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interviews
Eloise Pearson
In her work on the good language learner, Rubin defines 'learning' as 'the
process by which storage and retrieval of information is achieved'
(1981:118). Elsewhere, learning strategies have been referred to as 'oper-
ations or steps used by a learner that will assist in the acquisition, storage,
or retrieval of new information' (Chamot and O'Malley 1986:9). The
purpose of this article is to discuss the relevance of these views in relation to
a small selection of learners.
Five interviews were conducted on site in South East Asia with a total of
twelve employees of a major Japanese company and some of its subsidi-
aries. The interviews were basically unstructured. The first two interviews
were with Mr J. and Mr S., two businessmen in different offices in Sin-
gapore who had both lived and worked in Singapore for three years. The
third interview involved a group of three engineers supervising the con-
struction of a large steel-structure building in Singapore. The fourth inter-
view was with a group of five supervising engineers on a large construction
site on the west coast of Malaysia, and the last interview was with two
supervising engineers on a large construction project near Kuala Lumpur.
With the exception of MrJ. and Mr S., all of the men had been abroad only
six months or less. The businessmen were interviewed in their offices, and
the engineers were interviewed on their respective job sites. In all cases, the
visits included tours of the working areas.
Interview one MrJ. never used English in his office, as all his associates were Japanese or
Japanese speakers. In his free time, he usually associated with them or
other members of the Japanese-speaking community. He spoke Japanese at
home with his family. His uses of English were limited to business conver-
sations with local clients and to very rare golf games with them. His other
uses of English were restricted to conversations with restaurant employees,
parking attendants, ticket clerks, and so on. All his information about
EL TJournal Volume 42/3 July 1988 Oxford University Press 1988 173
business and current affairs was obtained through Japanese. He did not
have local friends, nor did he associate with the local people or culture. He
had not studied English since university. Nevertheless he claimed that, to
his surprise, his level of English had not improved in the three years he had
been in Singapore. He mentioned that his job was stressful due to his lack of
English, and he was looking forward to returning to Japan.
Interview two By contrast, the second businessmen, Mr S., worked in an office with all
Singaporeans. He spoke only English in all his working contacts. Both he
and his Japanese wife had Singaporean friends and associated mostly with
them, speaking English with them. Mr and Mrs S. both made exclusive use
of English-language sources of information and entertainment and were
trying to learn and improve their English through their own efforts. Mr S.
reported that his English had improved 'somewhat' in his three years. He
Interview* three The third interview, with three supervisor-engineers on a large construc-
tion site in Singapore, revealed that they associated only with themselves
and with somejapanese-speaking members of a local trading company that
was in charge of their part of the project. Despite some proficiency in
English, they reported that they had never attempted to communicate with
any of the workers on the job site or in the community in the three months
they had been in Singapore. At the end of the working day they went to their
rooms, where they ate only Japanese food prepared by a cook provided by
the trading company. They mentioned that they only communicated with
her through the trading company, although they thought she probably
knew some English. During their time off they stayed in their rooms reading
Japanese papers and books and sleeping. They reported they had no need
or desire to have any dealings with anyone else, as the trading company did
everything for them. They mentioned that their life was boring, that they
were lonely and depressed, and that they wanted to go home as soon as
possible. They had all been abroad before on projects and had lived and
worked in a similar manner. They said they found working abroad to be
troublesome because of their lack of language, but that they had no time to
study. They mentioned that their English had not improved since gradua-
tion from university.
Interview four The fourth interview, with five engineers on a coastal project in west
Malaysia, revealed a quite different response to their situation. The oldest
among them, Mr T., mentioned that he had been in Indonesia on two
previous long-term projects and spoke fluent Indonesian, his second lan-
guage. His English, however, was very limited. He reported that the first
thing he always did upon arrival at an overseas project site was to buy a
small motor bike which allowed him to get into the nearby community
every night for dinner and entertainment (usually drinking). He said he
had picked up the Indonesian language that way, and by taking every
opportunity to talk and make friends with local people both on and off the
job site. Although his company provided an almost completely Japanese
'home from home' life style, Mr T. preferred to experience Malaysian life
style as much as possible.
The four younger engineers had mostly followed his lead and were all
'picking up Malaysian', their second language, through their associations
Interview five The fifth interview was conducted with two engineers on a large construc-
tion site near Kuala Lumpur. Both men appeared to be introverts. English
was their only second language, and their command of it was very poor
indeed. In fact, the interview was conducted in Japanese as their command
Two follow-up Later, in Tokyo, I undertook two follow-up interviews, one with MrJ., the
Interviews first businessman who had been in Singapore for three and a half years, and
the other with Mr T., the oldest of the engineers on the coastal site in
Malaysia who had previously reported his success in acquiring Indonesian
as a second language. Again, the interviews were basically unstructured,
although they were focused more directly on discovering what, if any,
second-language learner strategies they had employed while abroad.
When asked what he did to try to improve his English, MrJ. said that he
had not tried very hard. He said that he had not spoken English unless it
was unavoidable. He reported constant frustration because he did not
understand everything. He did not try to guess, or work out meanings. He
tried to cover up when he did not understand. He did not really try to figure
out any general rules or to use any new words or expressions unless he was
entirely sure they would be correct. He mentioned that he was always
afraid of making a mistake, even though he felt he was not often mis-
understood because of linguistic errors. In addition he always felt frustr-
ated because he could not express himself on anything other than business
topics, and so he avoided such topics or non-professional situations. He
said he rarely planned or practised what he wanted to say in English. He
had not seriously considered actively trying on his own to learn English
because, he claimed, he had not had the time. He explained that for about a
year he and his family had hated Singapore, but that things had improved
after that. He reported that he often used gestures and had 'picked up' local
expressions for beginning and ending a conversation, and other common
situations.
Some conclusions Although these interviews yield only a small amount of dataand subjec-
tively reported data at thatthey do confirm the findings of researchers
(for example, Wenden 1985, Chamot and O'Malley 1986) that successful
language learners do apply specific strategies to the task of learning.
But these interviews also suggest other important factors in the lan-
guage-learning process which are less explicitly dealt with in the research
with which I am familiar. The interviews suggest that there are complex