C.E.O. Corporate English Office no CBN Total

Too old?

Some adults give up the idea of learning a language. What they sometimes say is that the age to do so is now long gone. Lots of people truly believe that learning a new language is something you do during childhood or adolescence. But of course this is not true.

Let's consider some aspects. I'll try  to be straight forward and avoid technicalities. Firstly, it is true that in order to be considered bilingual, that is, perfect and virtually same commands of two languages, one should be in touch with both languages from a very early stage in life. That is what some experts suggest.

A lot of people who are not bilingual can speak two languages. The difference is that these people have one first language, not two as with bilinguals. The other languages are their second, third,... ones. They can be fluent in several languages, but native in only one.

There is some controversy to what happens to adults who move to other countries and live a much longer period of their lives using a language different than their native ones. Can a native language change with time? Perhaps, But this is not the direction we'll be taking for now.

There is a kind of consensus that during a specific period of someone's life, the brain is more effective in storing new information and learning things. I'm not entirely sure about the specific ages, but it's something between childhood and and pre-adolescence. However, this does not mean that an adult cannot learn something new (languages included). In fact, adults have several advantages over the young and fresh.

For starters, adults usually come to classes because the want to, and not because their mums ordered them to. Then the big ones have more discipline. They study when they have to. On top of that, grown-ups have a longer attention span, which means that a teacher can push a bit further when analysing language, for example. At this stage of the lesson, the ceiling normally attracts  the young ones' eyes.

So saying that you'll never learn English or any other language is not true. Nor is it so that you'll spend twice as much time to get there. It's really up to you.

We teach 1/3 of English

Would you study at an English school that promised to teach you 1/3 of the language?

When we're dealing with languages, and English is no different, we make use of two kinds of words, to put it simply: content and function words. The latter are those terms that don't carry meaning, they exist to form the text, not to give its content. (e.g.. In the previous sentence: the, that, do, they, to, its:

; can be used as examples). By elimination, content words are the ones that carry the intended message. You would probably be able to understand the model sentence above just using these words: latter, terms, not, meaning. 

The idea is more or less what happened because of text messaging."pub tomorrow 8. Everyone!" replaced "let's meet up tomorrow at the pub at 8pm? Everyone's gonna be there". Our brains automatically fill in the missing gaps, enabling us to decode the message even though it's not complete. Or perhaps not fully written is more appropriate.

This means that you can use the very same principle in reading and listening in a foreign language. But turning a blind eye, or deaf ear, to the "irrelevant" words is not easy. They usually distract you, and when you realise,........................................., you have already missed what the speaker said. Let's give it a go with reading? The following words belong to a text. What is it about?

America, not, spying, people, intelligence, information, protect

Congratulations, you've interpreted a text using 07 out of its 31 words. It's actually less than a third. Check it out below:

“America is not interested in spying on ordinary people. Our intelligence is focused above all in finding the information necessary to protect our people, and in many cases protect our allies” Barack Obama

Or watch the video (1m06s)

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2013/08/16/ym-romans-hack-my-life.cnn.html

Multiple Confusing Choices

At first, when I visited potential clients, my idea was to offer a completely customised service according to their needs. I'd start by asking: "Tell me what you expect from an English course, and I'll very likely do it." Beautiful. Everyone one would like that, right? Not.

Let me go back in time a little. Many years ago, I was a t-shirt maniac. I used to buy all kinds of tops with different designs, messages and colours. There was a specific  site I bought from, with thousands of options to choose from, and every week they had several new releases. I was quite a regular client.

Then one day I came across the perfect online shop: they had a rather intuitive and user friendly system that allowed you create your own design. Anything and they'd get it printed. You could even choose the fabric. The result? I never bought a single t-shirt from them. It didn't take me too long to realise that I was really good in finding, judging and buying, but creating wasn't really my cup of tea. Unfortunately, the website doesn't exist anymore.

A similar phenomenon happened to me. When I asked my potential client what he wanted from my course, the automatic response was "what do you have to offer?" And I'm pretty sure they were thinking something like this: "you're the specialist here Mr, don't ask me to know what I need. You tell me!"

I immediately changed my approach. Started explaining the most popular formats and why they're good, adding to the end: "but of course we have a lot of flexibility to adapt to what you need". Then the response changed."interesting", they said.

My conclusion is that only a few people know exactly what they want (in my context, of course. Buying ketchup could be slightly simpler. Or maybe not). Most people want you to show them what they need, regardless if they know what they want or not.. They want you to be able to understand them, and provide a solution that is better than the ones they already know or have.

I'd say this is the process:

I don't want to think about English classes. My profession is a different one.

I want YOU to know what I need. Then tell me what I need.

If I believe you, then what is the solution?

And you'd better be creative. Your competitor is waiting outside.

Surprise me and I'll buy it.

Otherwise, I'll call you back. Or not.

I’ve been recently been interviewing some people for a teaching position at my school. This process has made me think a lot about many things.

I remember working as a glass collector in a really nice pub named Revolution in Glasgow, Scotland. It was hard work and the shifts could be long some times. I remember starting work at 11 a.m. and finishing at 2 a.m. completely exhausted but happy. I noticed while I was there that I spent a few months without seeing daylight on Sundays because I spent the day in bed sleeping. Not a difficult achievement in Glasgow, though.

I remember carrying kegs in the cellar, and bringing up the stairs huge plastic bags full of ice on my back. I remember cleaning vomit in urinals and being careful with bin juice when throwing away the garbage at the end of the shift.

When I moved to Barcelona, I needed a job fast to avoid coming back to Brazil sooner than anticipated. I clearly remembered the tone of the interview:

“Hablas Español?”

“Sorry, I don’t”

“Ok. What hours do you have available”

“24h”

“Ok. Let me rephrase. What hours are you willing to work?”

“24h”

“What is a good a salary for you right now?”

“A salary. Any salary”

“Ok, I get it. What are you willing to do while working in the bar apart from making cocktails?”

“Everything”

“Ok, give me an example”

“I really need the job, so if you want me to clean your toilet with my tooth brush, I’ll do it right now”

“long pause…. Ok, you start tonight.”

A week later, I had the key to the tiny little bar. The owner said he really wanted to go on holidays after so many years working non-stop.

Now, this is tone of the interviews I've been having:

“Can you speak English?”

“Very well. I lived abroad for many years”

“What hours do you have available?”

“It depends. How many groups will you give me and what is the pay?”

“I’ll give you no groups, you’ll work long hours, the pay is miserable but at least you’ll get paid to learn”

“I know how to teach”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I taught my niece about two years ago”

“Ok, I’ll call you soon to let you know the results”

“Ok. Please, try not to call me in the mornings, ok? I’ll be in class or maybe sleeping”

“Sure. I’ll keep that in mind. Nice to meet you”

“I know”