Our local university organised an Ezidi language lesson for the English as a Second Language teachers and students, just so they could get a feel for what it is like to have to learn a new language you know nothing about - just like the Ezidi refugees who live in our region.
The lesson went for an hour, with only Ezidi spoken (there is no written Ezidi, at least not for the language from the Singhal area in northern Iraq) - no English at all. It was a fascinating, but draining experience. One thing that made it very pleasurable was that Salam, our teacher, made us feel that mistakes did not matter, in fact because none of us knew any Ezidi, we were not aware of errors.
I can now say ‘you are very welcome to my home’, ‘my name is Louis, what is your name?’, count from 0 to ten, and a few other things.
It occurred to me that Ezidi, not having a written form, would be eminently suited to having a SSiE learning approach.
