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Dr. Jane Orton: If Chinese Is Taught Well, We Can Learn It

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Dr. Jane Orton’s early foreign language instruction research centered on the “Silent Way” methodology, a theory that limits a teacher’s voice in the classroom. Fortunately, she does not apply this practice to her own life. As evidenced in our thirty-minute-turned-one-hour interview, one question can prompt Orton to share a myriad of thoughts, and it’s evident from her voice that Orton loves what she does.

While Orton claims to be retired and was thus unfazed by the overtime length of our interview, she is certainly far from unoccupied. When she answers my Skype call, I find she’s positioned in her living room with her laptop on her lap. The setting reminds me of my grandmother’s house, complete with a clock that chimes as I introduce myself. Orton is “delighted” to talk to anyone interested in Chinese, so we dive in.

Orton has dedicated her life to language instruction and education methodology research. Her skills as an educator, coupled with her personal history, have given her a unique perspective on the changes of Australia’s international engagement over the years. However, those skills would be meaningless without a fundamental love of learning. From the age of five, Orton kept a notebook to document every foreign word she encountered, and was “perfectly happy” learning French and German at school in a 1960s Australia where “Europe was the thing”. She went on to receive a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Melbourne with major studies in French and Philosophy and minor studies in German and Politics, but when cost limited her ability to travel to Europe, she embarked on a trip to Asia instead. She lights up as she discusses her love for Hong Kong, and it’s clear these early experiences significantly shaped the trajectory of her life.

Her first true encounter with learning Chinese came when she was working on the “Silent Way” in New York. As a guinea pig for that teaching method, she undertook an intensive Chinese course, which spurred a life-long dedication to the language. She returned to Australia to complete a four-year Honours degree from the University of Melbourne in Chinese Language and Literature, “the only way you could do it back then”. Orton then moved to Taiwan to further her studies, and later to Beijing to teach at the Beijing Teacher’s College (now Capital Normal University). After attending classes in psychology and the pedagogy of teaching alongside her own students, she returned to Melbourne to complete a PhD in Education at La Trobe University.

It’s certainly curious that Orton’s primary focus is on Chinese when she’s not Chinese herself, though being an outsider has given her a different perspective on the challenges of Chinese language instruction. Her background in languages shaped her interest in the actual process of language learning when she undertook Chinese for the first time, because it was “so different”. Similarly, her experience as an English Second Language (ESL) teacher, in France and in Australia, have educated her on the limitations of the native-speaker as an instructor, as “her students in France could have told her”. In Chinese, she explains that only a non-native speaker can understand the nuances of adopting a tonal language, something that is often overlooked in Chinese instruction. She believes that there is room for non-native speakers to advocate for cultures that are not their own, as she herself does everyday.

Orton is kind and eager to share her expertise with me, treating me as an equal with constant references to things she’s “sure I already know”. But she’s also firm. She prefaces our interview with a laugh, saying that she “can’t imagine” I’ll ask her anything she won’t want to answer, and she openly admits to getting herself into “hot water” when advocating for the importance of Chinese instruction in Australia. She explains that language instruction in Australia still comes from a very “white, male, Christian-backed” perspective, and her age has allowed her to see the impact of various government administrations on the resources allocated to Chinese programs. Yet, she’s adamant that her push for Chinese proficiency in Australia does not come from her personal “love” of Chinese culture; instead it arises from a purely strategic, political perspective. “When I pick up my newspaper, it’s not full of Italy, it’s not full of Germany, it’s full of China.”

While Orton has always been one to jump at the chance to take a class, to study a new topic or to learn a new subject, she doesn’t downplay the difficulty of learning Chinese. In addition to the lack of resources dedicated to Chinese study, the insufficient government backing of programs and scarcity of effective teachers and curriculum mean that Chinese is expensive and time-consuming to learn. It takes three-and-a-half times longer to learn Chinese than to learn another foreign language, and yet the same school time is allocated to Chinese as it is to French and Indonesian. While the outlook on Chinese instruction in Australia may seem bleak, Orton’s current projects are a source of optimism.  She currently consults a primary school whose students take classes in Chinese alongside their normal curriculum, and despite the obstacles, there is much in the program that brings her joy. Orton believes Chinese is not a lost cause in Australia: if it’s taught correctly, we can learn it.

That being said, Orton believes there is more to gain from learning a language than simply achieving fluency. In her current project, she sees children conquering the puzzles of learning different languages. “Why are there two words for brother in Chinese? Because age is the most significant social divider is all of Chinese society.” A child learns that in week two. You don’t necessarily “learn the violin to become a violinist”; similarly, by learning a language, especially one so different from English, you’ll learn much about culture and society in addition to mastering the code.

As for her retirement? From publishing new articles to hosting symposiums, it’s clear Orton won’t give up her passion for a while yet, and I’m grateful that she had an hour to set aside to talk to me. She still travels, though less frequently than she would like, and while it’s been her New Year’s Resolution to be even more disciplined in maintaining her Chinese, Chinese is still “a part of my week, every week”.

Who is Ida?

