I have not taught English for a long time. But a few weeks ago, two older students came to me, begging to learn English for travel.
I refused: “Well, I won’t teach anymore, it’s too tiring. Besides, you are too old, there is no way you can study. It’s better to stay at home and travel by YouTube on the television!”
They still insisted, telling me to teach because it will be worth my while. No thanks! I had to play the last card, honestly saying: “Your brains are now like T-Rex fossils, harder than reinforced concrete. Learning English right now is mission impossible!”
I was not kidding. In linguistics, the so-called fossil effect is when your brain gets older, it hardens like limestone, unable to be molded anymore. If in the distant past you learned to pronounce a word wrong, it will continue to be wrong. Especially the final sound in English, which determines the plural, possession, or tense of a verb.
For example, they want to say: “Adam’s English class is on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” but I hear: “Adam Englit cat i o two day an Turday” which sounds like an English cat is doing something for two days.
Or as simple as: “Excuse me, did you get my message?” becomes “Ếch mê, đit du ghét mày massa?” which sounds like the confession of a drunk frog.
Finally, the two older students hugged their British Shorthair cat and left, not wanting to study with me anymore. Fine! It will be the thirteenth month of the New Year before I feel enough motivation to teach again due to conditions such as:
– Toilet paper effect: A Westerner walked into a Vietnamese toilet and discovered there was no paper, so he had to try a “bum gun.” After a few panic attacks, they adapted and changed their hygiene habits. Learning English is the same, throwing you into an environment full of native speakers (bumguns). If you can’t speak it, you’re done. 100% effective, side effects… depends!
Also referred to in “The Art of War,” Sun Tzu describes “on death ground” as a situation where there is no chance of escape, and an army must fight to survive (learn the language) or perish.
Students thrown in the meat grinder, for example. If the students can survive the flash cards, Super Simple Songs and forced high-fives, they might just have a chance.
– Micro listening effect: This is listening to each syllable clearly, instead of crushing everything like an elephant in a china shop. Some Vietnamese people would refer to it as the Ignore Your Wife, Let’s Go Drink effect. Also refers to the importance of listening to every sound such as in the case “bring the pets home dear” and the terrible result is the cat smiles evilly as the dog is left behind in the pet salon.
– Lonely old man effect: I once met a 60-year-old Canadian CBC journalist who was determined to learn Chinese, an extremely difficult language to learn. The secret? He met a beautiful young Chinese girl, her eyes so sparkling that they could melt the stiffness of a corpse. He was motivated, excited, encouraged, virile, and then studied like crazy! Love! The ‘elixir’ that breaks down fossils. He was instead back from the dead like a dire wolf.
– Crammed into a box effect: Particularly for children, after a full day of school including English class and other classes, complicated social bonding, ect, drained of dopamine and the ability to focus and learn anything at all, the teacher does not speak a second language (the monkey see monkey no do effect) but, at least young people stay out of the house so mom and dad can have some quiet time and feel good about money kept busy.
– Hot girl effect: I taught a few famous women known for their beauty to ‘fill their minds’ with a second language, a second culture, and a second way to increase… followers. One of my former students once participated in an international beauty contest. She flipped her silky black hair back, flashed a million-watt smile, and announced: “I’ve invented the best English learning method in history!… blah blah blah.” I nodded vigorously, my eyes turned into hearts, my ears seemed to hear an angel singing, my feet were floating. What method? I don’t remember anymore, but who cares when the students are this beautiful! This is an extremely good method of… keeping your teacher motivated.
This effect also relates to:
– Effect of friendship: A celebutante (famous for being famous) friend/student spoke in a rising intonation, handed all her homework back to me,”Teacher, can you please do it for me? I’m sooo busy,” she gushed. This method is super effective at lowering the teachers’ morale and self-worth.
– Effect of cr.bby grump teacher: When studying Vietnamese my teacher threatened me: “If you pronounce it wrong, I will tie your legs together, and hang you upside down!” Thanks to that, I speak Vietnamese better than a CBC reporter (also works with Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”: “learn or hang upside down”).
Take your pick. English centers are springing up like mushrooms, advertising “super-fast learning”, “100% success”, “speak like a native in three days”. But I just want to ask one question: Wha du chill dren du in whe dey go two scoon?
If you understand the above sentence, congratulations, you are ready to… travel to Youtube! Happy trails.
*Jesse Peterson is an author who has published some books in Vietnamese, including “Jesse Cười”, “Funny Tragedy: adding color to life”.