Download Learning English Good. Tara Elyssa. Native English speakers

Learning English Good.
Tara Elyssa.
Native English speakers seldom nolice the confusing messiness of English grammar and pronunciation. However, for the increasing number
of English second language (ESL) students worldwide, English presents a formidable challenge. The experiences of these students reveal
much about English, its evolution, all languages, and human nature, too. In the following essay, written especially for About Language, Tara
Elyssa reveals what it's like to study a new language and discover that thinking systematically and logically doesn't help very much. Elyssa,
born and raised in Zimbabwe has spent twenty-five years teaching English and French. She also has established and coordinated ESL and
multicultural programs in Namibia, Zimbabwe, and the United States.
"Between, between and drink a chair," I am greeted as I enter the dorm room of my ESL students. Only their warm smiles and gesturing
toward an armchair convey the meaning of these perfectly good English words. The mystery unravels later when my English-Spanish
dictionary reveals that the command form entre (for "come in") corresponds to between, the Spanish tome can mean "take" or "drink" in
English, and silla translates as "seat" or "chair." In other words, "Come in, come in, and take a seat." Now I understand the bewildered
reactions I get when I try to compose Spanish sentences by directly translating from a dictionary. 'Whether the new language is English or
any other language, the most intelligent of learners struggles with the many complex tasks of transition between languages. It's so much
more complicated than learning a new vocabulary. Perhaps only those of you native English speakers who have studied a foreign language
in the classroom for four or five years, and then found yourselves helpless on the streets of that for- eign country, can understand the
complexities facing the growing number of English Second Language (ESL) speakers in the United States and around the world. Even if you
did succeed in memorizing the dictionary vocabulary of a new language such as English, how would you know which meanings were
appropriate in which situa- tions, how the words were pronounced and delivered in an authentic way, or the way to combine words into
accurate grammatical structures using a system very different from that of your first language? Alternatively, imagine you had been speaking
English for years and then entered an English-speaking university--only to discover that what you had learned from TV and your peers was
considered incorrect and had to be relearned.
These struggles by so many people to learn correct English reveal fascinating and humorous characteristics of language itself. The
following examples of ESL speakers' experiences help us discover, first, more about the nature of English, and second, curious relationships
among the new universal youth jargon, English sub- dialects, and ESL. One such struggle is learning tow to say something in English--the
delivery. Many native English speakers don't realize that in addition to developing English vocabulary and pronunciation, they have also
acquired a complicated system of junc- ture (where to separate and join the word sounds) and stress (where to place em- phasis within a
group of words). One day one of my ESL students, who could surpass any of the native English speakers in the class on gramnar or spelling
tests, asked me why the American students were always shouting "Jedoo" and "Djee che?" at him after a test. I had to fbllow him outside
one evening to discover that they were actually asking him "How did you do'?" (on the test) and "Did you eat yet'?" English words such as
did you are often joined into one syllable (djoo), and words ending in a consonant such as t are often broken before the consonant, which is
then joined to the next word (eat yet). ESL learners expect the sound breaks to exist at the same places as the spelling breaks and are
naturally confused by such utterances. 5 For people who know the system for speaking English, other important indicators of meaning
include raising or lowering the tone of voice and placing emphasis on certain syllables. These techniques show whether we are asking a
question or stating a fact, whether the speaker is sincere or being sarcastic, and a host of other important aspects of communication. Try
reading this next sentence aloud--first as a sincere fact, then as a question, then in a sarcastic tone:
They broke up again. If you're a native or advanced English speaker, raising, lowering, pausing, and stress- ing your voice to change the
meaning of the sentence came easily, but these techniques are completely lost on those who have not learned the same system and perhaps
learned a very different system for their first language. In the "Jedoo" situa- tion previously mentioned, the misunderstanding between the
students after class was compounded because the ESL student did not recognize that the English speakers, through their tone, were asking
questions. Further confusion resulted from the raised volume and changing tone as the American students repeated their questions. The
Americans were attempting to make the communication clearer and friendlier, but their tone was interpreted by the foreign speaker as angry
and hostile. In addition to the challenges of vocabulary, juncture, and stress, structural difficulties are common for ESL learners. We often
hear incorrect utterances such as the following two, but have you ever wondered why ESL speakers consistently make such mistakes?
My roommate last night me help. I hope making a decisions tomorrow. An analysis of why these errors are common reveals interesting
aspects of English.
