English Speaking -- An Echo Only from Commitment
—— The Experience of Learning and Practicing Spoken English
by a Laosanjie Graduate (Chinese Version)
英语口语 — 一个只面对执着的回音
--- 一个“老三届”毕业生学习和实践英语口语的经历
（英文附中文本）
PART TWO
8. Practice Evidences that Environment is the Key to the Achieving of English Communication Skills
In 1989 as a graduate student at UCLA I applied for immigration to USA based on the third category of professional & technical talent, and was successfully permitted by US Labor Department. After three years waiting on line I together with my wife and daughter had all got Green Cards and become US permanent residents.
That time I was able to communicate with Americans with no barriers. I still remembered that when having interwiew at INS LA Division, I responded to the Federal INS officer in English so fluently that he had granted us Green Card in only ten minutes. However, I had gone through over this for six years.
In 1993 my daughter Xiaoxue, in Chinese meaning Little Snow, came to the States together with her grandma. Triggered by the snow pouring when she was born I gave her an English name Sharon which stands for Snow Girl in Chinese, and also takes the name of the famous American movie star Sharon Stone. That year she was only seven and went to a primary school in Shanghai as a first year student before coming to the US.
Being separated from parents since the second year of birth, Sharon had spent all her childhood with grandma in Jiangxi aunt's home and later on in Yunnan uncle's home. Lacking English learning within Chinese education system for pre- and primary school kids Sharon didn't even recognize the simplest English letters like A, B, C upon arriving in the US., and this caused big trouble for her entering into the local school. This was because all local schools were conducting education only in native English from first grade on, and all local American students would have no problem with that.
To solve this problem we were suggested to put Sharon in International school just as all the other Chinese parents did, in which there was ESL class(English as a Second Language) and all courses were conducted in bilingual languages including Mandarin. And Sharon could transfer to normal primary school when she had improved her English well enough.
But I had come up with a decision to the contrary: not let Sharon go to International School, insdead, let her go to a normal primary school with almost all kids in class were Americans. My decision was based on two principles in educational psychology: firstly, human beings have natural ability to learn a language, secondly, the key to the succes of learning a new language is the language envirnment. I had made my mind to excercise the experiment one more time on Sharon.
To say one more time because I had tested it on Sharon's old sister Lisa six years ago when she came to the US. But that time it was compulsary.
It was during my second year at UCLA when Lisa arrived in LA together with her mother in an F2 visa. As a seven years old fresh student of first year in primary school Lisa didn't know what A,B,C meant. Unfortunately, there was no international school that Lisa could go and I had to put her in a normal American school in neibourhood for study.
After a couple of months I found surprisingly that Lisa learned English so rapidly that she could conmmunicate with her classmates absolutely without any problem. What's more, she could also speak Cantonese too, because all her Chinese classmates were from Hong Kong. They quickly became good friends and cantonese became Lisa's second foreign language, but not for me. Sometimes Lisa took her classmates home talking only in Cantonese and I couldn't even understand a single word.
The primary school of US was pury a small world of American kids. In such a world, as a little Chinese girl of eight just arrived in the US, how she would communicate with other American kids and her teachers was really hard to image. But there is one thing for sure that even Chinese college students, if being with a big crowd of noisy native American kids and listening to them, would hardly understand what they are talking about at all.
Moreover, Sharon had also to sit in classroom listening to teachers but like a dumb, and to do all the homework in English, for several hours a day and five days a week. How come could she bear such a situation？
It was indeed awkward and painful in the beginning. Sharon often complained after school that she couldn't understand what her classmates and teachers were talking about in and off class. The most painful experience was that no other kids in her class would like to communicate and play with her.
One day the master teacher of Sharon's class called me at my working site. She told me a story about Sharon today that for unknown reason Sharon jumped away from her seat and rushed out of classroom disappeared when class was on. All other classmates watched her surprisingly with no idea what had happened. More surprisingly, a few minutes later Sharon returned to the classroom and sit back at her seat carmly, just like nothing dad happened.
After school Sharon returned home. I asked her what had happened in class seriously. She answered that she could hardly bear to pee in class but didn't know how to report to the teacher in English, so she just rushed out for toilet. When I told this to her teacher she couldn't help laughing and said it had never heppened in her whole teaching career.
