STORY
The other day, Camilla's friend Lisa - aged 6 - recited for us a little poem which she had learned in her English class. This little poem provided some food for thought. The poem is obviously meant as some sort of a mnemonic device which should help little children learning English to memorize English words:У обезьянки - a monkey -
Была подружка - a frog - лягушка.
Был дружок - a cock - петушок,
Была сестричка - a fox - лисичка.
Были еще: a rabbit - крольчонок,a bear - медвежонок,a duckling - утенок,a chick - цыпленок,a lion - львенок,an elephant - слоненок,a hare - зайчонок,a wolf - волчонок,a tiger - тигренок,
Поросенок - a pig - и был он very, very big!A black cat - черный кот,
И козленочек - a goat.
И жили они в лесу - in the wood -
И были так хороши - very good.
А около озера - near the lake -
Жила большая змея - a big snake.It was very hungry - она была голодна -And always angry - и всегда была зла.
A charming little poem if you just look at it. Lisa's Mom was totally happy: Lisa has learnt so many words and so quickly! It was the moment when we were saying good-bye, and I didn't have much time to say anything. There was one thing, though, which was unusual for a rather talented Lisa who normally picks up the correct pronunciation very easily: all the English words in this poem were pronounced by her with a very heavy Russian accent. What was wrong?
I thought about it and tried to pronounce the poem myself, then asked Camilla who is a native speaker of both English and Russian, to do the same. It all became very clear. It is next to impossible to quickly pronounce a mixture of English and Russian words with correct sounds in both languages. There is a thing which in Russian linguistics is called "артикуляционный уклад" and can be translated into English as "the default position of organs of speech typical of a language". When a person speaks a language, the organs of speech are all 'tuned' for this particular language. When a person switches into another language, the organs of speech need to be 'retuned'. To do it quickly, requires experience, a good command of the phonetics of both languages and some effort. When I read the poem slowly, with pauses, it was not that hard. But little children are always in a hurry! When Camilla read it, she laughed a lot and said, "Look, Mommy, I can't say "обезьяНки", I want to say "обезьяNGки" when it comes before 'monkey'!"
DISCUSSION:
From the PHONETICS standpoint.
Is it really so useful to use such poems while teaching little kids? I like drawing parallels. What parallels can we draw here? While swimming, try switching back and forth between crawl and breast-stroke. Or try putting one roller-blade on and one regular shoe. Or try switching between two different songs while singing: My bonnie is over the Ocean. Row row row your boat. My bonnie is over the sea. Gently down the stream... If there's one thing children can really pick up well at a young age, it is sounds and intonation. When children learn this poem, this ability is wasted, because they don't have a chance to concentrate on the English sounds and intonation.
From the standpoint of a FOREIGN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
When people learn a foreign language, they often think that in a target language words mean exactly the same as in their mother-tongue, in other words, that their semantic fields overlap completely. This is partially true for concrete notions, but even among those, there are many exceptions. A simple example would be the phenomenon of differentiation: in English, for example, body parts are a lot more differentiated than in Russian, just think of hands, arms, fingers, thumbs, legs, feet and toes! Abstract notions would include such words as "to congratulate" and "поздравлять", the meanings of which do overlap but not completely. There are also many words which do exist in one language and do not exist in the other: "challenge", "decadent", "нельзя", "жалко (в смысле "не дам: мне самому надо - жалко отдавать")", etc. This is why it is probably a lot more useful from the very start to learn new English words, thinking not of their translation into Russian, but rather, thinking of the notions they represent. Translations in this poem, therefore, would not be a very good idea.
BOTTOM LINE
It is a lot more useful learning just English poems, songs, chants, etc. Want more fun - use Carolyn Graham's Children's Jazz chants!
There is only one thing that needs to be added here. It is also obvious, that this poem was written with much love and it is a shame not to use it altogether. It can very well be used as a tongue-twister for phonetically more advanced students!
