’t learn a language by osmosis”. She admits to being a perfectionist, but because she is a linguist she knows how to approach the study of a foreign language in a way that yields results. Although she has two young children (who already speak four languages), she spends at least thirty minutes a day studying and always has a Spanish book in her bag and reads it in those spare moments on the bus or in the doctor’s waiting room.

For her, language learning is both a pleasure and a hobby. Like Lorena with her French (see above), she practises her Spanish with delegates and colleagues as often as possible and takes advantage of their feedback to polish her idiomatic use of the language. Another tip: she keeps a running list of all their helpful hints. Although she has now finished the course offered at Bocage, she considers that her level today “just opens the door ajar to Hispanic culture”. She modestly declares that “the more you learn the more you realize how many things you don’t know” and is now trying to put this to rights and differentiate between the Spanish of Spain and that of Latin America by pursuing her studies with formation continue at the Université de Genève. She is full of compliments for the teachers at the Bocage and is grateful to them for getting her Spanish “back on track”. She recommends reading and listening to the news in the foreign language you are studying, and believes that there are no excuses for not doing your homework!

Arabic – a laissez-passer

Pietro Carrieri’s language-learning story is a bit like the road movies that inspired him as a young man in southern Italy: “I’m a small-town kid. I watched the movies, fell in love with Marilyn Monroe and wanted to travel”. Fully aware of the choice he was making, he left behind the security of his small town, fearing suffocation. To “know a language better than average” was his laissez- passer. He studied philosophy then took a liking to English literature and it was this language – self-taught – that allowed him to make his escape. Since then, it’s always been the practical, useful side of languages that has interested him: “What’s the use of grammar if you can’t ask for a toilet?” English took him to New York and The Hague, and he met his wife and learnt Croatian on the way. Then came Geneva, where his first contact with the Bocage was in intensive French classes. Ever one for a challenge, he then decided to apply himself to Arabic – “to keep in mental shape and to obtain a basic knowledge of a difficult language”. And in September of this year he sat the LPE exam – one of the very few Bocage Arabic students to follow the complete 16- term course all the way through and without interruption.

His tip for anyone embarking on the study of this difficult language (the course has a 90% drop-out rate): consistency is the key – do your homework every day, even at 2 in the morning, so you never fall behind, because a backlog of work will break your resolve.

Pietro’s motivation was strictly recreational but he knows that in the international environment in which he works this strategic language could be useful professionally one day. In the meantime, he listens to the Arabic news and reads to keep his skills sharp. As he puts it: “the day you need a language professionally, the work needs to be behind you”.

Chinese – back to one’s roots and beyond

Sandy Shibata, Assistant to the Director in the Field Operations and Technical Cooperation Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), went on mission to China in 2001 and it changed her life. She had grown up in the United States at a time when China was Red, communist, and she never dreamed she would travel there. She was so taken with the people and the country she discovered that she decided on the spot to learn Chinese.

Shibata, of Japanese descent, initially thought learning Chinese would help her get back to her linguistic roots; some Japanese characters originated in Chinese. However, things were not as straightforward as she had anticipated. Chinese proved to be very different acoustically from the Japanese she had heard as a child though, luckily, the grammar was not too difficult. The big challenge was to learn the characters – now that everyone uses computers, recognition rather than production is the norm. Inspired by the summer programme (sponsored jointly by the Chinese Government and the UN) she followed at Nanjing University two summers ago; she is now in Level 7 at Bocage. She hopes to return to China, “a very exciting place at the moment”, for further study in summer 2010.

Sandy dreams of using Chinese more extensively in her work and hopes that OHCHR’s technical cooperation programme with China will be renewed. For the time being, at work, she contents herself with greeting visitors and making small talk with telephone contacts. Outside of work it’s a different story. Chinese has made her “very busy” – both studying the language, networking (a recent MYC4 www.myc4.com) presentation on micro-finance at which she discussed the China /Africa connection with the founder), and seeing the many friends that studying Chinese has brought her.

Sandy, who studied French and Spanish in her youth, considers language-learning to be a gift and has some realistic advice for those tempted to study this challenging language: persevere; if you lose motivation, take a break if you have to but come back to class, find people to practise with (she always goes to the same check-out in her local supermarket because the cashier is Chinese and they chat and she even admits to following Chinese-speaking people around in stores to listen to what they are saying!), spend time in the country and watch Chinese movies.

For further information on the language courses offered at Bocage, consult the Staff Development and Learning Section (SDLS) website http://learning.unog.ch/