Linguists and classroom practitioners often analyze errors using the scientific techniques of contrastive analysis (contrasting language
systems to find out their points of greatest difference and therefore points of greatest difficulty for learners who are making the transition
between languages) and error analysis (analyzing common errors made by speakers of various first languages who are learning a sec- and
language to discover particularly weak or difficult aspects of the second language). When these two scientific techniques are applied to the
learning of English, differences among languages become clearer, and we can understand what leads ESL learners to make the two incorrect
utterances in the previous paragraph. These differences involve word order, tenses or time markers, singular and plural concepts, and
gerund-infinitive requirements. The first incorrect utterance, "My roommate last night me help," reminds us that not all languages use the
same word order, For English speakers it is important to indicate immediately the doer of the action (subject), followed by the action itself
(verb), followed by the receiver of the action (object)--SVO. In other languages, German, for example, the action word often comes at the
end of the sentence-- SOV. For speakers who consider the action to be most important, the verb is placed first with the doer and receiver
following. If you've perceived action-doer relation- ships this way since infancy, the normal English word order sounds very awkward to
you. You tend to translate your thoughts into English using the word order from your first language. Next time you're on campus, in a
restaurant, or in any casual U.S. environment, listen for the most common word order. Frequently, you will hear American English speakers
begin their sentences with I followed by the verb and object. Then imagine what this sounds like to speakers of other languages who find it
culturally inappro- priate, even conceited, to put themselves first in an utterance. For them, composing many common English utterances
feels awkward and maybe even rude. Another difficulty with the first incorrect utterance is time confusion, For English speakers, even if
they have indicated a specific time such as last night, they also must add a tense or time marker to the verb (for example, "My roommate
helpED me"). Therefore, when an ESL speaker doesn't use a time marker on the verb, the state- ment sounds odd to native English speakers.
However, consider the awkwardness of the English system. We have to conjugate or transform verbs to show several differ- ent kinds of
present and future tenses, as well as a multitude of past tenses. We have to use auxiliary verbs and past participle forms, which even TV
announcers can't use correctly and sometimes even university professors can't spell. One of my ESL classes actually burst into laughter when
I told them that English needsfimr words to explain some time periods (for example, "will have been eating"). With such an unwieldy system
for showing time or tense, it is not surprising that in a recent project to create a universal computer language, experimenters tried to show
tense by adding, to any pure verb form, one simple word to convey past and another simple word for future. The absence of either of these
two time words would signify about the same as the simple present tense in English. If these modem experimenters studied some of the
oldest languages still used by the largest popula- tions on earth (Asian and African languages), they would find a similarly simple, yet
refined, time-marking system. For example, in Bantu languages common throughout southern Africa, one simple syllable is inserted into the
subject-verb phrase to indicate past and another to indicate future, without ever changing the pure form of the verb. Knowing this, we can
understand how strange it is for many others to hear and create English verb tenses. Let's see what more we can learn from the second
incorrect ESL utterance: "I hope making a decisions tomorrow." First of all, how many decisions is the speaker hoping to make? English
grammar books clearly explain that any noun that can be counted is singular when preceded by a and made plural by adding. So why, many
English teachers moan, can't the ESL learners just study that? Once again we must remember that the differences among language systems
are very complicated, and we can learn fascinating facts about how different cultural groups think by analyzing how people talk. For English
speakers, dogs or books or boys or decisions can be counted easily, and therefore can be made singular or plural with the rule above.
However, for speakers of Chinese and many other languages, nouns such as dogs and the rest fall into different categories, and only certain
categories can be made singular or plural. English speakers would have to learn the appropriate categories before knowing how to apply the
very sophisticated rules for singular and plural in Chinese, and Chinese people often transfer their own concepts of singular and plural when
speaking English. For ESL students from areas such as India, Russia, and Turkey, even if a noun were considered singular (dog, for
example), no need exists to indicate this yet again by adding an article such as a in front of it. It sounds less redundant, and therefore better,
to such speakers to leave out a. To complicate matters further, even when two languages have the same system for making nouns plural or
singular, disagreement exists about how to treat certain nouns. For example, in English the nouns garbage, advice, i{fi)rmation, and news
are considered singular; however, in Spanish they are plural. So, native Spanish-language speakers naturally would say, "We need some
advices." They are shocked that English speakers consider such concepts to be singular. Perhaps you can understand this shock better if you
are an English speaker who has studied French or Spanish. You discovered that in these languages nouns are male and female, and you have
to memorize the category for each noun. No wonder learning any language takes so long. Now we understand why the ESL speaker would
say, "a decisions," but how do we explain the "I hope making" error'? Consider other errors of this type, which violate gerund/infinitive
requirements. For example:
enjoy to play sports. He promises helping me with my computer project.
You probably could not explain the problems with these English sentences. People subconsciously internalize the rules of a language,
especially the first language they learn as children. Therefore, when others learning our language break the rules, we may know something
sounds wrong without knowing why or which rule has been broken.
