Overcoming the challenges of teaching my son our mother tongue
A short story
Hi All!
In our fast paced contemporary world, passing down Igbo to my son was hard.
I'd like to share a short story about an Aha! moment years ago that eased subsequent experiments.
What has been your experience?
Happy New Years and wishing you an easier 2024!
See the full SNL skit Spanish Class - SNL
Rewind to the year 2018. My obsession with things that happen in the mind began one autumn day after I picked up my son JR from Chicago SDA Elementary. He had been learning advanced Igbo. During these drives from Grand Crossing to Chicago's Historical South Shore, we recited the basics of the language: naming things.
As it became more complex, Jr seemed to lose interest. It was unusual for him to learn this latest material so slowly, which I couldn't quite understand. JR was in his usual moody post-school state when I picked him up.
These depressive states can be caused by any necessary task before video games. It was not uncommon for them to disappear within seconds.
"Agu!—Tiger" I shouted at JR to get him in high spirits.
"How was your day?"
JR mumbled something that sounded like his day had been regular.
JR asked, "Dad, is Dunkin’ Donuts healthy?"
I, sensing that JR's question was not "empty-handed," as we would say, replied, "Well it depends, I drink coffee from Dunkin’ which is fine as long as I don't drink too much."
Are their sandwiches healthy? JR asked.
"Well not entirely. It's not something you want to eat all the time." I replied.
"I haven't had it in a while," JR said.
After much haggling and negotiating, we settled on a small breakfast sandwich and no outside food for the rest of the week.
"Anyi na aga Dunkin’ Donuts, anyi si ulo akwukwo.," JR exclaimed with a slight smirk.
Translation “We are going to Dunkin Donuts. We are coming from school”.
Previously, I had skimmed through some old texts on human language acquisition. Our proverbs said that the dividing line between man and beast is language; that humans have the capability to acquire languages has long been noted. I was still eager to find the latest information.
Evolutionary psychologists claimed that this capability can be mapped back to the human genome. "There could be some truth to that," I thought. In recent times there has been information about human tendencies, particularly about the effects of rewards on our motivation, which I thought was more contextual.
Human tendencies involve existing biological wiring that functions automatically today, yet developed in ancestral ecologies. In those ecologies, you had to be properly incentivized to take action—inefficient use of energy was not rewarded by natural circumstances. Further research proved to be unnecessarily tedious. Language experts write to tickle other experts!
Thanks for all your support in 2023.
See you in 2024!
Nnamdi