Part of a lecture on «Associations» delivered by Prof. Hornby

Teaching English as a foreign language.... The subject you have on your syllabus is the teaching of English as a foreign language.

     Before we go on to the problems of teaching English as a foreign language I want to start by talking in a very general way about the way in which we learn the mother tongue.                                                                   

      I know quite well of course, that learning the mother tongue is completely different in many ways from learning a foreign language. But there are a few things we can learn, I think, by discussing this question.        

      Suppose we start with vocabulary. How did I learn the words of my own language? Let me take, er, two or three words that are related: the words: «woods», «forest» and «jungle»,                                                 

     Everything in language learning in language teaching is fundamentally a matter of forming the right kind of associations and of strengthening those associations. What associations have you with those three words: «woods», «forest» and «jungle»?

    Obviously we have one association in common: it's the word «trees». So when I first heard the word «woods» I formed an association with «trees». Perhaps, er, when I was very, very small indeed I was taken into the country and somebody said: «Look! Let's go into the woods and pick some flowers». Or perhaps somebody said «Let's go into the woods and have a picnic or gather blackberries or whatever it might be». And so I saw these trees, and I associated the word «woods» with trees.

And as my visits to the woods were repeated I formed more and more associations with certain kinds of trees: the trees that grow in our woods, in this country, and with certain kinds of wild flowers, praps wild flowers that are quite unfamiliar to you - primroses, foxgloves, windflowers, violets.

     I could go on but the names are not important. And, of course, with certain kinds of birds - the robin, the thrush, the nightingale, the owl I wouldn't go on with birds because they are not important words with certain kinds of animals - rabbits, perhaps, occasional fox or a badger, and with certain kinds of social occasions - picnicking, gathering blackberries or hazel nuts, even birds' nesting when I was a naughty boy, I suppose.

Well, you see, those are the associations that come to me when I hear or see that word «woods».

    And when I came to the word «forest» I began, of course, with the association with «trees», but probably I went into a forest and I had in my mind tales that I had read or tales that had been told to me about Robin Hood and the outlaws, Nottingham Forest, Sherwood Forest.

And I associated «forest» not so much with picnicking and gathering blackberries or having, er, thousands of flowers and so on; I associated «forest» with hunting in the Middle Ages when the forests were reserved for the king and his nobles hunting the deer; and with the outlaws Robin Hood arid so on.

  And later on with similar stories that I'd read about; men who went into the forest of Canada to trap animals for their furs, or perhaps tales about your country where wolves took the place of bears; wolves in your country, bears in Canada, the deer in English forests.

   So we see all these words are not things that come to you all of a sudden; you get these words, you understand these words, you come to know these words but gradually building up a cluster of associations around them as you experienced these things in your life, as you read, as you hear people talk, as you travel about in уоur country.

You build up a cluster of associations, you don't suddenly say: «Oh, now I know that word» - you don't. You build up associations of clusters very, very gradually.

London

Ladies and gentlemen!

Thank you for being so patient and waiting for me. I'd like to say a few words about London. I'm sorry if my hair prevents you from hearing everything. But I was told that it would be cold in Moscow and I couldn't afford a hat.

It's been said by Percy B. Shelly whom I'm sure you've heard of that he who is tired of London is tired of life. Now I've lived in London for 21 years and I'm not tired of it. But I can’t say that I know it very well either. I could probably tell you where to get a drink on a warm day I could tell you how to get from Hyde Park to Leicester Square; I could tell you how tall you have to be to become a policeman and lots of other facts such as the height of Big Ben. But this probably will not tell you very much I about London itself.

The only way that you can become acquainted with London is to talk to everybody who lives there. Not just one person] it's of no use listening to me and hoping to get a complete impression of London. Because I lived there, I went to School there, I met the other people there the policemen, the taxi – drivers, the shop – keepers, the women who work in the clubs and in restaurants in London, the actors who act in the theatres of London the people who work in transport system land in the streets.                                                    

From each one of these people you’d get a different story. You would get a different story from the man who goes to work tat 8 o'clock every morning on the same train and sits with the same people 'and says not a single word to them. You'd get a different story from the girl who works in a club and leaves the club at 3 o'clock in the morning and wants to speak to somebody but there's nobody to speak to.                      

