now, back to adults
last year you and I had a discussion
and part of the discussion was how
we can run the new code
which you and Carmen are working extensively
for the last 25...27 years
how it can be integrated with a language learning course for adults
and teenagers of course
and how we could create a way that people could relatively quickly
assimilate some language
for the people are watching this
we've created a programme
you called it "First Fluency"
how is this distinct, how does it work
how do people acquire this language
in a way that is relatively quickly
and has to go back in the New Code pattern
and NLP in general
so that is the question
yeah, huge
maybe I precede by examples
and then try to make a more general statement
if I would select one feature of this "First Fluency" programme
that Carmen and I and you are gonna present in Spain
in the Murcia region this coming August...September
it is the state of the learner
and as an adult there's two disadvantages
that most of adults find themselves
one is the thing we already talked about the knowledge base
unless I have somehow developed through intuitive...
trial and error I suposse
the ability to suspend an access to this
this is gonna be a positive filtering with the negative result
what they will tend to hear, the Spanish words
with the targets in a more typical of English
therefore they won't have the accent which they try to reproduce
they are gonna Anglicize the Spanish words
sure
and the second thing...
which you hear quite frequently in that region of Spain
I'm sure
but..you know...
let's give them a little round of applause
for the brave people who attempt to do it
to the best of their ability
this is one of the most amazing challenges
to become fluent in another language
particularly Spanish there are many differences
huge
cultural differences
phonological variations
Spanish speakers
are very forgiving
they do not insist in the same way the French do in these tight phonological targets
if you get somewhere in the area
they're gonna supply and then you
they are gonna attempt to work out what is you wanna supply with your own thing
so, there's a quite nice cultural advantage for Spanish
and Spanish is one of the quirkiest which is nice
I would not if I were learning English as a speaker of some other language
nor if I will learn French as an English speaker
I will nor not use visual aid
because the mapping between
the spelling the words, the ortography
and the actual value phonetically that is the pronounciation
is so strange, so weird
as oppose to Spanish
where maybe the exception of the double "LL" becoming a "Y"
there is...
what you see is what you get
so you can actually take a text in Spanish once you began this project
and you can actually read it carefully
and you'll sound like you are actually know what you 're doing
if I would to pick the single most important thing as I said it would be state
and this has two elements
like the one i just mentioned about it active interference by your home language
or other languages that you require
and secondly if you correct a child, if they hear the correction wrong
maybe right back
if correct the child, the child hears it
repeats it or ignores it whatever
depending on where the focus and their attention is
when you correct an adult the typical thing is
I say something you are unable to speak whatever language you just might target
and you are being helpful and you re-pronounce something
that I missed or you add a word that I left out
or you supply something that I put in there
that doens't really fit
and now, whether this continues as an implicit language lesson
with pleasure on both sides because of the music experience of
helping someone through the first stages of a language
depends on the response
if you make the correction and I go: "Oh, sorry...
