🙈🇬🇧 I SUCKED AT ENGLISH 🇬🇧🙈
Hi my dear friends! I was scrubbing right around the back of the toilet this morning doing my weekly chores and I got thinking: It's been an interesting transition throughout my life, English-wise. I now love the thing, teaching it, all the linguistics stuff but at school... I SUCKED and HATED English with passion. 😁🙈 Fuu, pancake indeed!
👨🏫 I pretty much base my entire principles of teaching on what I experienced at school trying to correct all those wrongs which I inject into my students.
My English teacher, my first one at grammar school, had bags under her eyes like the size of those blue ones you find in IKEA; she was middle-aged, a chronic smoker and really couldn't give a shit. Every month we were given a project and we were left to our own devices. No direction whatsoever. My mistakes were never explained but in year 8 I couldn't have cared less about that anyway. Mrs I-can't-remember-her-name had a lackluster attitude towards teaching; of course that rubbed off on us, especially me.
🇬🇸 From year 9 to finishing school we were presented Mrs Leabourne; a Kiwi (from New Zealand). If she could grow a beard, she could have landed a part in Lord of the Rings as some rather skinny and annoying dwarf. But alas she was our English teacher instead. Again, project after project whether being humiliatingly forced to stand up in class to recite lines from Shakespeare, or to discuss the allegory in Lord of the Flies, it was just repetitive dullness. But we still couldn't tell adjectives and adverbs apart. For all we knew, an adjective might have been the name of some new 1990s boyband. I was never inspired to delve deep into English to discover its beauty, never taken on a journey to uncover what makes English so English, its role in the world etc. Mrs Kiwi Dwarf clearly had favourites and I wasn't one of them. Needless to say, I finished school with a pathetic GCSE mark in English language and literature.
💥 I detested my own language but was besotted with German. Why so? Firstly I went on two German exchange programs and whilst in Frankfurt, I used my very basic German and guess what? THEY UNDERSTOOD AND PRAISED ME! Wow! A school subject had a purpose!!! A use!!! I excelled in German as a result - a confidence dopamine hit to the brain! Tie that in with Mr Room, my awesome German teacher (who I talk about in my Emotional Intelligence conferences) who instilled confidence, was supportive and most importantly, treated us lads like human beings. I got that care and inspiration I didn't find at school as well as at home.
🆘 But there was a problem. Even when doing my A level German in St.Albans, I stagnated. My German was not budging an inch forwards. But I realized why pretty early on. When my awesome teacher John Hill was explaining how the passive worked in German, our response was: Emmmm John, which word in the verb again? His jaw dropped and smashed a hole in the floor. After that lesson I popped into Borders and bought a book called: Teach Yourself English. On the bus home I started reading, "ohhh that's what a noun looks like!" (I was 16). I got addicted. I started filling in all those gaps. I began to make mega progress in German. Why so? Well, I understood the translators' mantra: The biggest issue among translators is they don't understand their own language well enough. How True! My German started to suck because my English was simply not up to par. John was an inspirer, he was so passionate about German and languages that I wanted to be a part of it; this enthusiasm and love just dragged me in.
Many years later, while at university and afterwards, I fell in love with English ever more so. I loved the systematic approach to linguistics, deciphering grammatical conundrums and finding new ways to make learning more effective. Up until this very point, I came to realize some fundamental points regarding my development:
👉 Having a supportive family makes a huge difference, especially ones that aren't indifferent or too pushy but stand close behind you as a safety net.
👉 Having a teacher that really can show the purpose of a subject and its practical applications rather than learning through rote.
👉 Most importantly, having a teacher that really wants to help you via their unbridled passion for the subject and desiresto improve your life!
If I didn't have Mr Room or John Hill, but the Mrs Leabournes and the Mrs I-can't-remember-name-and-probably-never-will types, I wouldn't be here right now loving what I do with you guys!
