Hi again. I know it’s been a while but we need to have a little talk.
Going forward, it’s interesting to think if even the fastest and most practical method to become a better English speaker has become superfluous. It’s not only chat TP or whatever computer generated essay machine they have. I actually had a student come to me and show me an essay about ecology. They went on line and boom and here you are sir, your English language essay. Do I pass the test? And it’s an interesting question. Not only are we talking about students with absolutely zero feelings of physical connection to the world. There is no personal study for regular homework that people do. There are no daily tasks other than to sweep information past their eyes. How does any teacher deal with such students?
Well, it may be true that the way of the world is moving away from language generally simply because of how confusing words seem to be. Take a look at what happens to us during a long political process. Look how much political bullshit we all have to process and how tired we all are. It’s the first thing to notice. So why talk about something if nobody is listening or even acknowledging that talking means anything?
I suppose there was a day when putting together an organized walk through the basics of the English language while trying to master 1500 words. It’s not such an accomplishment in terms of language acquisition. The point is that we have to go directly there. That’s the most practical way.
But why do it? Let’s say there was a time when people believed they were going to interact with other people internationally and that knowing English really well would benefit their possibilities. This is again old school?
Well, I guess then we are most purposeful where we are most needed. Perhaps practical English does not necessarily need to be for people who want to speak English but rather, it is for people who wish to speak. Or at least hash things out.
I’ve been asked if practical English has something to do with therapy. I say it can but really it’s more about peace of mind. It’s a matter of finding the perfect logic to close out a problem or at least the fastest solution. If you can find the heart of your question without giving in to strangeness or some latency for self-destruction, you become a very good sentence maker. And if you can speak clearly about something, I guess this means you get good at clearing up your problems. If that’s therapy, I’m happy to help.
So maybe it’s about rehabilitation. We’ve lost something. We have been damaged. The people we have been for thousands and thousands of years has now been compromised in the blink of an eye. We are now becoming something else. My goodness, we are voting ourselves directly into the deepest hole possible. We are not working well as a team or even trying to sustain a team like ideology for moving forward. And, reasonably speaking, if human beings were entitled to gather amongst their neighbors to get the jobs done, how does the result not bring happiness to everyone for at least a job well done? How about pride? How about the need for civility? How about the need for good conversation skills rather than just the gibberish you get by on in a world that is not listening anyway?
How does practical English work?
The oldest question and the easiest to answer. We are going to learn to make English sentences. We are going to work on our reading skills and our typing skills. We are going to work on our spoken words, either through reading out loud or creating speeches for oneself to practice. And then we try to listen which is attached to reading. We must be good at taking information in especially in a situation where we are not sure of the language skills of the people we are with.
In the beginning, if you know absolutely nothing, we have an introduction to the basic grammar of English. There is only one order of words, it changes somewhat to create questions and the organization of the grammar is actually quite brief and accessible if you approach it from one specific direction. We have to be talking about something specific at all times. All English grammar works perfectly if we know exactly what we are talking about and what time it is when we are talking about them.
A few exercises to acclimate to moving left to right subject verb object and then as quickly as possible, we take this simple skill, allow that we understand translation if necessary from original language, but we can start making simple sentences about some subject that we are talking about. And this is right from the beginning.
The grammar class then moves to complex sentences of two or more phrases. And if we were in the very beginning, we would be making analyzing sentences using all the available grammar specifically. Yes we are saying what we want to say but we artistically put it within the confines of the different times that English grammar asks us to look at. It is not a lot of information and usually, even from zero, two or three months and people are reading and writing and even speaking a little English. Certainly they are comfortable enough in a conversation where the teacher does not use their original language anymore.
At any rate, here we end up at a place called competency. Basic grammar is understood. We are playing games with our ideas to artistically add in specific words, even letting random words dictate our opinions where possible. It’s playing but it’s also learning new words and expanding our vocabulary. The level of reading can come up and the number of words we read should become faster. We should have out loud reading so that our bodies physically understand how to say English words. And here we get better.
As for practical English as a writing class, which inevitably it must be at least as far as education is concerned, there is that daily essay that needs to be finished. We can set limit of a page. We can ask for four or five paragraphs. We can ask to see a sketch of how you plan to hand out your information. Or, you can work it as a dialogue and allow people to discuss the problem amongst themselves. They can either be positive with each other or negative of course. All very interesting for a daily task. To create a page of English concerning a specific topic common in the class.
There was a time when students were naturally physical and we accumulated a decent number of dozens of gold medals from our students. Was I cherry picking? No. I only allowed people to come to me and it seems I got the best of the best for some reason. And practical English for the reasons about seemed to be the only students who were actually physically conversational in the English language. No, not just because I am a native speaker or that I spoke to them freely in English but because they did all the work necessary to be able to participate in the conversation. And that was the real power because they were the only children who actually had this skill. Hence the medals.
Activism
I have heard the news that there are laws that allow the army to use deadly force on citizens who criticize the policies of the government. I’m not talking about Russia, I’m talking about the United States. We are entering a world of continued hate and violence where the genuine concept of our daily lives is that we are beyond reason and into a frenzy of violence. At least this is the concept that we all keep in our minds. It doesn’t really matter that 99% of basic soldiers stuff is sitting around like drug addicts in the forest leaving garbage that will be there for a thousand years. Even the gun battles become banal if you are lucky enough not to be killed for a moment. This is not the time for language and certainly, creating a class under the Russian regime where the concept was speaking freely one’s opinion about a specific subject was uncomfortable. Literally, the students would become extremely irritated at the thought of having to focus words on any subject.
Thus words are subversive. So I say let us beast versus because only in those actions will our humanities remain. Global warming? It’s a symptom of the disease. We are the disease. We poison everything everyday when we drive our cars. We kill everything as a way of doing our business. We sell noisy motors for men to play with. They can kill grass and cut wood. They can pretend to create some aesthetic that God would never make himself or herself. And where is language in this world? That’s where it is. The language people are the ones who know what they are doing. The ones who actually tell you good opinions about how not to pollute the world are good people to listen to. Being a bit subversive by being culturally aware and intellectually astute definitely helps.
So there we are. What is practical English? It’s a place to practice your English. Unfortunately, our teachers are not your emotional punching bags. It is your obligation no matter how great the rage to remember that you have a sentient being offering their time. Put the rage on the page and leave your instructor out of your thinking. Let your instructor help you get your grammar straight so you can be more effective in your accuracy when trying to tell the truth. Because that’s what we need. We need people who can clearly articulate the truth.
Questions? Commentary? Call me.
