{"id":642,"date":"2014-09-24T18:19:11","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T23:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/?p=642"},"modified":"2014-09-24T18:19:11","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T23:19:11","slug":"whoa-oh-were-halfway-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/2014\/09\/24\/whoa-oh-were-halfway-there\/","title":{"rendered":"Whoa, oh, we’re halfway there…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, after six weeks in PNG, Lael and I are both more than half-way through learning Tok Pisin! Last week, Lael and I finished our first culture and language evaluation for the trade language here in Papua New Guinea. We had the privilege of being evaluated by Aaron Luse, a consultant and tribal church-planter who has been doing tribal language evals for the last seven years.\u00a0Our \u201ctests\u201d were actually pretty fun (and nothing like other language tests we’ve previously had in school).<\/span><\/p>\n

As our friend Doug likes to explain, \u201cLanguage consultants are like the winch on a Jeep; they get you unstuck and back on the road.\u201d The main purpose of being evaluated is to keep us from plateauing in our language ability by spotting problem areas, suggesting new language learning tools\/techniques, and offering generally awesome nuggets of linguistic wisdom!<\/span><\/p>\n

What does a language eval actually look like? <\/strong><\/span>
\nTerry and Rosewita are two of our favorite language helpers, so Lael and I went to their house with Aaron and storied with them. First, Aaron had Terry tell us about his family in Tok Pisin. Then, in English, I told\u00a0Aaron everything Terry said. This checked my comprehension level. Next, Aaron had Lael tell Terry and Rosewita about my family in Tok Pisin, and then Terry and Rosewita storied about what they heard Lael explain. I then told about Lael\u2019s family. Try explaining her dad’s job in supply-chain management for huge oil drills in another language!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Terry<\/a>
Terry has been an amazing language helper. Aaron gave us communication tasks and evaluated our progress. Our test felt more like a long guided conversation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aaron also asked Lael and me look around and alternate using nouns we saw in sentences. \u201cWhere\u2019d you buy that bush knife<\/strong>?\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s a nice bowl<\/strong>.\u201d Etc. Each of us told stories about our childhood. Lael talked about growing up playing soccer, and I talked about catching fish in the pond by my childhood house. Terry told each of our stories back. We recorded our versions and Terry\u2019s versions, so we could see how we structured our stories differently:\u00a0How do they begin a story? Which details are important to them, and which ones do they leave out? How do they make transitions in topics? \u00a0This showed where we were at in our story-telling abilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our last assignments were pretty stretching. Lael had to try and explain the giant Christmas light show at Rhema Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I had to try and explain facial hair fashion\/fads in America. All of this was off-the-cuff conversation, which is really the goal of these evaluations: how well can you communicate in everyday life?<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Four\u00a0Categories of Language Learning:<\/strong><\/span>
\nBasic (word level)<\/span>
\nProgressing (sentence level)<\/span>
\nCapable (paragraph level)<\/span>
\nProficient (story\/discourse level)<\/span><\/p>\n

Each of these categories has a low, mid, and high distinction, so there are really twelve levels in all. By the end of our orientation time, we need to be at Capable High (or level 9 of 12). I\u2019m at Progressing Mid, and Lael is at Progressing High! I married a brilliant wife!<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me explain what this actually means. Progressing High means that Lael is mostly operating in the level above (Capable\/Paragraph level) but sometimes dips down into sentence level. She\u2019s pretty comfortable stringing sentences together, but hasn\u2019t mastered<\/em> structuring them in natural sounding stories. Progressing Mid means that I sometimes spike up into Paragraph level and have no trouble operating at sentence level. Progressing Low would mean that you never sink down to Basic or Word level, but you\u2019re not yet putting sentences into paragraphs.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re enthusiastic about our progress and ready to implement some of the great tools and advice from our consultant. Thanks for all your prayers!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, after six weeks in PNG, Lael and I are both more than half-way through learning Tok Pisin! Last week, Lael and I finished our first culture and language evaluation for the trade language here in Papua New Guinea. We had the privilege of being evaluated by Aaron Luse, a consultant and tribal church-planter who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":947,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[448,3263,6387,1338,1571,1339,1059,450,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-family","7":"category-ministry","8":"tag-ethnos360","9":"tag-grammar","10":"tag-language-evaluation","11":"tag-language-helper","12":"tag-language-learning","13":"tag-learning-language","14":"tag-missionary-training","15":"tag-new-tribes","16":"tag-new-tribes-mission","17":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/947"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}