Movie Review: "Ida"

Who is Ida? It’s the question that persists from the haunting opening scene of Ida to the determined final one. Is she Anna, set to take her Catholic nun vows? Or is she the Jewish Ida Lebenstein that her aunt labels her? She’s reserved and quiet, a good nun-in-training despite the chaos around her– until she’s not. The unreadable female teenage lead is a common figure in cinema, and searching for clues in Anna/Ida is how Ida grips you until the very end.

As the film opens, a reluctant Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) is embarking on a journey from the convent in which she was raised, out into the world to meet her only living relative, her aunt Wanda Gruz (Agata Kulesza). Wanda is a deeply conflicted, suffering woman, living with the half-repressed memory of her son and family killed in World War II. The contrast between Anna and her aunt is jarring; though their interactions are brief, it is clear that Wanda represents all that is sinful in the eyes of a convent-raised Anna. Given Wanda’s assertive nature, the low-playing western jazz, the half-naked man in her bed and her insistent questioning of Anna– “Did they tell you what I do?”– viewers are left to question, just as Anna must, the purpose of her journey to meet this unknown aunt. When it’s later revealed that Wanda  was a Communist resistance fighter, the contrast between Anna and Wanda transcends the differences in their behaviour; it becomes a clash of ideologies. As the film progresses and their unlikely relationship develops, this clash becomes crucial to our understanding of Ida.

Anna’s reaction to this confrontation with her newfound aunt is striking, because it’s minimal. As Wanda bluntly reveals that Anna is in fact Ida Lebenstein–and that’s she’s Jewish, not Catholic– Ida doesn’t cry or ask questions, she merely looks on, her heavy breathing the only indication of distress. Perhaps Trzebuchowska’s lack of professional acting training explains her convincing portrayal of Ida; it’s not overdramatised or artificial, it’s human.

Although the audience repeatedly sees close-up profile shots of Ida throughout the film, her expressionless face reveals no answers to her identity crisis. As Wanda and Ida pursue their mission to find the bodies of their deceased family, shots of Ida lying in bed, taciturn as ever, offer no insight into any inner turmoil she may be suffering. In a film that maintains a fast pace by its repeated interlude of short scenic shots, these lingering moments alone with Ida grow mesmerising as we search her expression for any indication of her inner turmoil. Despite our best efforts, Ida is inscrutable.

Searching for her family’s remains is crucial to Ida’s development; it prepares her to take her vows as a nun. Through the journey that results for the two women, the audience is offered a glimpse of post-war Polish life. The impact of the war on Poland by the numbers– the loss of a fifth of the Polish population– is not explicitly mentioned in the film; instead, its human consequences are portrayed through the tender relationship that develops between Wanda and Ida as their ideologies converge. Wanda is initially resistant to Ida’s Catholicism and pokes fun at their contrast– “I’m a slut, and you’re a saint”– but their journey to find their family and achieve peace exposes Wanda’s inner turmoil, and she is unafraid to express herself in a manner that directly contrasts with the unreadable Ida. Ida’s only true outburst comes when Wanda mocks her Catholic faith, but with Wanda’s encouragement she opens up to Lis, the musician hitchhiker they attract on their journey. As Ida has learned to take lessons from her aunt, Wanda, too is moved by her niece, and by the knowledge that Ida was spared her family’s fate due to her fair skin and ability to pass as a Catholic. Their tender hug as Ida returns to the convent following their journey points to a subtle convergence of their clashing ideologies.  It also suggests that war has shaped Polish society in ways that transcend statistics.

So when we try to understand Ida’s identity, we are also trying to understand Poland’s.

Paweł Pawlikowski seems to suggest that Ida and Wanda are embodiments of the post-war Polish experience. They have had to adapt after a war in which life and death were decided upon by factors beyond the individual’s control. The film reveals, however, that both women ultimately decide to take control of their fate. When Ida Lebenstein was orphaned and left to be raised in a convent, her family, history and identity were stripped from her. Having discovered the truth, Anna finds it comical to return to her life in the convent; her once unquestioning demeanour cracks and she chuckles during the convent’s rituals. Admitting she’s “not ready” to take her vows, Ida briefly plays the role of her aunt and explores life beyond her Catholic faith, donning Wanda’s clothes and dancing with Lis.

Despite being the film’s namesake, Ida is given significantly less dialogue than even the film’s minor characters. Her interactions with Wanda are brief and her narration is minimal, and  Ida’s body language and brief moments of outburst become more meaningful as a result. The most poignant moment in the movie comes in her conversation in bed with Lis, where he proposes they “have children” and “live life as usual”. She asks “after that?” “After that?” is perhaps the question on the minds of the Polish, expected to return to life “as usual” following a tragedy Poles often refuse to acknowledge.

In the final scenes of the movie, it seems even Ida does not know who she is. In typical Ida/Anna fashion, she dares not give the audience a visual clue to her emotions– in the morning she leaves Lis, swiftly dons her novice habit, and presumably sets out to return to the convent ready to take her vows. As the camera follows her face, it’s hard to ignore the subtle change in her expression, as her once unreadable demeanour is replaced with a now relaxed one. In all the ambiguity, the pressing question, “who is Ida?” remains. We try to decide who Ida is, but can’t, just as it is impossible to characterise Poland in the wake of its tragedies.

