The TESL Ontario Conference at the Sheraton Centre last weekend was a huge success. I spent the week re-ordering sold-out materials and sending emails to contacts we made at the show. I was particularly excited about a conversation I had with the Toronto Star representative who suggested I submit a story to the paper. I submitted this story but have not heard back from them. I don't think I have journalist style. Any recommendations are appreciated.
English is Stupid, Students are not
Judy Thompson
I knew something was wrong the very first time I stood in front of an ESL (English as a Second Language) class and tried to teach them the verb to be. On the board in big tidy letters I printed: I am, you are, he is and so on. I thought it would be a good idea to pronounce the words as I was printing them and I couldn’t do it. I could not say I am exactly as it was printed. I said: I yam, you ware, he yiz…I didn’t know what to do. I took the coward’s way out and switched topics. A vocabulary lesson on the names of vegetables became my refuge. It was four years and thousands of hours of teaching before I understood what happened that first day and the answer was so simple I felt a bit silly that I didn’t figure it out earlier.
English writing and English speaking are different languages. As a native English speaker with a university degree I was aware that English could be tricky with ate and eight and the same word match could be a noun or a verb etc But I had no idea that speaking English and writing English were completely different languages and what we teach in school is writing.
Manuel was a wonderful student of mine from South America. He was a doctor in his country and he was brilliant. At his age it was unlikely that he would practice medicine in this country but he was committed to working in his field in some way. I was teaching an intermediate class at the time. He was only in my class for a few months before he advanced to the higher levels. A year later I ran into Manuel in front of the library and we chatted. School was going well, no job yet… I was disheartened by our conversation, broken-hearted actually. Manuel didn't speak any better or differently than he did when he stepped into my classroom the year before. He had passed all his speaking tests but the bottom line was - he couldn't speak English any better than the first day he arrived in Canada. He was smart, hardworking and enrolled full-time in a top level English school. Why couldn't he speak English?
It was right in front of my eyes but I couldn’t see it. The alphabet, spelling and grammar are important skills, but they are writing skills only and never lead to fluency in English. Students study these skills for years, wonder why they can’t speak English and they feel stupid. For native English speakers, fluency is in place before they start school and therefore never formally taught to speak. I never had a speaking English lesson in my life and no idea technically how English speaking worked. Unfortunately the relationship between letters and sounds in English is so loose, no one can learn to speak English from reading it. If that were possible – Manuel would be a doctor in Canada today.
What I had to figure out was how spoken English works exactly – differently from writing? It took me years to understand that and how to teach it. Only six simple rules govern all of spoken English. They are straightforward and easy to add to existing ESL courses. The rules are laid out along with classroom exercises in a speaking guide I wrote in 2009 called English is Stupid published by Thompson Language Center. The book has been a breakthrough tool for ESL teachers in Canada and around the world. It is my fondest wish that this book finds its way to students like Manuel who I didn’t teach to speak English when I had the chance.
English is Stupid provides the context for all aspects of the English language. Lessons and questions are easily addressed as either speaking or writing issues; speaking works like this and writing works like that. The very best English programs are like fine bottles of wine. Understanding the difference between written and spoken English is the corkscrew. No good bottle of wine is any use without it.
Judy Thompson teaches Speaking Canadian English at Sheridan College. She offers training to teachers and students in workshops throughout Ontario and Quebec. The next Thompson Certificate Training program Speaking English 2.0 is on November 27 in Toronto. Contact www.ThompsonLanguageCenter.com for more information.
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