The Sad Tale of How People Approach Learning English.

Language Learning like other systems of knowledge has been reduced.

With great sadness over the 20^th Century it has been laid upon a table, allocated a price and sold to the highest bidder.  The grand landscape of passing education down from master to student, father to son, brother to brother  has been lost. Apprentices no longer take their post to learn from one who has walked before, Language learners no longer enter communities and in the words of the poet :

“But oh for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 A language learner outside of an affirming community is like a flower left to the mercy of the wind, blowing whatever way the wind sways it until eventually it writhes and dies a painful death, with no support, no hope of survival except a deep trust that somehow words of hope on the breeze are enough to save it from a very cruel death.  The learner is sure English can be bought. He holds to his books like a swimmer holds to a rock before being swept away into the abyss of nothingness where his intention of learning is lost forever to boredom. Much like a child who closes the lid of the piano for the last time after being scolded  for refusing to play.

 Books surround him. Titles like “English in three weeks” “English in a Month” and perhaps the most insulting of all “You can speak English Now”. For those learners who do not give up, they slowly begin to realize that learning is not an academic thing of reading but indeed a thing of doing. Something which needs a community, is born of a community. Where two men stand side by side and work while learning by talking.

The conversation is not about grammar, nor is it about learning English, it is about life, Love, the Sciences, Arts. conversations about what brings them joy and laughter. They work together and as they work, they learn. Their joy of sharing, of being, of working carries them. They are affirmed.

Whatever happened to these days when language learning was as natural as picking apples from the tree because it was a shared value? How did we ever get to a point where we started to buy and sell English? When men and women started to charge outrageous fees for imparting grammar and calling it “English”. Was it the advent of the printing press which helped people become more literate? Was it the capitalist way which engulfed us in the early 20^th century? Whatever the reason, the cold hand of despotism crept in, forced men to work separately and declared that language learning be a separate entity, with its own space, its own time and own identity.

Man these days walks the chasms of his own mind, trying to reach out to another using the only power he knows how to offer “affluence”. Yet somehow, he knows that books are not enough. Clutching them to his chest he hides them, takes them home and “studies”. That word which means different things to different people.

Our minds carry a diagram:

“Affluence is Life Itself”:

Buy books to learn English	Pay psychologist to listen	Buy New Car
Hire English Teacher	Buy Gym Subscription	Buy New Clothes
Buy Course from the Net	Buy Stuff to make a hobby	Buy Wife stuff, to keep her happy

“I will let no one speak to me in English until I first know enough….” is his cry.

Staring at grammar books and uttering the verb to be, he disconnects, feels bored and thinks:

 “I’ll continue tomorrow – I have the books – they are mine, I have English”.

Faced with books for days on end he stares, with no one to practice with, no one to talk to, he is sure he is doing the right thing. What a pitiful existence. Wrapped up in the purchase of his books is another promise, “I will learn, I will provide, I will live”. The promises of the male ego take his hand and he is led into a world of fake striving. Where superficiality and egotism devour him because “he must provide…” must do”.

His wife, seeing his sadness without even seeing the books sensing what is happening, uses her practical feminine logic and says:

 “Please, let me talk to my father, he speaks good English and he can talk in English with you”

“Never! I will do this alone and when I have learnt enough then speak with him”

“Would you at least talk it over with the therapist?”

“I pay him  – so I tell him only what he needs to know!”

This sadly is the starting point for many people with English. Let’s just let go of the drama  and trust a native speaker enough to talk with them. Don’t push people away when you are learning  – gather a shared vision between you and use it.

Just a thought for today.

Joseph