Published as "Use the most appropriate language to get through"
Kayee Man & Dewi Susanti
Ever experienced tearing your hair out over not being able to get through to someone?
We have. What's wrong with the people who just don't get it? With some afterthought, we conclude that most of the time, we're just not using the right language to communicate with people.
There are close to 7,000 languages around the world. One can never be certain about too many things, but we would bet our bottom dollar that it would be impossible to learn all the languages in the world in one's lifetime.
So what language or languages should we learn so that people understand us?
Should we strengthen our English, the language considered by many to be the lingua franca? Or learn Mandarin, the most widely spoken language in the world? Or Spanish, the third-most widely spoken language in the world?
Or, perhaps Bahasa Indonesia, the local language?
You might have read Bill Bryson's book The Mother Tongue (1990). In it, he wrote about a German engineer posted to China to work in a German business venture. We can only imagine what it's like for the German engineer to speak English to the Chinese plant manager who can't speak German.
Funnier perhaps is Bryson's story of some companies from four non-English speaking European countries that formed the joint venture called Iveco.
English was the chosen working language and one of the founders commented "it puts us all at an equal disadvantage."
Funny for observers, perhaps. But if you already have been in situations similar to the stories, you won't see this situation bringing much laughter to the poor souls who were probably tearing their hair out trying to be understood.
You most likely can relate to the fact that even being fluent in English does not provide a solution to communication problems in the era of globalization.
Think 'visually'
Before you rush out to sign up for Mandarin or English or Indonesian classes, consider signing up instead to learn a universal language that most of us are not fluent or fully trained in: the visual language.
J. A. Adams, in his book Conceptual Blockbusting (2001), suggested that there are three problem-solving languages or, if you prefer, languages we think with. The three are: verbal (which we are using to think and write for this article), mathematical, and visual.
In our training, we have worked with many people who automatically use their verbal or mathematical knowledge to solve problems.
This doesn't come as a surprise as we are well trained in using words and mathematics in school. The downside in doing this is that not all problems can be solved verbally or mathematically.
Consider this problem used as an example by Adams: "One morning, exactly at sunrise, a Buddhist monk began to climb a tall mountain. A narrow path, no more than 30 to 60 centimeters wide, spiraled around the mountain to a glittering temple at the summit.
The monk ascended at varying rates of speed, stopping many times along the way to rest and eat dried fruit he carried with him. He reached the temple shortly before sunset.
After several days of fasting and meditation he began his journey back along the same path, starting at sunrise and again walking at variable speeds with many pauses along the way.
His average speed on the descent was, of course, greater than on the ascent. Prove that there is a spot along the path that the monk will occupy at both trips at precisely the same time of day." (Adams, 2001, p. 4)
We won't give you the answer just yet. To heighten your chances of solving this problem, remember that one big hint has already been given (consider using something other than words or math to solve this problem).
If you did make an attempt to solve this problem, did you use words or math? How easy or hard was it for you to not use numbers and equations?
Kayee likes to think mathematically and logically (she even reduced a new organizational structure into a mathematical equation). When she tried this and other problems, even knowing that she should not be thinking mathematically, the symbols and equations kept popping into her head.
She couldn't get away from them. What made it hard for Kayee to get away from the math was partly habit, but also, at the time, the lack of an alternative language at her disposal.
Dewi, trained in the visual arts and as an architect, is a visual thinker. If you too are a visual thinker, you may have the answer to the problem by now.
Try to produce the following two images in your mind: a person ascending a mountain on a spiral path (hold this image), a person descending a mountain on a spiral path (hold this image). Now, overlap these two images and you will have one person ascending and one person descending the same mountain. Where the two people meet is the point where their paths coincide.
The mathematically inclined among you may ask: so where exactly is the meeting point? How far in kilometers from the base of the mountain? What are the bearings? But did the problem ask for a specific spot, or just a spot? The point is that with some problems, we can only answer them without the exactness that some of us are accustomed to.
Use props
Recently, when working with some high school students on the problem, we found that knowing that it was necessary to think in images was not enough. For these students, it was a challenge to retain the above images in their heads.
As a helping tool, Dewi offered them a mosquito repellent that was lying around the room, with a shape like a cone to represent the mountain. We also gave them two toothpicks to represent the monk: one going up, and one going down. The students saw the solution at once. Having a concrete object to handle helped their thinking.
Using props is a very common teaching strategy for young children but less common for adults.
In our view, using props as teaching or communication tools should not be determined based on age but on (you can probably guess by now) the language in which a learner or listener feels most comfortable thinking.
Some of us may not only think more effectively visually but also concretely and kinesthetically, meaning, we need to be handling concrete objects to understand and problem solve.
Next time you are faced with a problem, think first: which is the best language to solve the problem with? Is it with words, math, or images? It may be one of these or a combination of them.
Effective use of language
Returning to our question of which is the best language to learn: In our opinion there is no one best or universal language.
Know your problem; figure out which language (verbal, mathematical or visual) is the most appropriate for the problem. Be aware of your own language preferences so you know when it becomes a hindrance to your thinking.
When communicating to others, gauge your listener's thinking language preference and design your message as much as possible using this preferred language.
If your listener doesn't seem to understand your chain of words, describe an image for him to see in his head and ask, "do you see it now?"
If your listener can't see what you are describing, can you put your message across using mathematical symbols and equations?
If you are not sure in which language your listener thinks best, package your message in a way that will tap into the use of all three thinking languages!
Even if you are multilingual in several languages, you strengthen your thinking and communication abilities only verbally.
If you broaden your repertoire of languages to include the more universal mathematical and visual languages, not only will this help you in thinking about and solving problems, they may also be your bullets in getting through to people.
No comments:
Post a Comment