Learning English happily with no fear or tear
One of the important reasons why my sibilings and I did not have the psychological resistance to learning English is that the language was not really that alien to our family and social environment. My father's second elder brother was in fact a proud holder of Senior Cambridge Certificate from the Anglo-Chinese School (ACS) in Ipoh in the 1950s and my parents' coffee shop was frequented in the 1970s by English-speaking customers. Trying to learn singing popular English songs of, for example, John Denver and Joan Baez, provided a positive motive of love for the study of the English language. The hobby of collecting stamps and letter-writings with pen pals from Britain, Australia and New Zealand certainly helped to add the elements of fun and thrill of learning Yingwen, without being forced or threatened by any powers.
All languages best taught & learned with love
All languages best taught & learned with love
posted by James Wong Wing-On at 3:30 PM
3 Comments:
What you briefly described, James, represented the freedom and the dynamics of those times.
Enter the ultra and supra nationalists and the magic evaporated. In its place, the narrow minded disdain pandering to backwardness, appeared, now manifesting itself openly in the material plane by way of global competition.
It's so ironic but is really in accordance with the natural working of Karma.
Disdain, like such, belongs to the realm of prejudice, fear and aversion. It fruitifies. All the feel good, world inverting sloganising of Mahathirism ain't going to alter a destiny so wrought.
The social environment in English for learning international languages English and Chinese is certainly much better than 1970s because there are now Astro, Internet and more bookshops. The practical question is WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE & NOW ?
Errata:
1. 1st line: "in Malaysia" (not "in English")
2. 2nd line: after the word "languages", add "such as"
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