My Essay on The Third Ear Chapter5

The chapter5 is a little long. The author make a point of view that “how you think about things does matter”. For example, There are a number of implications for how to think about the language-learning process, “Tool,not subject”, “Only results matter”, “communicate, don’t grammarate”, “joining a language community”, “skill, not concept”, “it’s all relative”.

Next, I will focus on the importance to the relationship between how you think and the results you are able to create when playing a sport. Let me talk about my experience of learning swimming again. In fact, I learned the backstroke in junior high school, because it was the high school entrance examination sports. The reason I chose the backstroke style was I couldn’t learn to breathe in the water. Even thouth I passed the entrance examination of swimming at that time, I couldn’t really swim in the water, I just could float on the water. If I go to the beach, I don’t go to the sea to play now. On reflection, I think I just a little afraid of the water. Deeply thinking inside I always felt terrible if I stay in the water for a long time. Yeah, this is my thought for the swimming before.

Because of the COVID, I couldn’t travel or take a business trip abroad the past these years. It’s so boring for me. Fortunately, I often do exercises to keep fit. Then I just remembered the swimming. At this time, I made up my mind really learned the swimming. As the normal steps, I found a nice coach and started to learn the freestyle. It’s important for taking a breath in freestyle.

The coach taught me a lot of things, about the perfect freestyle gestures, and the skill of taking a breath in the water. In the end, the coach teach me a simple trick when I told him my fear in the water. The coach said, you should try to embrace the water, you should’t against the water. the more you against, the more you are fear. On the contrary, If you emrance the water, you will find yourself calm down and soft. And the coach give me a advise about practice deeply thinking in the water at the begining. Of course, it certainly would not go well at first. After all it’s a little long the thinking of the water fear for me. As soon as I go in to the water at first, I wanted get out. Gradually I adapted in the water and I even could think about the skill of the freestyle. The result is I learned the freestyle through the constant practices, whatever the physical or emotional sections. I changed the thought about the water, then I done it. Now, if I have a free time, I will stay in the water and relax my mind.

All in all, back to the language learning. Obviously, the third ear not just a language book. The author told me a lot of points of life. In fact, Chinese have many misunderstanding for a foreign language. As I mentioned above, Chinese really like learning English in class, whatever adults or children. Actually, I start to learn English from a very young age, not just from junior high school. But what is the result? I still felt it is difficult to speak English. So I have always been frustrated with English. Like Pamela of the third ear, what’s worse, I think I’m not as familiar with grammar as she is.

Another big misunderstanding about learning a foreign language, for Chinese, they always study English, do not do English. Chinese people would learn hard English in the classroom, they tried to remember both words and grammar of the textbook. But after class, they would totally forget anything about the language. Because it’s just a subject. They learned them and make sure they can pass the exam. That’s all. They don’t communicate in English after class. They lack of the practices in English.

Not like history or other subjects, language is a skill. I more and more agree with the above idea these few years. For the traditional methods, I means, learning the grammar and words in the classroom, it’s not the best thing. There’s no denying that a few person could learned a second language in the classroom, but the most people were failed. After work, I more and more felt the importance of the communication in English as a skill. When you talk with some foreigners, they try to understand your meaning, just a word or phrase, even as some body language. Recently, my company want to order some Auto tools from Swiss. So I would contact some dealers, most of time we could exchange information through the emails, sometimes I even contact by telephone. OMY, you know, only me. Then I have to use my broken grammar and a little words to express my order through the phone. Fortunatelty, the dealers generally understand.

So, meaning is most important. Let’s more and more talk about each other in English, only care about the meaning.