A life raft for language learners (with charts!)
During my CELTA training back in Houston, Texas, some other students and I were tasked with choosing from a list which teaching materials we would take with us to a desert (but not deserted) island. One colleague and I prioritized tools and materials that were adaptable, writing instruments, craft materials, etc. but another member of our group stubbornly insisted that a stack of newspapers was all but indispensable.
He argued that these were useful examples of real language that could be useful for learners — regardless of the fact that they would soon be outdated. I was of the opinion that the instructor could create contemporary, living language without being burdened with bundles of newsprint.
I didn’t think of it at the time, but I now see that there was room for an anti-authoritarian argument here: just because it’s (or was) written down doesn’t mean it’s “correct” or even useful.
One of the complaints I often hear about the Russian education system is that it’s stuck in the past, or simply “Soviet.” I never quite understood what this meant — isn’t it true of every education system? Today’s instructors were instructed by instructors from the past, whose expertise and views may well have fallen out of scientific or social favor.
However, while playing around with Google’s Ngram viewer, I saw how “actual” (as the locals say) this problem is.
Using the British English corpus (American English is not terribly popular here), you can clearly see that “Soviet” influence on how today’s Russian students of English speak.
Let’s look at some examples.
Just past 1940, there was an inflection point where “reason for” became dominant. However, this change has not taken place among most students I have encountered in Russia.
Another common error is saying “(language name) language” without the definite article. This comes, at least in part, from how Russian formulates references to language systems.
You can see in this chart that by far “in English” is the most common construction, with even the technically correct “in the English language” posting figures similar to the incorrect “in English language.”
Still, guess which “variant” students most often use.
Interestingly, “in the English language” rated a bit higher than zero but is approaching nil with every passing year.
This next example is attributable to directly translating a Russian construction (Я чувствую себя + adverb), and you can see that this construction is extremely rare in English, or at least has been since around 1820.
Similarly, the often produced “I feel scary” comes from L1 transference (Мне страшно, which works out to “It is scary to me”), but you can see that this formation is absent from actual English.
L1 transference is especially egregious when it forces learners to translate word-for-word when such a construction is impossible in the target language. Observe how “despite on the fact,” which comes from Несмотря на, with “на” lazily and incorrectly taught to simply mean “on,” does not exist in English.
At all.
I often share a story about my Spanish class in 8th grade. Someone sneezed and the teacher said “Salud!” when asked what it meant, she explained that literally it meant “health,” but that this was the appropriate way to react to someone having an explosive nasal event.
One of my classmates rolled her eyes and mumbled “You don’t say ‘health’ when someone sneezes…”
No, you kind of do.
There are two things that instructors and learners can do to avoid errors like in the aforementioned crop.
The first is to read contemporary materials in the target language. Readers who pay attention will quickly see that many of the constructions they were drilled and tested on in high school are simply not present or look very different.
Who are you going to trust: highly qualified philologist “Anna Pavlovna” or your lying eyes?
The second measure is to keep an open mind. Embrace change and be flexible with what you think you know.
One of the worst habits I see from students is digging in to outdated lexis, as if this saves face somehow. A better way of developing and showing off your skills is to continually adapt your lexicon to English as it is spoken, rather than defensively arguing that your high school classroom’s language the truest and best version.
Otherwise, you’re not learning; you’re not progressing.
You’re marooned.
