A language consists of various components, the most important of which are:
- Vocabulary (a.k.a. lexicon)
- Conjugation (a.k.a. morphology)
- Sentence structure (a.k.a. syntax)
- Sounds (a.k.a. phonology)
The learner of a language often needs to deal with all of these things at the same time, and if written language is also involved, the sound-to-spelling conversion also enters into the equation.
Obviously, this is a lot to take in all at once. In fact, it is not possible to deal with all of these aspects at the same time, especially not if communication happens under time pressure, as often is the case in oral communication. But even when writing and reading, the learner finds themselves struggling with all of these layers at the same time. For this reason, it is tempting to want to focus on only one of the four above components at a time. In this approach, one component, such as say, vocabulary, is the sole focus of attention but taking it out of the context and ”learning” vocabulary items in isolation. We sometimes see this approach in beginners’ text books for learning Danish where vocabulary items are introduced on a list, perhaps with their indefinite article to indicate gender, and the following exercises have students enter vocabulary into a chart of conjugations or into a very simple template like ”Det er ____” (’it is ____’). Perhaps another exercise has students point to items and ask ”what is that ?” with the intention of internatlizing vocabulary. However, this approach to language components misses the underlying nature of language as a means of communication. Language was created for one specific purpose, and this purpose only – to convey information between concient beings. And for this reason, we need to approach language learning from a functional point of view. This does not mean, however, that we can’t be focused in our approach. We don’t have to jump right into complex conversations about art, math or philosophy right away. We can keep things simple while still taking a functional approach. For instance, we could have students write a grocery shopping list, join up in pairs and as each other the simple, but authentic question: ”Hvad skal du købe?” (’What are you going to buy?’) A dialogue could go something like this:
A: Hvad skal du have?
B: Jeg skal have tomater. (tomatoes)
A: Hvor mange tomater skal du have?
B: Jeg skal have fire tomater.
B: Hvad skal DU have?
A: Jeg skal have ananas. (pineapple)
B: Hvor mange ananas skal du have?
A: Jeg skal have en ananas.
A: Hvad skal DU have?
B: Jeg skal have brød. (bread)
A: Hvor mange brød skal du have?
B: Jeg skal have et brød.
This approach makes for more authentic communication. Not only because the topic is authentic and relates to students’ everyday lives, but also because otherwise unknown information is obtained from the act of asking – the purpose of language.
The above short dialogue involves all of the four components of language: vocabulary, conjugation, sentence structure and the production of sounds. And as I noted above, it is not possible for learners to keep track of all of these at once. So, they make mistakes. The make lots, and lots, of mistakes. But contrary to what they often think, this is not a bad thing. In fact, it is good, because it makes possible the testing and refinement of hypotheses and this constitutes the very fabric of language learning.