ESL learners, however, need a conscious awareness of the English rule (for ex- ample, )r gerund/infinitive requirements) and why their
utterance is flawed. They likely make the error because they apply to English the rules of their own languages, which they, too,
subconsciously internalized. They then have the difficult task of consciously learning which English verbs must be followed by gerunds (ing
words such as hell)ing),
which English verbs require infinitives (to words such as to help), and which verbs can be kfllowed by either gerunds or infinitives. For example,
in English we say, "I like to play soccer" or "I like playing soccer." However, instead of "I enjoy to play soccer," we must say "I enjoy playing
soccer." We say, "She wants to be an astronaut" but not "She wants being an astronaut." (These idiosyncrasies of English inspire all teachers'
dreams of the perfect universal language.) Analyzing the ESL struggle as we did through common errors is an important step to understanding the
English language system. However, ESL experiences also raise some questions about how our language is changing (for example, through the new
youth jargon and widespread subdialects) and how we might improve our commu- nication abilities. As hinted previously, ESL errors can be
viewed in two different ways:
1. These deviations are "wrong" and are caused by incomplete knowledge of the English system; therefore, such speakers must be corrected until
they perform with 'standard" English usage.
2. These deviations indicate important differences between English and other languages, and when performed widely and in obvious patterns by
both native English and ESL speakers, they indicate the legitimate needs of the speakers as well as weaknesses in English, which could be
corrected.
Consider, for example, some common errors made frequently by both ESL and native English speakers:
There's so many reasons why I don't want to go. One of the reasons for her problems have to be drugs.
Guardians of the English language are appalled when subjects and verbs do not agree in number, as happens in these two sentences. However, ask
a hundred native English speakers how the plural is made in English. The answer most often will be "Add s" when, in fact, that rule works only for
the noun. To make verbs plural, we actually drop the s and say, "One boy walks" but "Two boys walk." Whenever gram- mar rules become this
complicated, perhaps even contradictory and with the logic so vague, few people can internalize the rules whether they are learning a first or a secand language. Only if you were raised in an environment in which such rules con- stantly were followed correctly could you use them consistently
and naturally. Could this be the reason why the English rules for subject-verb agreement are so frequently reversed, not only by ESL speakers but
also in the common English sub- dialect used on TV, in the streets, by famous athletes, and even in many classrooms?
Should this widespread phenomenon among English-speaking groups around the world be considered an ESL error or an unacceptable
subdialect usage even when it is now commonplace on the evening news? Furthermore, why is this particular error so persistent despite the
combined efforts of English grammar texts and teachers from England to Africa to India to the United States to New Zealand? Some
linguists theorize that the growing number of ESL speakers in the world, particularly within the U.S. population, is weakening the English
language in such areas as subject-verb agreement. Others suggest that a weak and illogical rule in English is finally reversing, and the
pressure from other language groups is improving English by making it more flexible. Other curious language trends reveal a strong new
influence on standard English. Consider the possibility that this influence is coming from the growing number of ESL speakers who use and
perpetuate a simplified form of English that could be con- sidered a subdialect in itself. Evidence of this new subdialect comes through common new expressions such as seemli (pronounced "seem la-ee'). "Seemli gonna rain today" can be translated into standard English as '°It
seems as if it's going to rain today." Another explanation is that the widening acceptability of the common English subdialect (sometimes
referred to as Black English Vernacular) is easier for ESL stu- dents to learn and identify with culturally, and therefore they are joining the
large number of speakers in this group. In any case, many of the language characteristics of these two groups (ESL and Black English
speakers) are identical, including reversal of subject-verb agreement rules, almost exclusive use of the simple present tense (or complete
omission of the verb), use of adjectives for adverbs, and use of the simple present tense verb for the past participle or adjective form. (For
example, the utterance "They's real surprise" substitutes for "They're really surprised.") Consider also the relationship among the ESL
substandard dialect, Black English, and the current jargon or speech style of English-speaking youth universally. Language features once
considered substandard English, and now described as Black English Vernacular, have become part of a new youth jargon. In all three cases
the main tense is simple present and subject-verb agreement rules are reversed; verbs can be dropped completely; a limited set of vocabulary
words typically describes things or feelings vaguely or in extremes; adjectives can be used as adverbs; verbs can be used as adjectives; and
degrees of meaning or qualifications are expressed only with disqualifiers. For example, "It's like, so sad, or whatever, that he come to her
and he's like, this a suck relationship." So, are ESL speakers influencing other subdialect groups or vice versa, or is there something about
the nature of English that causes different groups to arrive at the same simplifications in adopting a sort of universal shorthand English?
