ENCOURRIGING STORIES OF
LEARNING SPOKEN ENGLISH
英语口语学习励志故事
Tittle：《美国教授听不懂中式英语》American Professor Doesn't Understand Chinese English （节选自John Y 长篇英语回忆录《ENGLISH SPEAKING-AN ECHO ONLY FROM COMMITMENT》）
American professor doesn't understand
Chinese English
In the autumn of 1986, as a "self-apply, self-pay"(Zifei Zipai) applicant (in contrast to Zifei Gongpai, or those who got funds from and were sent by the government) for graduate studies in the United States, I was admitted to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) on a PhD program in psychology, lucky enough to be sponsored by its special fellowship.
Before then, I had passed the TOEFL test qualifying me for English proficiency, which was a requirement of the first-class graduate schools in the US. At the same time I was also self-pleased with my oral English, since I had taken “foreign teachers’ class” for a period and often practiced English speaking with my schoolmates at ZU. This situation is quite similar to many college students nowadays who have passed CET 4 or CET 6 then have over evaluation with their own spoken English.
But I had encountered big problems with my spoken English when I first got to the US. My enrollment in psychology at UCLA was a rare case with cross-grade and cross-major studies. Psychology was not my undergraduate major and the department of psychology at UCLA was not offering a master degree. All enrolled graduate students pursued only PhD. In the US, psychology is a comprehensive subject integrating mental, life and social sciences that demanded excellent mastering of English with both background and application skills in communication. This was far beyond what a "layman" could have hoped to approach. Therefore the English language demands, particularly the oral communication skills, had brought me an unprecedented challenge.
The earliest problem came from the communication between my graduate advisor, Prof. Bernard Weiner and I. As a noted scholar in the US and international society of cognitive psychology, Prof. Weiner was well-known for his Motivation and Attribution theory. For a newcomer like me from China, he had shown his exceptional understanding and caring, and during our first meeting in his office, sent me a copy of his latest publication with his autograph: Theory of Human Motivation. Then the problem came up. He treated me as an ordinary student and spoke really fast. I just couldn't keep up with him. When I spoke, though he often seemed to listen to me carefully, I could see signs of confusion and incomprehension on his face, and he always had to interrupt me saying, "John, can you say it again?" I felt that he might have never understood what I was talking about. But out of politeness he didn’t pour cold water on my feelings. That had made me feel even more ashamed. I was confused: “Don't I speak English?”
The other barrier was from my “buddy”, a native graduate student assigned by the department to help a new foreign student person-to-person. She was a blonde white girl, with the same major specialization in "Personality Psychology" as I but in a higher grade. Unfortunately the communication between us later on proved not that polite and friendly as between Weiner and me because of the language barrier.
I still remember the last time I communicated with her on Thanksgiving Day of my first school year when she was back in her hometown Seattle for holidays. Since I had something consulting her about, I made a long distance call from LA to Seattle. After the phone connected, I spoke a few words and heard a voice from the other side, "Pardon?"
This word is popular nowadays and when used here it means "I don't understand" or "please say it again". But in those days many Chinese, including me, had no knowledge about it. What I had learnt was its written explanation: "please forgive me". So when my buddy said "please forgive me" to start the conversation, I didn’t understand what she meant and was really puzzled.
Maybe due to the failure of response, my buddy thought I might have not caught it, so she repeated: "Pardon?" But I still couldn’t respond. Then I heard a sound "pa" from the other side and the phone was hung up. From then on my buddy had never contacted me again.
This event and many others after taught me a lesson of the "instant reaction" principle while speaking English with a foreigner in normal language environment, in which a learner must not only respond, but more importantly, respond immediately and effectively. Otherwise such communication could only end with "sorry, I got to go, bye!" from the other side.
With such problems there was an even more embarrassing case for me. In my graduate classes, most students were American or from English speaking countries and only a few oriental faces could be seen. One day in a class of Human Sexual Behavior, students were all actively following the professor with questions and discussing. Maybe the professor had noticed that there was only me sitting in the corner quietly, so he walked up to me and asked: "Hi, does that make sense to you?"
Not knowing what he meant, I merely remained silent. At this moment in the classroom all other students turned to me as though they were watching an alien and I felt so embarrassed that I just wanted to dig a hole and hide in it.
In fact, this was a very common expression, which means "do you understand?" But at that time I really didn't understand so how could I answer it? There was an old Chinese saying: "Soldiers aware of shame then become brave". This event aroused my resolution to learn perfect communication skills in English from that day on.
After that, I had taken various roles in positions that had given me contact with all kinds of people in the US. I worked in a Chinese restaurant as a busboy, as a Yellow Cab driver in Chinatown, as a housekeeper for a Chinese family, at Pizza Hut as a delivery guy, as a cover teacher at an elementary school, as an errand for a travel agency, as a manager in a downtown motel and as a domestic assistant for a CEO of a brand US company. More than ten years of study, work and living in the States made me realize that what I had learnt and practiced in China with communicative English was just a sort of Chinglish or Chinese English. While in a real English environment it turned to "Li Gui meets Likui" or “fake meets genuine”, all failed and useless. Therefore, to learn the authentic spoken language in English, I must start from scratch.
