How to Keep Your Language Alive: A Commonsense Approach to One-on-One Language Learning (review)

This book is primarily a guide for how to do master-apprentice language immersion with no more than two dedicated individuals—a native-speaker teacher and a learner—although it also provides suggestions for adapting the approach to a classroom situation and for establishing an immersion program in one’s community. Aimed primarily at the apprentice, it is a rich source of methods, activities, and other valuable information about language learning. While never downplaying the commitment required, Hinton et al. lay out a map that presents learning a heritage language as a realistically attainable achievement and an immensely rewarding process.

The introduction briefly outlines key aspects of the pedagogy underlying the book, including Stephen Krashen’s input hypothesis (The input hypothesis, New York: Longman, 1985) which proposes that a person learns a language by understanding what is said; total physical response (TPR), where spoken language is accompanied by pertinent physical actions; acquisition of communicative competence in various language-use situations; and monolingual elicitation by the apprentice from the master.

Chs. 1–3 provide information useful to know before beginning immersion sessions. Ch. 1 aims to dispel some common myths about what successful language learning requires, including some that even linguists who work with indigenous languages might believe, such as the need for financial resources or community support. Ch. 2 presents an overview of the advocated approach and methods, such as completely avoiding the use of English (or, presumably, whatever the dominant language is), using complete sentences, and focusing on attaining effective skills in listening and speaking rather than writing. Ch. 3 outlines general goals after the first, second, and third years, and beyond, including both language competency benchmarks for the individual apprentice and ways to increase community use of the language.

Chs. 4–6 describe the structure of a typical immersion session and a range of communicative situations around which it could be centered. There are also useful guidelines for planning even early immersion sessions without using English, keeping a journal of material covered, and making audio/video recordings. Ch. 7 is about acquiring vocabulary in a more focused way and provides lists of semantic domains, actions, and states likely to be expressed by verbs in the target language, and some situation-specific vocabulary. Ch. 8 discusses learning grammar, and while the explicit study of grammar is argued to be largely unnecessary, examples of what to practice in terms of specific language functions, such as question formation or negation, are given.

Chs. 9–11 offer suggestions for more advanced stages of immersion, including exploring grammatical and sociolinguistic nuances, telling stories, and using written materials. Ch. 12 discusses some of the obstacles that participants may encounter as they progress further (e.g. plateaus in learning) and makes the point that the goal of language learning is to continue to find new challenges to master.

Linguists tempted to quibble with a few theoretical details, such as the partly notional treatment of word classes in Ch. 7, should remember that they are not the targeted readership. While there have been previous publications about language immersion, such as the recent volume that Hinton edited with Ken Hale (The green book of language revitalization in practice, San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2001), they have not generally been aimed at the immersion participants themselves. This new book, whose principal author helped originate the master-apprentice immersion program a decade ago, is an excellent contribution to fill that gap, and will hopefully prove useful and inspiring to its audience.