English language teachers should get to know to their students

By Tim Drown

SEMARANG (JP): As an English teacher I have also been attracted to Byron Black's column on English, "The Listening Post." I have become disappointed, however, after reading the column on some days.

One example is a recent issue that simply transcribed a conversation about tire pressures between the two car mechanics who are regularly featured on National Public Radio in the United States. I enjoy listening to them when I am back in the U.S. but it was not apparent to me why the conversation went off and on over the past five years.

I think "The Listening Post" suffers from content and language that is aimed at the wrong audience. A newspaper cannot operate without an accurate idea of what kind of people are reading it. Reporters must report to someone. The same is true for English teachers.

I would like to know who Byron thinks is reading "The Listening Post." What kind of readers does he think about when he writes?

From the general content and level of English used, I would assume that most of his readers are upper intermediate, advanced, near native, or native speakers of English. "The Listening Post," however, is also a thinly veiled advertisement to encourage people to learn more English by reading the Post, listening to Radio Sonora, and taking English courses at American Language Training. If I am not mistaken, I do not think that his readers would therefore be the kind that would respond to the advertisement. If they can read and understand his column, they already know more than the average learner of English in Indonesia.

I think the column would be better if the content was more relevant to lower level English learners than he is currently addressing. How many expats would read a similar type column in Kompas, for example, if it existed? I've been here five years and I still have difficulty reading an Indonesian newspaper. I assume the same would be true for most Indonesians reading the Post. I have had very little success in encouraging even my advanced English students to read the Post on a regular basis. "The Listening Post" could serve to attract lower level English readers to read the Post more than they currently do. It could function in a similar way that "The News in Special English" functions to the Voice of America.

One way of doing this might be to review language usage in the Post itself. In the Sept. 22 issue, for example, the lead article was entitled, "BI to keep money policy prudent." Later on in the same article, the writer used the alternative adjective "prudential" to say "...the country's prudential monetary system..." Why did the writer switch adjectives? The adjectives "prudent" and "prudential" are not exactly interchangeable. "Prudent" means `practical, exercising good judgment or common sense.' "Prudential" on the other hand, can imply a misguided notion of prudence. Whereas "prudent" has a positive meaning, "prudential" has negative overtones. So it can be said: Someone can make prudent preparations for an emergency; but His prudential warnings stifled their sense of adventure (The Right Word at the Right Time ).

Another suggestion that could be helpful to readers is for Byron to feature typical Indonesian mistakes more often than he already does. Many of these errors occur because of transferring Indonesian thought patterns into English forms. Often these direct translations from Indonesian into English sound strange or amusing in English. These types of errors are understandable. I often make the same kind of errors when using Indonesian.

In sum, I would really like to know who Byron thinks is reading his column and if he thinks they are the kind of people who would be interested in taking English courses (at ALT or any other good language school). Would he please justify his column's content with concept of his audience?

I also think the use of boldface type column is odd. Usually bold type is used to emphasize or attract attention. This it does, but what does the bold type add that the bullet (*) hasn't already contributed (or vice-versa)? I don't think both are needed. One of them seems to me to be redundant. It is also not obvious to me why some words are in bold letters and others are not.

A more significant problem that finally prompted me to write were his comments in the Sept. 30 issue. "The Listening Post" tends to highlight the unusual, the odd, and the irregular aspects of English too often. The column sometimes resembles a "Ripley's Believe it or Not" for English. Although such items may be interesting to more advanced English readers, I think too much of this type of content could mislead lower level English readers into thinking that English is uniquely strange, peculiar, and random among the languages of the world.

I do not think it is very helpful to say as he did at the end of Friday's column that, "...English is simply riddled with uncertainties..." I hope this was meant to be an overstatement.

There are, without a doubt, many real and apparent irregularities in English. I use the word "apparent" because some "contradictions" and "inconsistencies" still need to be studied and explained by linguists. Our current knowledge of the grammar and usage is incomplete. An apparent exception may turn out to be a key to understanding a more fundamental pattern that linguists haven't understood yet. We do not have a complete understanding of why we say everything we do. (Some of my former colleagues, I am sure, would wholeheartedly agree -- especially as it applies to me). The fact is, however, that in order to function as a language and communicate meaning, English must be sufficiently patterned to be predictable. Reading and listening skills depend much on prediction. If English were really as uncertain as Byron states it is, it would cease to function as a language.

For more on emphasizing the regularities of the English language, I would like to suggest that Byron read a book by Michael Lewis, entitled, The English Verb. (It is probably in the library at the British Council). It does more than just explain grammar. It also has much to say about the nature of language, language learning, and language teaching.