Ski Instructors: How to grade your language.
Understanding how and why to grade your language is important for ski instructors who teach skiers whose first language is not the same as their own. It is also really useful for instructors learning to teach in a second language. This is so that they can start with simple sentences and not with super technical vocabulary which makes learning and remembering the language more difficult in the beginning.
What is graded language?
As I mentioned in the introduction, simple sentences. Graded language means speaking at a slower pace in your native language than you usually would and at the same time, using simple language. Not so slow you sound patronising, but the same speed that you would use when speaking a foreign language at an intermediate level. Remember that you can often speak much slower than you realise. Have a go at recording yourself on a voice recording app and playing it back to see how fast or slow you sound.
Let’s look at a couple of ski teaching examples:
Engage the edges higher in the turn to achieve early grip.
Put the skis on the edge earlier in the turn.
Hopefully you can see that the first example uses technical language and the second user much simpler language. Of course the meaning isn’t quite the same but we are aiming for the same outcome. Try to imagine a few more sentences like the first that you would say when ski teaching and then make them simpler, as in the second example.
When to grade your language.
When should you grade your language? Any time you are teaching someone whose first language is not the language you are using to ski instruct. How much you grade your language will depend on their level of English, for advanced speakers you may find that giving definitions of new words will be enough.
Remember that when a client is asked by the ski school if they are ok with an English speaking ski instructor, the client thinks, yes, I can speak English, I’m fine with an English speaking ski instructor. The client often does not realise that they may have no idea of any of the technical vocabulary associated with ski instructing. In the classroom, language teachers will often use a slightly higher level of language than the students ability as it pushes the students. This is not something we can do when teaching skiing. They are already learning something new, challenging, potentially scary. They don’t need to be doing this whilst struggling to translate what you are saying into their own native language in their heads.
How to put this into practice.
Here are a few points to think about as you put this into practice:
Don’t fluff up your language and add lots of little words in between.
Imagine you are your clients.
Don’t quote your ski instructor manual.
Also, remember that when teaching a group, there is often one in the group who is the strongest, or even the only English speaker. If that person has to translate into their native tongue for the rest of the group, make it easy for them by using simple language.
Lastly, check their understanding. This is something that you should do regardless of a language barrier, and is not the case of simply saying, do you understand? This skill of checking understanding is an important part of foreign language teacher training. To check understanding we need to ask questions that require more than a yes or no answer. For example, how many turns?Another way to check understanding, though not always easy especially on cold days, is to read their facial expressions.
Customer Service and Graded Language.
On a final note, don’t change your intonation or facial expressions as you grade your language. Adults should be spoken to as adults, not children, even if their language level is the same as a native speaking child.
Given you food for thought or have any questions? Drop me an email and I’ll be happy to answer them: info@alpinelanguagecentre.com