...I didn't mean blablabla"
only happens is: You get the message, leave alone
because you've placed me in a called "embarrassing" situation
if on the other hand I go: "Say it again"
I watch your lips, full attention
I pronounce it watching you to make sure by feedback to it
I got the difference that I didn't achieve the first time
and then I will attempt, that's my own style, attempt to use that
that word, that new word in at least three sentences in the next minute
just to set it
for consolidation purposes later
the important part is the relation of aspect
if I am positive on my response
I look angry, I act on it, I use the information immediately
you as a native speaker you think "great job" this is somebody who's really interesting
really commited to doing this and you will continue to offer me precisely the class of feedback
which does occur in Spain
which does occurs Spain, yeah
from my experience as well
Spanish particularly nice because
you get many different cultures speaking
language, sure there's variations in
Colombia is, you know, great, superb
and you don't find any mexican Spanish
you don't find Spanish Spanish
but notice the advantage you can move all through Latin America
with the exception of Brazil and you'll be able
to communicate effectively and the cultures are quite the same
and including of course the homeland Spain itself
and in different regions of Spain
and there are regions... you know
...I would never miss pointing out
that there are strong regional differences in Spain
Catalan
indeed... indeed
is one of the strongest examples
ok, so... let me go back to this
the state issue
the state occurs the ideal
in an ideal language acquisition
the state of the learner is a "know nothing state"
they don't understand anything except in the target language
they have no internal dialoge except in target language
and by the way, there are a little markers neurologically
in terms of my experiences
when I walk... when I'm acquiring a language
and walk around running internal dialogues
in the target language
which by the way in this idealized situation
that's the only thing that you are allowed in terms of internal dialog
is the target language not internal language
tricks like dropping the tongue
the buddhist tongue poke and stuff
so avoid those things but nevertehless
as I walk around I hear myself running a phrase
or a set of words over and over and may not even know
anything about what they mean
I probably have some sense of the context of which I
heard them on and adapted them or have used them successfully
but I don't have no idea how to segment them
there are phrases specially in Greek that I use
correct in the context you guess the root require
response from native speakers
I have no idea even how to segment it
what the pieces of the thing are
and that's not important but when you discover yourself running these tapes
very positive communication you've activated in the proper neurology
yeah, and I actually think I got an experience on that
from the experience last year in Spain
where as you you know I attempted...
absolutely
struggle a little in Spanish
but we were there for 6 weeks in total
and the it was on worker in the hotel I had quite strong rapport with
it is my interest to have strong rapport with this worker
he supported us incredibly
and he came in this particularly afternoon
and towards the end of the course and spoke...
he forgot who I was terms of my linguistic competences
spoke to me for 3-4 minutes totally in Spanish
and i'm sitting there
and for the first time I actually understood what he was talking about
and later he says: "lo siento"
and the we both realized that actually he was talking in Spanish to me
we had struggled previously but because we had a lot of rapport there
I actually understood his language
and wasn't at the "know nothing state" at that moment in time
because I was attempting to understand or attempting to do anything
with that rapport connection
is that an example of what you are talking about?
is an excellent example
in matter of fact I think especially I''ll define in a moment
First Fluency
but I think to get in the First Fluency
these mirroring tactics
this ability to establish and sustain deep rapport relationship conscious or unconscious
with native speakers is key
because if I'm moving like they're are moving
if my gestures are authentically for the cultural
fit there as if my voice call with rhythms in my voice all of which are non-verbals
if they are authentic the copy mirrored from the first time working with
this creates a certain illusion
so I can actually make a mistake and they wont even hear the damn mistake
they automatically change what they've heard from an error
to something which is congruent with the illusion of creating by mirroring
the ability to establish and sustain rapport
and specially the ability to copy and...
emit gestures
voice qualities and so forth which are not English or American English
the belong to the target language is essential
and that special state
so let's go the the First Fluency
you were treated it 3 or 4 minutes of what First Fluency will buy you
for ever if you get it
and that is First Fluency is defined as a point where you have enough
phrases, expressions in the language
supported by this huge illusionary net
of using mirroring for voice qualities
gestures, postures and typical behaviour of the people of the target language
will create the illusion you understand enough
that a perfecly fluent bilingual
Spanish English speaker will stay in Spanish
instead of coming out in the English to help you
because that help is exactly what you don't want
the whole point of First Fluency is to create the illusion
of adequate language
so that native speakers or fluent speakers the language
will stay in the language because by so doing
they are feeding this... machine
this sort of circuitry the same circuitry you use if you get
your knowledge base out of the way
that you use to acquire your first language
and... I refer you back to the argument that Chomsky explained
we re all wired to this
yes
so if we can get out of our own way
and activate the proper set of neurological circuits
that we use to acquire the first language
the thing starts to happen
now, this is actually a mixed model
if it were straight NLP modelling all the thing would be done inductively
you would never achieve any conscious sense
but there are tricks and as a professional linguist
I know that there's tricks
in English: "I shall eat in this restaurant tomorrow"
maybe you are in a place somewhere
I didn't hear anybody in the States that would use the word "shall"
as a future tense in that way, it's quite formal
I think is more common here in UK
could be said here
in the States no
"I'm gonna eat in this restaurant tomorrow"
"I'm gonna" "gonna"
and as a matter of fact, not only in Spanish but in a number of other languages
which I dabbled then
if.. I could say: "comeré en este restaurante mañana"
which is the formal "I shall eat"
but...does not what they say
"voy"..."voy a comer en este restaurante mañana"
so, "I'm going to eat..." it's exactly the sort of the way
American English works
you don't ever have to learn the future tense
I mean, learning verb tenses is a bear
because there's a lot of them
...a lot of them and the conditions under which they are used
I'm actually quite deficient in Spanish in the sense that there are...