Regardless of where the influences originate, this widespread subdialect poses a dilemma for ESL students. Imagine the confusion of a
Chinese student with perfectly accurate English grammar who was welcomed by an American native English speaker, "You sure learning
English good!" Imagine students in English classes, where we constantly insist that they "Report something that happened before now in
past tenses," walking out of the classroom and being barraged by their peers, TV heroes, news reporters, politicians, and even other
university professors narrating all past events
in the simple present tense with no qualms whatsoever. Any progress ESL students may have made in the classroom toward mastering
standard English is undermined by this more "real" communication style. The dilemma is obvious in the question of one frustrated Hispanic
student who asked me, "Why don't you just teach us English the way people use it?" A clue to the answer to this student's question lies in the
ESL errors we examined earlier. Using contrastive analysis and error analysis helps us to determine whether common difficulties for ESL
students result from major points of difference between their first language and English or whether the difficulties arise from some inefficient or ineffective aspect in the English system, which therefore needs improvement. However, improvement must mean a refinement or
expansion ill the language system that enhances, and does not limit, our ability to communicate, Improvement in our communication abilities
must mean we can express our thoughts, arguments, and sentiments, and the relationships among them, more accurately. Why is it so easy
for ESL learners from all language backgrounds around the world to pick up expressions such as awesome, gross, and like and to use them
with completely authentic pronunciation, juncture, stress, and grammatical consistency? This, while it is so difficult for them to acquire
English phrases that express subtler shades of meaning, more precise thoughts, or relationships among ideas? Appar- ently, this shorthand is
a style or subdialect of English arrived at by ESL speakers as well as others partly through the urgent necessity to communicate orally,
without the encumbrances of language structures that could add depths and shades of meaning but are too difficult or take too long to use.
This need naturally results in a reduced basic vocabulary and a system that ignores such refinements as tense markers. The subject-verb
agreement rules of this system are more logical. (For instance, s con- sistently is added to both subjects and verbs to make them plural.)
Furthermore, the system avoids redundancy in the same way that many respected languages of the world do. (For example, if you say, "two
apple," the word ta,o is sufficient to show plural, so there is no need to add an s to the noun.) If this subdialect system is so logical and
functional for so many English-speaking groups, what should be our attitude toward it? Can such trends in language be allowed to develop
naturally, or will they contaminate the standard English needed for academic pursuits and deeper levels of expression? When answering, we
cannot ignore the simple practicality of this shorthand system, and we cannot ignore the cul- tural and psychological reasons why so many
ESL speakers, other ethnic groups, and young people relate to this style of speech. Therefore, our answer must be that the questions
themselves are pointless. This subdialect exists and serves a need by speeding up transmission of basic information for those who do not
have or do not wish to use more sophisticated language features and by helping those who wish to identify with a cultural style or attitude.
When responding to the Hispanic student's question ("Why don't you .just teach us English the way people use it?"), our challenge is
multifaceted. However, we must not assume that limited-English speakers have limited abilities to learn. To become fully functioning
members of society, ESL learners, just as native English-language speakers, need to understand and express themselves using the casual
communication
style of their peers as well as the standard English necessary for academic and pro- fessional performance and situations that call for more
advanced expression. To expect ESL learners to perform at only one of these levels seriously limits their potential and participation in
society. Providing them with chances to explore various levels of language provides all of us with fascinating opportunities to discover
language phe- nomena from a cross-cultural perspective. In spite of all its complexities and oddities, the strength of the English language lies
in its nulticultural, multilingual heritage. English is a system of expression that has grown out of a multiplicity of peoples and situations
around the world and through time. Through speakers of English as a Second Language, English continues to develop and function as a most
efficient and expressive tool for communication worldwide.
Questions on Content.
Elyssa points out that there is more to learning a language than just learning grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. What are some of the
other language elements that must be learned'?
2. Summarize Elyssa's explanation for the following errors:
My roommate last night help me. I hope making a decisions tomorrow. Explain why some non-English speakers have difficulty with the fact
that so many English speakers begin sentences with 1.
4. Define contrastive analysis and error analysis.
Explain the differences between natural gender and gram- matical gender.
Explain why so many native and non-native speakers of English have difficulties with subject and verb agreement.
Elyssa begins paragraph 25 with a question. What is her answer'?
Questions on Structure and Style.
Consider Elyssa's opening paragraph. Describe the rhetori- cal technique she employs. Is it effective? Consider also what you learn about
her voice and audience.
What is the rhetorical function of paragraph 3? Discuss how the transition works in paragraph 16.
Assignments 1.
Interview an acquaintance for whom English is not the first language. Determine what features of English are most and least difficult.
Attempt to account for some of the responses by asking questions about the first language. Do you feel that error analysis and contrastive
analysis might account for some of your findings? Write an essay in which you dis- cuss your interview.
2. Write a summary of the major points Elyssa makes in paragraphs 16-23.
Arrange to interview an ESL teacher or perhaps observe an ESL class. Write an essay in which you describe what you observed. Did you see
or hear anything that was consistent with Elyssa's remarks? What did you learn about the difficulties in learning English?