What I cannot hear, I can't pronounce
When a person learns a foreign language, they usually start once they can already read and write their native language. In Germany, many children nowadays have the opportunity to acquire basic knowledge of English or French in elementary school by listening and repeating. Unfortunately, foreign language teachers in secondary schools consider this pointless. For them, a language needs to be learnt by memorizing vocabulary and drilling sentence patterns for the acquisition of grammar rules.
For French the auditory researcher Alfred Tomatis, however, listening and speaking are closely linked. In my opinion, his insights must also be applied to (foreign) language acquisition. His findings suggest that all language teaching should begin with pure listening.
Growing up bilingual – an advantage for language learning
I was fortunate enough not only to grow up bilingual in English and German, but also to learn French in a playful way, starting at the age of 7. For the first 2 years, I only learned by listening and repeating, without having to write in French. When English was finally added to the curriculum in grade 5 and French in grade 7, I found it very easy to learn writing and to acquire more vocabulary in both languages. However, it was only decades later that I realized exactly what my advantage had been. That insight drove me to search for scientific background information and ways to make foreign language learning easier for everyone. Reading Alfred Tomatis’ autobiography “The Ear and Life” was pure inspiration:
Alfred Tomatis (1920–2001), a trained ENT doctor, was born in Nice into a family of opera singers of Italian descent. His research on hearing made significant contributions to language learning. His insight is often quoted: “The larynx only produces sounds that the ear can hear.” He discovered how closely voice and hearing are related in his work with singers. Enrico Caruso’s hearing problems even gave rise to his characteristic voice. At Tomatis’ home in Nice, the local dialect, Patois, was spoken. His grandfather, who had taught himself French, was his great role model. The young Tomatis first learned French at school and found it quite difficult at first. But he discovered early on that he could remember facts better if he read the teaching material aloud to himself. Incidentally, this was also the my personal strategy, at least with foreign languages, history, and geography.
In the past, lesson texts were read aloud in language classes. Recently, however, language teachers and students have found this too boring. Modern language teaching focuses on communication. This is very commendable in itself. But students still have to memorize vocabulary lists and cram grammar rules. However, they do so without hearing the vocabulary and grammar in context—over and over again. Sometimes old methods had a deeper meaning after all. They can be modernized, but abolishing them does not make things easier for students.
The following section discusses how Tomatis’ research findings can affect the learning of a foreign language.
Hearing is the foundation
We all know how difficult it can be to pronounce certain sounds in a foreign language, such as the English “th.” For many Germans, it sounds like an “s”, for others like a “d” and is therefore pronounced that way. This is precisely where the problem lies: learners who grew up in families that did not speak English never heard this sound. Alfred Tomatis discovered that even unborn babies begin to hear their mother’s voice and the sounds of their environment as early as the fifth month of pregnancy. This could be a good reason why it is so easy for us to learn our mother tongue: We have been familiar with the sounds since before we were born. If the mother does not speak or hear any other languages during pregnancy, the child is only prepared for this one “mother tongue.”
In Alfred Tomatis’ autobiography, “The Ear and Life,” he tells the story of a 4-year-old French girl who understood English better than her native language. Her father had taken his daughter to the doctor because this threatened to become a handicap. Tomatis, however, asked whether the mother had perhaps spoken English during her pregnancy. It turned out that she had indeed worked as an interpreter during the first three months.
Hearing can be trained
Tomatis developed the so-called “electronic ear” to help his patients improve their hearing. In his autobiography, he quotes his colleague André Le Gall’s opinion on the further possibilities of this device: “A French person can acquire an excellent English accent through long stays in England or quickly through the use of this device, but as soon as they return to Paris, they hear and speak French again.” (“The correction of certain psychological and psychopedagogical deficiencies through the use of the Tomatis effect device. March 1961).
Proof that the electronic ear was actually used in this way was found on YouTube: in an interview, actor Gérard Depardieu (French with English transcript) explains how he learned English using the Tomatis method. He has mastered the language so well that he understands everything. His accent is so slight that he has been very successful as an actor in Hollywood.
Our warm-up for language learning:
Based on this research, I decided to start our language courses with listening exercises. Each of our courses begins with an audio recording made with native speakers. Of course the student will not understand anything at first. But with regular listening, they begin to distinguish individual words and memorize the intonation of the sentences.
In the second step, students listen to the audio text while reading a word-for-word translation of the decoded material. This makes it easy to learn vocabulary in context. The sentence structure and grammar are naturally absorbed on a deeper level at first. Later, however, they can be retrieved intuitively. This means that students notice when they make a mistake and can correct themselves. After all, they have heard it correctly thousands of times.