You would get a story from a taxi driver who does his job in all the streets of London. He has to know how to get from London airport to 'anywhere in London that you name in a quickest possible time. He enjoys to talk to his passengers but not many of them want to talk to him. You would get a different story from the schoolboy who wakes up in a cold foggymorning if you like and doesn't want to go to school. And you'd get a different story from the old tramps who sleep outside the station every night

From all the people in London I you'd get a different story. London has as many personalities, as it has inhabitants. London offers them a living and they repay London with   the personality or lack of it.

Thank you.

How to be polite

Well, I’m going to speak about one particular aspect of the English character which is very very important. That is: How to be polite.

Manners, said the English poet William Blake, make us man. And the English have raised manners and politeness to a fine art.

English politeness is a game played by the English to amuse themselves and to confuse foreigners. It gives foreigners the impression that there’s something about the English which they do not have, and the English the impression that they are superior to everybody else.  

        The first, the golden rule of English politeness is: always say please and thank you. Say it as many times as possible. There is a joke that when you buy a ticket for a bus in England it is possible to say than you about seven times when you give the money, when you, get the ticket back, went you get the change and whatever.            

         The second rule is put everybody else before yourself. Everyone's more important than you. The third rule is everything is 'always your fault. So if you have two English people trying to go through the same door, you have: “After you! No after you! Oh, pardon me! Excuse me! After you!” At which point they both walk to the door together. ”Bang!” They then spend the next three quarters of an hour apologising for having done so: “My fault! I'm sorry! No, my fault. No, really, absolutely my fault”. You get this.

Once you've mastered that, you can proceed to the further stages of English politeness. One is respecting everybody’s individuality. Now recently it happened to me that I sat on the steps of Дом книги for a while and when I got up, my skirt was covered with dust. And at least four бабушки came up to me and informed me of the fact. That would not happen in England. You can walk down an English street with one red sock and one blue. sock on, or every button on your shirt undone. Nobody will tell you.

The other important thing is the dinner party or the tea party, and I think Chris said something about this at Oxford. First, you have to eat properly. That is you have to eat your fish so that you don’t have all the bones in your mouth when you are doing this, please. You are not permitted to eat with your knife obviously or to shovel with your fork. You have to eat peas one at a time and this will mean eat in a very English manner.

The first time I ate anything in a University in West Germany the whole of the room was looking at me. In the end I just said: I'm English, I hope that’s all right with you. And carried on eating.

Polite conversation. This is an art. The point is to find out everything about the person next to you without saying anything about yourself. You must not set on any controversial subject, politics, for example and if possible, talk about the weather. If you have to leave early or if you arrive late you must make an excuse. This does not have to bear any relation to the truth. Just so long as it sounds good and it doesn’t offend anybody.

Now, the English person hates to offend someone who has invited them. So, an English person invited by a Russian to ОБЕД will eat and eat and drink and drink as much as they possibly can. Even to the detriments of their health they can be very very courageous in the course of politeness. If you are absolutely desperate you are permitted once your host has left the room for some reason to take your cake, drop it behind the sofa and tip your vodka into the nearest flower pot. Only in emergency!

Now, the English are actually very patient and very tolerant. But there are few ways in hitch you can offend them. The first is to insult the Queen which I suggest you never do. The second is to push in front of them in a queue. Now I know what happens when you push in a queue in Moscow but in England you’ll get a look and the obvious comment:”Don’t you realize there’s a queue!” Sometimes stating the obvious can be extremely helpful.

Now, I could go on forever about politeness but I think I ought to mention the two exceptions. The first is English football fans. They don’t deserve any further mention in this talk. The second is the House of Parliament. Once an Englishman becomes an MP he is permitted to bang on the table, shout, whistle, heckle and generally be rude. This provides entertainment by the television for the rest of the population.

The only other thing I want to say is if you ever do visit England try and remember these simple rules. They will make your stay much easier. But don’t worry if you forget them or if you make a mistake. Because the English have the little phrase which they will say to each other when they see you pushing in a queue or using your knife and fork wrongly or generally doing something to the English impolite: ”Don’t worry, dear. They are only foreigners”.

That’s all.

 

 

[1] Сборник текстов по практической фонетике английского языка, с. 91.