The Recipe for CQ? Add Mandarin

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In our ever-interconnected world, Cultural Intelligence, or “CQ”, is supposedly the latest measure that attempts to quantify one’s awareness and understanding of cultures other than their own. Professor Hu Ying-Hsueh of Taiwan’s Tamkang University, a distinguished linguist, advocated for its importance in a recent lecture at Wellesley College, entitled “How to Cultivate Cultural Intelligence”. I attended the lecture under the impression that I’d learn how one can best develop a tolerance of other cultures. Instead, I simply heard Professor Hu make her case for the development of Chinese Cultural Intelligence in a world where she believes Chinese is steadfastly rivaling English to become the world’s global language, otherwise known as a lingua franca.

A lingua franca is a language that two non-native speakers often use to communicate with each other, which thus has a purpose beyond its native community. Lingua francas exist on every continent, but English is the ultimate lingua franca; it is the language of international relations, business and science. Hu explained that Mandarin currently operates as a lingua franca on a smaller scale than English, and that she believes it will rise to challenge English in the future. This would mean that Mandarin speakers would soon stretch to every corner of the globe, and that Mandarin would replace the international command of English.

In Hu’s opinion, Mandarin establishing itself as a lingua franca would allow the masses to develop a Chinese CQ. She bases this belief on the Whorfian Hypothesis, the social theory her latest research has explored. The hypothesis stipulates that the linguistic patterns of a language lead the speaker to assimilate the structures of the language’s culture, that in turn influences how they see the world. To test this, Hu ran an experiment which entailed teaching a class of international students about Chinese culture, coupled with intensive Mandarin language training. She tracked the progress of the students through surveys and journal reflections, and came to the conclusion that her results proved the hypothesis correct. These foreign students believed that they developed a greater understanding of Chinese culture as their Mandarin skills grew; and according to their reflections, this shaped how they viewed the world around them. The more Mandarin they learnt, the higher their Chinese CQ grew.

Although this experiment seems to rely heavily on her “Mandarin as a lingua franca” theory, I found the results unsurprising. They easily could be explained without a fancy hypothesis as backing. It seems obvious that the students would learn more about China as they continue to learn Mandarin, because without the language skills, foreigners are automatically barred from many “culture-learning” experiences. How can one fully appreciate Chinese culture in all its nuances if they can’t understand museum plaques or read a menu, much less interact with locals? Language is what bridges the gap between being an observer and being a participant. However, Hu uses her linguist background to argue that the the Whorfian Hypothesis is the reason why the students’ Chinese CQ developed. She argues that the construction of the Mandarin language itself plays a significant role in developing this cultural intelligence, because it drives one to grasp the template of Chinese culture.

Both of Hu’s theories-that Mandarin will replace English as a lingua franca, and the validity of the Whorfian Hypothesis- were presented in a convoluted fashion, leaving the audience wondering if we need Chinese CQ in the first place. It’s also clear that her theories come with their flaws, though Hu was reluctant to admit as much. Not only were her experiment’s results entirely based on her students’ self-perception and subsequent self-reporting, she also eventually conceded that “the class was easiest for the Japanese students” on account of the numerous similarities that Japanese and Mandarin share. Hu elaborated on the struggles faced by the European students in the class, taking to the blackboard to illustrate how the construction of Chinese characters can pose difficulties for foreign learners with no grounding in a language that lacks an alphabet. She showed us how the meanings of “radicals”, components that form a character, can be derived, allowing Mandarin learners to develop cognition patterns. She then illustrated how these same radicals exist in characters with irrelevant meanings, undercutting the argument she had just advanced. By conflating oral and written language by assuming one must know how to write a language in order to speak it, Hu’s Chinese CQ theory is only muddled further. If one can already speak Mandarin, why would the Whorfian Hypothesis not be in effect if one simply struggles to write the characters?

Moreover, Hu’s “radical” example only illustrated how far Mandarin is from English, and inadvertently challenged her belief that Mandarin could replace English as a lingua franca. We can look to the dominance of English to garner what makes a successful lingua franca, and perhaps its greatest quality is how similar it was to its predecessor. English succeeded French in lingua franca status, and it can be argued that the similarities between the two languages allowed for this worldwide transition to occur. Hu unearths the stark differences between English and Mandarin, and the challenges in adopting a character-based language if the learner has no basis. If Mandarin was significantly easier for the Japanese than the European students in Hu’s class to acquire, I’m left wondering whether or not it truly has the power to dominate English as the world’s global language.

Despite being central to her lecture, Hu fails to identify if Chinese CQ is something we should be actively developing through our own undertaking of Mandarin- in an attempt to see the world from another perspective- or if it is something we will inevitably adopt if Mandarin becomes the next world language. Will Mandarin ever defeat English to achieve true lingua franca status? Will the Whorfian Hypothesis then cause us all to develop Chinese Cultural Intelligence? I’m unsure. Although Professor Hu’s experiment seems to raise more questions than it answers, it does invite us to consider the value of a linguistic perspective on cultural understanding.