For the featured partner segment of this newsletter, we’ve interviewed two CLS members who are both learners of a foreign language as well as foreign language instructors: Eric Pelzl, a postdoctoral Fellow at Penn State and soon-to-be professor in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Carolin Jolitz, a graduate student in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures. Each offers a unique perspective on the role of motivation in language learning, and how it has played out in their own learning of a foreign language as well as in their teaching. We hope their stories of challenge and success will help you connect to your own learning motivation, and appreciate the diversity of language learning experience across different individuals and learning contexts.
Eric Pelzl
Carolin Jolitz
1. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and why you decided to come to Penn State?
Eric: My path to research began with a decade spent learning and teaching Mandarin Chinese. I spent about three years in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, then taught Mandarin at the college level here in the United States. With those experiences in mind, I went to grad school to study Second Language Acquisition. I wanted to understand what makes learning Chinese hard, why it’s hard, and what might be done to make it easier. I ended up studying psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, but the practical applications of research have always been a priority for me. Right at the time I was finishing my doctorate, the Center for Language Science was looking to hire a postdoctoral scholar, and I was thrilled to join this awesome research community
Carolin: I came to Penn State as an exchange student with the intention of staying one academic year. My main reason for coming was the wonderful opportunity to teach German to undergraduate students, which was also a major factor in my decision to stay and pursue a doctorate.
2. Can you tell us more about your language background? Do you speak a second language, and if so, what drove you to pursue this language?
Eric: I grew up in southern Minnesota speaking English. I learned a little bit of Latin and German in high school. In college I studied Latin, German, Greek, and Hebrew, but the primary goal of the classes was to read ancient texts, so we never practiced spoken language skills. I always wanted to learn to speak a new language, and in my late twenties when I had the opportunity, I went to China to teach English. I’ve been learning Mandarin ever since.
Carolin: In Germany, learning (British) English and one additional foreign language is mandatory in high school. In fifth grade, I began learning English as my first second language, and in seventh grade, I had the option of choosing between Latin and French as my third language. I studied both English and French until I graduated from high school.
3. Could you tell us more about your experience learning a second language? How did your motivation to learn develop over time?
Eric: I think the first thing that drew me into Chinese was the writing system. I always liked learning the alphabets of Hebrew and Greek and spent a lot more time than was required working on my handwriting while learning them. Given that literacy in Chinese requires knowing two to three thousand characters, Chinese let me go crazy with that urge. I didn’t take any formal classes, but worked with tutors while living in China. When you’re in a context where the language is used, its very rewarding to make progress. The first time I successfully ordered food or gave directions in a taxi felt like major achievements. But learning Mandarin wasn’t fast. Despite my passion for learning Chinese characters, it was still almost two years of continuous studying before I was able to read my first novel. Conversation developed more quickly, but after the initial stages where you master specific useful tasks like taxis and restaurants, progress feels slower. You’re basically trying to learn to converse about a wide range of topics, so you just learn how to talk about those things bit by bit, and it can be easy to lose motivation at that point. The opportunity to teach Mandarin is probably the thing that pushed me forward. In order to teach my students well, I was constantly needing to improve my own language skills. To this day, however, I have kind of a warped linguistic inventory. I’m extremely fluent with basic Chinese, but my vocabulary on any given topic doesn’t run very deep. Keeping motivation up is definitely tricky. As long as I lived in a community that was using Mandarin, I was highly motivated to keep learning. The bigger challenge was that, once I wasn’t in that situation anymore—especially while at grad school—there wasn’t much pressure or reward for continuing to study. These days, I still occasionally watch Chinese TV shows or read Chinese novels to keep my skill fresh, but sometimes I go for long stretches of time without using much Chinese.
Carolin: During high school, I learned English for eight years and French for six years exclusively in the classroom. When I came to the United States for my study abroad year, I hadn’t used any English in four years and didn’t feel very confident speaking it. I struggled a lot at first speaking and understanding English, especially because I learned British English in school and had never been to the United States before. Speaking has always been the most difficult challenge for me, especially in conversations with multiple people. I feel like I must speak as quickly as the others to keep up. However, being surrounded by the language and basically being forced to speak it helped me to pick up on expressions, learn idioms, and expand my vocabulary over time. After about half a year in the United States, I noticed that I started becoming more confident. I remember watching a movie for the first time entirely in English, and being thrilled that I could understand most of what they were saying. After my first English presentation in my first semester at Penn State, I told myself: “Wow, you just presented something entirely in English in front of others for the first time, and it seems like they actually understood you.” Every experience that I found challenging and frightening (e.g., my first presentation, oral exams) but somehow managed to overcome was, in the end, always a rewarding experience.
4. Can you tell us about your experience as a language instructor? What language(s) do you teach and what kinds of students are in your classroom? What kinds of things do your students struggle with? What do you think motivates them?
Eric: In China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan I taught English. In the United States, I taught Mandarin. The students in my English classes varied widely, from young children to retirees and everything in between. My Mandarin classes have all been taught in colleges/universities in the United States. About the only thing that is true for all those groups is that every person is different. The things they find easy or hard, interesting or boring, the reasons why they want to learn, are almost never the same for everyone in a class. When teaching Chinese, some students loved learning Chinese characters, while others were much more interested in spoken language. Some started out taking the course just to fill a requirement, but then ended up going to China after they graduated. Others seemed to find it fun and were making good progress, but then stopped and I never knew why.
Carolin: My first teaching experience was in 2017 at the Goethe Institut in Bangkok, Thailand. I was teaching face-to-face conversation classes to adult intermediate Thai native speakers. They were all very motivated and interested in learning German because most of them planned to work and live in Germany in the future. This experience made me realize how much I enjoy teaching German and that I want to continue teaching in my future career. Here at Penn State, I have taught German at various levels, both remotely and in the classroom. The majority of my students are undergraduate students from the United States, Asia, or India. Many students struggle with speaking German and learning German grammar. Additionally, they often have unrealistic expectations regarding their own language learning abilities and anticipate being more proficient than they actually are after learning it for such a short time. This can be very frustrating for them. I noticed that students tend to be more engaged when they learn and practice German in a more playful way, by playing games or in the context of learning about German culture.
5. Do you have any advice for people who might be struggling with motivation while learning a foreign language?
Eric: Like I said above, it’s not easy to keep your motivation up. I try to find things that I can do in Chinese that I would want to do, even if I didn’t care about learning the language. For example, texting with Chinese friends (who live in China), since I’m naturally interested in knowing about their lives and what they’re up to, or watching Chinese movies or TV shows that I am interested in. I also read novels or books in Chinese on topics that I want to read about anyways. But still the best way to motivate myself is to go to a place where Mandarin is the local language. In any case, I think we can all remind ourselves that learning a language is a long-term commitment and it’s OK if our motivation waxes and wanes over time.
Carolin: Learning a foreign language takes time and effort. Speaking outside the classroom can be even more intimidating than in the classroom, and it can be frustrating to know what you want to say in your head but be unable to express it verbally. My suggestion is to take it step by step and set attainable, small goals for yourself. Learn more about the culture and find your own personal motivation. And connect with other learners and motivate each other! You’d be surprised at how many people struggle with understanding the same grammar concept or pronouncing the same word as you. Struggling is normal, so don’t let it discourage you. Use different learning resources, such as videos, music, or apps. And reward yourself, because every step, no matter how small, is a step toward improving your ability to use a foreign language!