lourdes cuéllar cele-unam, méxico. process of... acquiring knowledge or practical skills ...
TRANSCRIPT
Learning Chinese in an inspired mode
Lourdes Cuéllar CELE-UNAM, México
What does learning mean?
Process of . . . acquiring knowledge or practical skills incorporating information or content adopting new strategies of knowing or
doing (Diccionario de las Ciencias de la Educación, Ed. Aula Santillana, Madrid 1983.
How do we learn? By doing!
There is no learning, however small, that you achieve through contemplation alone. You learn because you do something with that which you contemplate. And the more you do the more you learn, for as you go forward your vision continues to change. (Silo)
Human beings can’t stop learning. Learning makes you enlarge
your capability for responding to the world.
Scheme of consciousness
Presence and co-presence (Silo) The data covering the
central area of concern are located in what Silo called "field of presence“.
Items not thus designed, such as views, beliefs, are assumptions that are rarely considered, are described as in “co-presence.”
Learning and co-presence
Learners not only listen to or pay attention to the linguistic aspects of the language. They also perceive all the external elements that are around, as well as attitudes, gestures, comments, annoyances, misunderstandings, perplexity, disagreements, surprises, etc.
Everything is recorded and will have relevance when it is time to respond.
What does learning do to us?
Learning transforms us (auto-transformation), even if it is
not the main goal. “When I realize how much Chinese I can
understand, I feel superpowerful, and I feel I could learn any language I want”. (Joanna, Chinese student)
What does learning do to us?
Learning makes us happier.
“It makes me very grateful to understand even a single word in a sentence we call complex”. (Jorge, Chinese student)
“I always enjoy class a lot, especially the cultural talks, history, or the context of Chinese”. (Felipe, Chinese student)
What does learning do to us?
Learning enriches our lives.
“The study of the [Chinese] language was much more rewarding than any class that I have taken in the Faculty of Sciences in terms of modeling new perspectives on life.”
(Jorge, Chinese student)
What does learning do to us?
Learning helps us fall in love. “The teacher talked a bit what happened in China,
the customs, his experience of arriving the first time, his detailed explanation of radicals, as well as the idea that he had about each of them. All this woke up something inside me that motivated me to continue studying the language. It was no longer a monetary interest, no longer question of ego or competitiveness, but instead a feeling that the Chinese feel: despite the complexity and difficulty, I was interested more and more, to such an extent that in this part of my life, I believe I have fallen in love with Chinese.”
What does learning do to us? Learning helps us fall in love.
“When you start a courtship with a person only by walking or not staying alone, the relationship seems boring, monotonous, and short-lived. Instead, when you feel love for someone or something, you enjoy every moment, every experience, and all the everyday struggles to help this relationship last, prompting you to continue the love.”
Is learning always a pleasure? I say YES.
It is important to differentiate the recording of learning, associated with the expansion of the capacity of response and therefore opening of the future, even if you encounter something that is recorded as an error, with the school experience that can [sometimes] leave negative recordings.
Is learning always a pleasure?
What produces displeasure or contradiction? The learning experience itself or the conditions in which that experience occurred and that were recorded globally in the memory?
Hot cognition (Rebecca Oxford)
It involves emotions It involves motivation,
often multiple types of it. It involves cognition
(thinking) and information integration
It involves movement or transformation (border-crossing)
Peak experiences (Maslow)
The creative scientist “lives for the moments of glory, when a problem is solved, when, suddenly, he or she sees things through a microscope in a very different way than before; for the moments of revelation, of light, of insight, of understanding, of ecstasy”
Flow (Csikszentmihaly)
Flow is “the state in which people are so involved in the activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so pleasant that people choose to do it despite the great cost, for the sheer purpose of doing it.”
Inspired consciousness (Silo)
Inspired consciousness is a global psychological structure capable of . . .
Achieving immediate intuitions of reality Organizing ensembles of experience Prioritizing understandings transmitted in
multiple ways Changing our habitual way of thinking
Is it possible inspired consciousness in learning?
Even presented in different levels, wiht different deeps, we can asure that inspiration is present in learning.
It doesn’t depend on one simple factor.
It doesn’t depend only on teachers. It doesn’t depend on the simple wish
to get it.
Could we produce inspired consciousness?
Inspired consciousness happens and it is a very personal experience linked with a very deep personal search or even with a sacred moment.
We could create better conditions for students to be closer to achieve inspiration and may be, trough it, touch a inspired consciousness state.
As teachers or tutors we have to take care aobut: Treatment teacher-students and between students Respect to China, its culture, its people, its way of thinking. The value of each result, stpe by step The value of the process of learning. The love and disposition to know other way of life and thinking. Reflection on self culture and thinking.
Why chinese?
It is so different that gives more opportunities of discoverings.
Needs a very clear context to be understood, so you have to teach culture, philosophy, art, etc.
Most of our students study chinese because they feel like to, they are not forced.
Learning chinese needs a great capability to link different information, to deduce, to guess, to learn. This is exciting and inspiring.
Summary
The students stories don’t talk about grammar or linguistics,but about emotions and feelings.
The most powerfull motivation to learn a foreign language has nothing to do with the content itself, but with the pleasure of growing up as human being.
Learning must be studied from new points of view and inspiration must be present.
The joy and love of teaching and learning helps us to really understand each other.
All we do towards the understanding of peoples will help us to build a new world, a new life.
