My Chinese speaking experience

It’s one thing to learn a language, but it’s quite another when you finally get to use it.

On the _________from Venice to Paris, a group of girls sat around me. I realized that they were speaking Chinese, but at first I didn’t feel _________starting a conversation with the strangers next to me. If it didn’t _________well, I’d be stuck next to them for the rest of the flight.

As the food cart began to make its way down the aisle (过道)towards us, I finally found my _________. I _________to the girl to my left and asked, “Will you be having lunch?” in Chinese. She _________ her head and asked me in English, “You speak Chinese?” I _________ again in Chinese, “A little bit.” She nodded again and then returned to her magazine, _________ my effort to communicate with her.

Another time, at a dinner I sat next to a man who I knew spoke Chinese. I told him that I was learning Chinese, but could only _________ a little. When __________ me use the language, he suddenly began to speak __________ in Chinese. I didn’t catch him at all. I felt somewhat __________. I never __________ the chance to continue because the conversation returned to __________ as other people speaking English joined the table.

All in all, my experience has __________ me that I still have a long way to go in using Chinese.

Very few of us become fluent in another language by studying it in high school. I made a(n) ________ to maintain (保持) the little bit of French that I learned in school,   but eventually realized that this was ________. I was well aware that new languages are best learned when young,   and that our abilities________ with age. However, just before my 50th birthday,   I signed up for French classes.

After I was ________ to see which group I belonged to,   I was placed at almost the ________ level. When I looked around at my first Saturday morning class,   I was struck by how many of the students were learning French as a third, fourth, or ________ fifth language.

While I’d always considered myself as a quick ________ that was no longer the case. I absorbed new vocabulary very slowly. What I learned one week seemed to ________ as soon as I learned the next skill. I looked up the same ________ and language structures over and over again.

A couple of________ later,   I can listen to the news in French and catch 90 percent of it on the first try,   read a novel if the language is not too difficult,   and hold up my end of a ________ if it doesn’t go too fast. Who knows what I might still ________?   I’ve learned so much beyond grammar and vocabulary. I’ve met people from around the world who have the ________ to make fools of themselves to learn something new. I have a ________ understanding of how something can look completely different from another perspective. I’ve learned that a language is not just a set of words,   but a way of ________.

But most of all, I’ve learned that it really is never too late to learn something new.

How do young people learn best? This is something I think a lot when I am teaching foreign languages to young people. I often ______ that traditional teaching ______ are hardly effective for young brains to learn a foreign language.

After moving to southern Italy, I was ______ to have had the chance to ______ a private course teaching English to children under 7. I ______ children liked singing and enjoyed games so I wanted to use these ______ to help my students ______ English conversation skills. I found some fun and easy songs online,______ they loved. I also found the English version of some nursery rhymes (童谣) they once were ______ with. All of them were very entertaining and helpful but ______ could still not have a basic ______ in English.

I wanted these guys to be ______ in the language I was teaching and I also wished them to speak it. I was eager to deliver 90 % of my lessons in English.______, I knew it would be difficult to get them to talk in a foreign language they ______ speak outside our lessons. So I had to ______ a simple yet effective plan.

One day I decided to ______ a dialogue in English and rather than simply getting students to repeat the phrases, I got them to sing and chant (唱)______. I discovered that chanting along to some conversational sentences was a practical way to get students to speak in English — it ______!

So when teaching English to young people now, I ______ them to make up their own songs and chants to help them remember ______ or complex sentences.