Advanced level in only 19 weeks?

[Gharial]

Just thought this would be of interest, especially to those outside the UK (who may not be able to access 4oD, the Channel 4 "on demand" embedded video player), even though it concerns Arabic rather than Chinese.

 

I've just finished watching, rewatching, and making notes on an episode of a UK Channel 4 series called 'Hidden Talent'. This particular episode was about talent for language learning. The blurb from TV Guide UK:

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Hidden Talent

Season 1 Episode 3 of 6

University of Leeds lecturer Dr Radia Kesseiri, Dr Anil Biltoo of the School of Oriental and African Studies and Maj Eddie Trowbridge of the Defence School of Languages use the Modern Languages Aptitude Test to identify members of the public with previously undetected linguistic skills. James Whinnery, a 19-year-old A-Level drop-out, impresses them the most, and is challenged to spend 19 weeks learning Arabic, one of the world's most complex languages. Richard Bacon presents

 

Here's my summary of the episode:

 

Hundreds of applicants, with no experience of or qualifications in foreign languages beyond what they might've studied at school, were asked to take the MLAT etc. The top 5 then spent a day learning basic hospitality phrases and menu vocabulary in Turkish, after which they were sent to a Turkish restaurant to act as waiters and take orders. James Whinnery impressed the observing (live cam) judges the most, and was thus packed off as the winner to SOAS to begin his all-expenses-paid study of Arabic.

 

The SOAS course was apparently intensive, "with up to 100 words to memorize each day". It was hard to get an idea of the exact timescale of this UK-based portion of his studies, but the informal progress tests along the way consisted of ordering a few dishes (e.g. hummus) from an Arabic menu; following satnav directions to 3 Arab-related landmarks in London (but due to him not understanding which exit from a roundabout, they went in circles a few times and the journey took 3 hours rather than just the planned 1); and finally being briefly interviewed live on air by a London-based Arabic radio station.

 

This last task didn't go too well: after the first 3 questions (in brief: How are you? Fine thanks. Tell us about yourself - I'm from Birmingham. Why are you studying Arabic?... ), James didn't quite understand the remaining few, as he began when connectedly asked "Do you have any friends who speak Arabic?" to talk about Irish friends instead, and simply gave an ambiguous "I don't know" in response to "How long have you been living in London?" (with which the interviewer was linking back to/picking up on what James had said a little earlier about coming from Birmingham).

 

He then jetted off to Jordan, where he spent six weeks living with a native host family, while studying/immersed in an Arabic-only TASOL programme at the University of Jordan, and working evenings in a bar-restaurant. The aim was to get him from "intermediate" to "advanced", so that he would be able to appear in a televised interview and in it talk on "unprepared topics". In the informal conversations between arrival and interview, he conversed on simple matters such as saying he couldn't sing any songs/would only be able to sing "sometime later/in the future", asking strangers if they knew Birmingham and the singer Ozzy Osbourne ("He's from there"), haggling for a vase ("How much? 2 dinars? *Can me having it?"), and informing one of his work colleagues that he'd be appearing on TV ("I'll be on TV. On the 'New Day' programme. Do many people watch it?").

 

Finally the day of the TV interview came. The interviewer started by introducing him and saying that they'd be speaking in Arabic, but slowly as he'd requested (which prompted James to laugh, showing he'd caught that bit). Then there was a short exchange about his age and how, God willing, he'd have many more years to live LOL. His longest answer was to the main topic, the nicely-guiding "Let's talk about the nature of your test, and why you chose Arabic", during which he briefly recounted the details of the Turkish restaurant test he'd won ("At first, I was in a competition, and I had to do my last test in languages. For the test, I had to speak in Turkish"). The interview closed with him giving a few comments about his studies generally ("In fact my teacher is not allowed to speak English"; "My university was excellent").

 

In conclusion, Richard Bacon was of the enthusiastic but potentially somewhat uninformed opinion that James had crammed 2 years of study into just 5 months, whilst the Leeds lecturer seemed more inclined to view it for what it was (i.e. as ultimately months rather than years), but was still full of praise for the measure of fluency he'd achieved, saying that it was rare for somebody with only that period/amount of study to be so willing and able to speak at any length at all.

 

Personally, I have a sneaking suspicion that the level (certainly, the formal level) that the guy attained was probably only intermediate at best (i.e. the programme was being a bit too triumphalist and generous, as is the case with so much "reality" TV nowadays), but kudos to him regardless! It sure beats e.g. a lot of the out-of-tune wailing that passes for singing, or the group stance-sway-stance so-called "dancing", on shows like the X-Factor or Britain's Got Talent.

 

Anyway, you can hopefully view the MLAT at least, if not the programme itself, here:

http://www.channel4....en-talent-tests

[Gharial]

This is coming way too late, but I've only just noticed that there's a bit in tonight's Hidden Talent episode (starting in less than an hour!) that fills us in on what James Whinnery's been doing and how he's been getting on since the above third episode was made. Here's the Radio Times' blurb:

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6/6. Six months after 19-year-old James Whinnery learnt to speak Arabic fluently, Richard Bacon hears how his newfound skill saved his life and changed him completely. The programme also catches up with...

 

I'll write up another quick summary once I've seen this sixth and final episode.

[Gharial]

Hmm, a bit of a let-down!

 

Around 15 minutes towards the end of the program were devoted to Whinnery. Most of it was recap, with the only real news being that, somewhat contrary to the viewer's expectations, he hadn't continued with the Arabic, and was now doing a "teaching course" (presumably a cheap online/distance short TEFL taster without any observed practicum) with a view to going to Japan and learning Japanese.

 

Ah well, at least he'll be eligible for a working holiday visa, but whether he'll have the time to learn much Japanese with his nose to an eikaiwa or dispatch AET grindstone (assuming he gets hired) is another story. Maybe we'll see him on a forum like this one day, 班门弄斧ing or whatever!