2.1.6. Back to your first session again

Now, back to your first session with your LRP. In order to keep your session interesting, you might include three different types of activities. You can begin with classic TPR using simple actions (“stand up,” “jump,” etc.). Then for your second activity, why don't you learn the names of a whole bunch of common objects that are present in the setting where you'll be having your language sessions. You can respond to questions like “Where is the churn?” by pointing to the churn, or whatever. Why not go for another ten or twenty vocabulary in this manner during the session. Then you can do something with pictures.

During this first session, the LRP can get the basic idea of describing pictures for you. If I were the language learner, I would start with the set of pictures that are glued in a notebook, rather than with a loose set. I will have arranged them in the notebook in such a way that the first few pictures have a man as the central character, and the next few have a woman, and then in subsequent pictures men and women are randomly interspersed. Then children are added, and then perhaps youths, and old people.

Now, my LRP would begin telling me which type of person is in each picture. “This is a man. This is a man. This is a man. This is a woman. This is a woman. This is a man and a woman. This is a woman. This is a man. This is a boy. This is a boy and a woman and a man. This is another boy. This is a boy, too. This is a girl. This is a girl and a boy. This is a girl and a woman and a man. These are some boys. These are some girls. This is an old man. These are some children and some women. This is an old woman...”

These first picture descriptions may sound pretty simple minded, but I encourage you to start out this way. Language learners find it gives them a real sense of hearing and understanding the language right off the bat. You realize that you are genuinely learning the language from day one. It also gives the LRP a clear sense of communicating with you in the language, which helps to overcome preconceptions she may have about how languages should be taught.