Do you speak Farsi?

We all had a nice break over Christmas to recharge our batteries for the new year ahead - which was just as well as our first lesson back left me feeling dazed and confused. As part of the TESOL course, there is a section called 'The Unknown Language,' which sounds like we're going on an expedition to the Amazon to track down a member of a remote tribe, but actually, it just means learning a language that is unknown to us. We have a teacher called Artemis in the school who was originally from Iran, so the unknown language on our TESOL course is Farsi. I had been quite excited about the four Farsi lessons we would be taking. It's always nice to learn new skills and I was looking forward to speaking to Artemis in her native tongue.

So we all shuffled into class on Tuesday night, not really knowing what to expect. Personally, I've not studied another language in a classroom setting since I was at school, so I surprised myself by beginning to feel slightly nervous. As this was our first meeting since early December, Artemis greeted us in English and did some housekeeping also, thankfully, in English as if she had tried to explain teaching timetables in Farsi, I don't think any of us would have been where we needed to be! She then changed into Farsi and began the lesson.


"Salom," she said, which I immediately recognised as hello. Unfortunately, that was the only word I immediately recognised and I struggled through the rest of the lesson in a fog of near-impenetrable incomprehension. However, even though I couldn't understand a word, the way Artemis taught made the fog begin to lift, even though she only spoke Farsi for the whole hour. She was very animated and used a lot of actions which really helped, pointing to herself when she made her introductions and then to us when she asked us who we were, making the meaning of her words clear. This combined with the repetition of the phrases helped us to be able to talk to each other in Farsi in no time. She then wrote the phrases we had just learnt on the board, showing us how the words were formed of letters and the different sounds the letters signified. This helped enormously with a later exercise when she picked up items from around the room and taught us their names, then asked us to match them with their written forms as we could go into code-cracking mode and try to link the sounds with the letters in the various words. Richard (my work partner for this exercise) and I spent our time in this exercise repeating the names of the items back and forth to each other, then pointing to the letters and saying things like, "I think that's a ssss,' and feeling like we were back in kindergarten!

I love the way the TESOL course gives us the opportunity to experience life as a language student as it gives you an incredible insight into how your own students must feel, which allows you reflect on your own teaching styles. I learnt just how important actions and repetition are, particularly for beginners and how the transition from spoken to written forms of the language can be effected. I'm sure I will learn much more in the lessons to come.