I learn a new language like babies learn to talk. I went to a school in which English teachers were coming and going, and the English class was a “dead time”, cause there was nobody there to teach us something, so I never had a proper English training. that’s why all I have learn come from an early exposition to cable TV, that’s why I say that I have learn English like babies learn to talk by listening to others, I have also read books in English, and by those standars I would have to say that I’m in a “six years old girl” level of English, that’s how I mesure my progress. That’s why I really scary by the idea of having to come to this English course, cause even though I reach the four level in the English test I’m pretty sure that if the method were other I wouldn’t even have reached the first level.
Now that I’m finishing the course, and I think I have done pretty well, I have to wonder why, was this luck? No, It can’t be that, I have never been a lucky person, with me is always the same, if something might go wrong it’ll turn out to be horrible, so no, it’s not luck. Is it that I’m really smart? Mmm don’t think so, cause if that were the case I would do good in all my subjects, and I’m very much aware that I have to burn my eyes studying and I have other classmates that read the texts one time, party all weekend and get the same results as I do in all the works. So, is neither luck nor intelligence. What is it then? I’m about to say that is balls, but that would be too rude for an essay, I’ll say guts, yes I think I have guts. I must be like that cause the way I’ve learn to speak English is the most unconventional way, and that is something that I do, or try to do with all the language.
I listen to someone speaking in another language and something is activated in my brain and, like a cryptologist, I begin to decifrate the code, by context or things like that, and I’m sure that everybody is able to do the same thing, but no one dare, most people say “Oh you speak another language, I don’t understand it, I’m too lazy to do something about it… We are in a spanish speaking country, for god sake!! Speak to me in christian or at least bring a translator!!” and this is the same kind of people that think that the only way of learning a language is by taking a course. And this is the same kind of people that spend greats loath of money in English course and by end of it they know the very least of it. Why? Well because an English course gives you the tools to learn English, I mean, they teach you the structure of the sentence the syntaxis and gramatic, the kind of things you learn in the “castellano” subject on the school, and I think you would agree with me that if on one side that teach you to speak and write well in a “cult and formal” register it does not teach you to speak it if you don’t know nothing about it, I mean we can’t put a baby in a school “castellano” class for him to learn to speak. So, what I’m trying to say is that the process of learning a language is very much a self taught task, you can not expect that someone force you to start thinking in English.
As I say I learn English by myself at home, with the TV on and with the help of some short story books of the greatest English writers, like Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain. By I haven’t learned the structure of English, everything I have to figure out things by context. I never learn by memory all the irregular verbs, if someone asked me for them I would be blank, by if have to use it in a sentence I would know easily how, on the other hand I know many people that know all the irregular verbs by memory but don’t know how to use them.
Maybe I should had taken the English courses from the level one, to know the mechanic of the English language, but all I need is to speak and write English I won’t ever teach someone English so I don’t need that, though it would be interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment