Narrative As Motivator in Foreign Language Acquisition
Narrative As Motivator in Foreign Language Acquisition
Narrative as Motivator
in Foreign Language Acquisition
Alin Cristian
CTBC Financial Management College, Tainan
Abstract
1. Introduction
Aristotle wondered when a fleeing army in disarray
stops and holds its ground against an enemy in pursuit of it.
Confronted with unusual sounds, intonations, graphic signs,
syntactic structures, not to mention codified uses of silence,
oftentimes students of a foreign language lose heart to the point
of retreating helter-skelter to the familiar lap of their mother
tongue. To those who think that such a panic effect appears
disproportionate to the reality of the challenge, it is useful to
remind that a foreign language forms a cohesive, organized
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action: the one who heard the call could not respond to it, and
the ones able to respond could not hear it. Without this
artificial interruption within the reflex arc—the stamp of
culture on nature—which essentially defers the beginning
of any new action inspired by the obscure powers of the
unfathomable, exposure to foreignness threatens to be fateful.
For the alien invites to alienation—how controllably remains
yet to be seen, hence essentially uncertain. ―Thou shalt not
react immediately to the inspiring foreign call‖ is the
commandment that saved Ulysses‘ expedition; as if this
suspicious-sounding appeal of otherness needed to be first
taken out of context in order to get deprived of its excessive
power, and thus somewhat tamed before getting an actual
response.
Passive listeners, too, might be waiting for the opportune
moment to give in to the temptations of a foreign language that
otherwise threatens to carry them away just like the mythical
song of the Sirens. Within the inner maze of the self, the call is
supposed to turn around until its raw otherness wears down to
more approachable, manageable levels.
8. Conclusion
We have seen that emotional resistance does not have
the last word in language acquisition and that hearing is
something one cannot help doing in the absence of special
technical aids. This open channel of sensory perception keeps
us attuned to ampler movements taking place in the context,
from which one‘s motivation derives. The Sartrian suggestion
that this very openness, when perceived as excessive, triggers a
block allowed us to understand passive resistance as primarily
an attempt to counter the alienating call resounding in the
foreignness of a foreign language.
With its absence of demands, hence of additional
stressors, a passive listening to stories in a foreign language
appeared to stand out among possible pedagogical approaches
principally because of the promise of indiscriminate, universal
acceptance it makes. Eventually, what gained ground was the
view that, within a listener sufficiently exposed to narratives in
a foreign language, the inner monolog need not remain faithful
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NOTES
1 Not only narrative but art in general ―has a limitless power of converting the
human soul,‖ according to Jaeger, and this insofar as ―it alone possesses the
two essentials of education—universal significance and immediate appeal.‖
(1946, 36)
2 Valsiner prefers to talk about ―the affective bonding of human beings to
as harbingers of order in human life (II 654 a). This may have been the case
for Ancient Greece; but, given that choric art is not present in early childhood
across the whole spectrum of cultures, it can be safely assumed that often
enough rhythm and melody come to us through language prior to music and
dance.
5 Envelopment as essentially an exercise of power has here all its Deleuzean
connotations.
6 An internalized version of the nurse, the spirit of law and order ―. . . waits
upon them in all things and fosters their growth, and restores and sets up
again whatever was overthrown in the other [lawless] type of state.‖ (Rep. IV
425 a, emphasis mine)
7 Echoing Vygotsky, Valsiner also points out that ―it is in our imagination, in
continuity with play, where we build up our future development.‖ (2007, 69)
8 According to Valsiner, ―hypergames are games where the partners do not
know the list of strategies of the other players (as those lists may change), not
their goal orientations (and their changes) in the course of the game.‖ (2007,
328)
9 T. S. Eliot masterfully expresses this in his poem Gerontion: ―Think
REFERENCES
Address:
Alin Cristian
CTBC Financial Management College, Tainan
No. 600, Section 3, Taijiang Boulevard, Annan District,
Tainan City, Taiwan 709
E-mail: [email protected]
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