Spanish uses the subjunctive a lot
a lot more than English does
and I will run right over the top of that
if I happen to recognize that the verb I'm using in case the subjunctive
I'll make a switch on the fly and to the subjunctive
but many times I don't make the switch
now, it is perfectly intelligable, it's a little ugly
from a native speakers point of view
but as communication device it works
sure
so, there are tricks like that
another trick, so...
one strategy to take advantage of this "I'm going to..." phenomena
which occurs in multiple languages
"voy a..."
or "vamos a..." we
or "el va..."
whatever...
so, the all thing...all of them
typical 5 tenses of the verb for I, you, he, she, it
we, they
the second person plural is... you can get
ultimately the other quarter by induction
anyway
so, that's a trick, another trick is you never learn vocabulary
in the classic academic approach given a vocabulary list
English Spanish
as if this really is a translation
is not a translation, it's a joke
it's like learning NLP just from the book
rather than learnin NLP from an exercise
it's like learning NLP inductively
the other thing of course is
I think one of the most startling and challenging
and at the same time deeply satisfying experiences I've had with languages
is to notice how the world shifts as I shift languages
now, is the world really shifting?
thats going into epistomology so only just say the following
when I speak German the world has a different feel
the things I notice are different
when I speak Italian
once again there's a whole difference in my state
as you express yourself
as I express myself
and the way in which time in German, in English in any other language
carve out the world strictly speaking inconmensurable
as you can't really map from one or the other, you can get close
so if you learn by vocabulary
you're accepting presupposition which is false
these are equivalents, they are not
on the other hand, if you learn inductively in context
by mimicing by creating solution when you talk about it
you actually end up getting a feel for how Spanish
segments the experience in the world
which makes it profoundly different experience
than when you speak English, when you speak German languages
so, as soon as I see vocabularies I go: No
this is not the way I wanna approach it
because there is consequences
really do rob part of the advantage of achieving another language
but also through direct feeback
because part of that First Fluency course will be the participants
having learnt to go into the altered states
absolutely
having been given some of the short circuit drills spoken about here
having learnt to mirror a model to actually go out into the environment
in small groups with the Spanish mentor
who will support them and supply when they're lacking
and they go and buy...
products or few drinks
cucumbers
be social
meet people in the Plaza
and be restricted to speak only in Spanish
exactly
I can't tell you how many times I stood in a street corner in some country
busy street corner
and ask directions to whatever is relevant
to the mosque, if I happen been in Islamic countries
cathedral if I'm in a traditional
sort of come to know in European situations
not because I give a damn about where the mosque or the cathedral is
but because it gives me a well formed sense to provoke
an avalanche of language
assuming I did rapport, assuming I used mirroring and so forth
an avalanche of language which feeds
this astonishing of circuits by which I learnt speak American English maybe
so I am replicating that so in that sense
I tried to achieve the same accelerated and deep inductive learning as a child
by becoming one
by getting rid of my knowledge based temporarely
I'm gonna reactivate it later
but at the moment there's nothing more than filter which gets in my way