Why is Learning English so hard?

For most native English speakers, learning to talk in our mother tongue was relatively easy. So much so that, in fact, we would struggle to recall exactly where and when exactly we emerged from making babbling noise as babies to making coherent sense. However, if you have ever travelled around the United Kingdom and heard our shifts in regional dialect, you might argue that we are often still developing ways to make sense and be understood. English is hard to learn because there aren’t consistent rules to it; and sometimes it just makes no sense at all. For example:

• There is no ham in hamburger.
• Neither is there any apple or pine in pineapple.
• If teachers taught, why don’t preachers praught?
• If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
• “Overlook” and “oversee” have opposite meanings, while “look” and “see” mean the same thing.

As native speakers, we rarely stop to think how illogical many of the things we say really are – we’re just used to them. Unless you’ve been brought up speaking English, how can you possibly begin to learn all these oddities? As children, we received the highest level of mentoring and tuition in speaking, listening, reading and writing from our parents who, nearly always being native speakers themselves, ensured that we were corrected at each conjugation and verb-subject inconsistency, and that our pronunciation was audible and clear enough to be understood by others. As we matured, we moved on to formal schooling, where we spend eleven years perfecting our command of academic English in order to undertake our GCSEs, ensuring we know our ‘hydrochloride’ from our ‘hypothesis’, and our ‘writing to inform’ from our ‘writing to evaluate’. With all of this in mind, it should come as no surprise that when learning English as an additional language, most children need even greater levels of support to develop their language and academic proficiency to the same standards. Professor Jim Cummins is a world-renowned expert on bilingualism in education and bases his thesis on looking at how we acquire language. He looks from the perspective of how a native speaker develops; from acquiring basic interpersonal skills (BISC) which allow us to perform and undertake every day interaction and conversation, to cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP). Cummins research concludes that it takes 5 – 7 years for students learning English as an additional language to be as proficient as a native speaker. This, of course, presents of us with significant challenges when, as an international school, we want on our pupils to make progress in both areas in a much shorter space of time. What makes Wellington International the best at developing English proficiency in children? At Wellington College, we challenge the idea that our students learn in a linear way, as described by Cummins, and our latest outstanding IGCSE results would suggest we are right to do so. What we offer at Wellington is unique; we believe that the children in our school can acquire both their BICs and CALP at the same time. Not just because of the outstanding teaching and learning taking place here, but because we value educating and immersing children in English. From the opportunities to be on stage, to be part of a debate team, to the classroom learning and through our seemingly endless opportunity for self-development. We are committed to being a language-rich environment. The provision for children with additional English learning needs is broken down into three main groups:

• Children who are just beginning to learn and communicate in English, who require targeted intervention in small group setting with an EAL specialist, as well as promoting language learning through CCA or Academy sessions to develop every day functional uses of English.
• Children who have, or are beginning to acquire, an intermediate range of English proficiency who may require some withdrawal, but mostly receive support in the mainstream classroom from an EAL teacher alongside their class teacher. We also promote the development of their language through CCAs such as debating, Drama, Sports teams, in order to better broaden exposure to different types of language.
• Those who are highly proficient in all areas of communication and need to be in an environment to develop creativity and flair when using English. They require high levels of challenge both inside and beyond the classroom. We expect that our students make rapid and sustained progress because of the approach to teaching and learning we have here: so most children will move from ‘beginning’ to ‘highly proficient’ more quickly than native speakers learning in the UK.

This means that we are both proactive and responsive to the children we work with. They are all individuals and, because we try to be the best at what we do, we can respond effectively to meet their ongoing needs. We are also implementing a 1:1 reading programme with our interns from Wellington College UK. They have received extensive training through external and internal sources to ensure that they are best placed to provide support, guidance and redirection for children on an individual basis. This 1:1 time is invaluable for children who are learning English, as it allows them time to reflect, to ask questions and benefit from being with native speakers. But more than this; what makes us stand out and make us rather unique here in Shanghai, is that we also offer so much more than this. Our provision is not just about EAL learners having additional lessons, but it also about their immersion in English as a narrative for their ongoing education. To enjoy learning and studying English is more than knowing your fronted adverbial phrases from you subordinate clauses and expanded noun phrases, it’s about capturing moments in the children’s imagination that can only be expressed in English. These concepts move our learners from being second language leaners to truly developing a sense of what it means to be a native English speaker. Here at Wellington, we don't aim simply for our children to recall the rules and conventions of grammatical accuracy, but for them to become learning leaders. Their communication in English is a currency upon which they can trade with eloquence and excellence through their lessons, of course, but also through the experiences they have here being immersed in English. Seeing our non-native speakers performing on stage and on the sports fields where communication and enunciation is vital to success, I am certain that we are developing English language speakers that will feel that the idiosyncrasies of English will be as natural to them as they do to children growing up in the UK today. Learning English is a journey for every student in our college, native and non-native, and one in which we are committed to igniting a passion. Rebecca Haley Director of English as Additional Language