Even though that happened I had declined to move Sharon to international school, because I want to see if things would change and how it would when time was passing.
Sure enough, something really happened as I expected. After three months of school life Sharon was able to communicate with her American classmates freely.
Half year later, Sharon got even no patient to listen and to talk with her mother in English anymore as Lisa did before, because she felt mom's English was too poor.
One year later Sharon had entirely melt into her sister as well as American kids studying and playing together every day. That is to say Sharon had accomplished that transit from a Chinese girl to an American girl at her age of eight in only one year.
中 篇
八、实践证明环境是决定英语口语能力最重要的因素
1989年即赴美第三年夏，作为加州大学在读研究生，我以职业技术移民身份申请移民美国获得成功，经过三年的排期后，我与太太及女儿于1992年8月同时获得了美国“绿卡”，成为美国的“永久居民”（US Permanent Residents）即所谓“华侨”。我们也是在两个家族中最早赴美并第一个获得美国移民身份的人。
那时我与美国人交流已经没有任何障碍。记得我带着家眷在洛杉矶移民局进行面试那天，面对联邦移民官的问话我对答如流，只用十分钟就通过了面试。但是做到这一步，我用了六年时间。
1993年，我的小女儿小雪也随奶奶来到了美国。因她出生那天下大雪，受美国当红美女明星Sharon Stone（莎朗斯通）名字的中文谐音启发，我也给她取了个英文名字Sharon。那年她才8岁，来美前在上海读小学一年级。
由于从小不在父母身边，Sharon的童年是跟随奶奶在江西的姑姑家和云南的叔叔家度过的。那时国内从学龄前到小学都没有英语教育，Sharon连A、B、C都不识一个，到美国后上小学也自然成了问题，因为美国的普通公立小学从一年级起，全都是英语母语上课。不少人建议，应该让她就读附近华人小孩较多的ESL（英语非母语）学校，一边学英语，一边上普通课；在英语能力提高到一定程度后，再转到美国的普通公立小学上课。
但是我却做出了一个完全相反的决定：不让Sharon读ESL学校，而是让她直接到完全是美国本土小孩天下的普通小学读一年级。我的决定乃是基于教育心理学的两个重要原理：其一，语言学习能力是人类与生具有的潜能，包括英语；其二，环境因素是激发和造就人的语言能力的主要原因，特别是在儿童语言学习的关键年龄阶段。作为在读心理学的研究生，我决定把这个原理在Sharon身上再做一次尝试。
之所以称其为“再做一次尝试”，是因为同样的“试验”，在Sharon的姐姐Lisa身上已实践过一次，但那次是不得已的。在洛杉矶加大的第二年，Lisa随她母亲以“陪读”身份到了美国。那年她也是8岁，A、B、C字母也不识一个，由于没有ESL学校可上，只能在就近的美国普通小学插班读一年级。不久我就发现，Lisa的英语口语进步之神速，比起我们这些在中国从初中到高中、又从高中到大学，已经学过十几年英语的“太学生”，根本无法相比。不到半年，Lisa就能与她美国小同学们自如交流。不仅如此，她还学会了讲广东话，因为她的很多同学都是从广东、香港乃至台湾来美国的华裔移民子女，他们在一起除了讲英语，最多的就是讲Candonese（粤语），正宗的中国国语Maderin反而讲得很少。久而久之，Cantonese成了她的“第二外语”，以至于有时她的香港小朋友来家玩，她们在一起只讲Cantonese，这对我就如同讲另一种外国话，一句也听不懂。
在美国小学校里，清一色的是美国小朋友的天下。在那种环境里，刚来美国的Sharon最初与她的美国小朋友之间如何交流，与老师之间如何交流，我无法想象。但有一点可以肯定，即便是一个国内大学毕业生，乃至英语专业毕业的大学生，如果让他或她置身于一群七嘴八舌、你言我语的美国小朋友中，要听懂和搞清楚他们在说些什么，也绝非易事，更不用说与他们自由交流了。以Sharon这样一个从小在中国长大，连英语字母也不识一个的8岁女孩，让她每天生活在一群叽里呱啦讲英语的陌生的小朋友中间，听外国老师满堂英语的讲课，还要做课内课外各种英语作业，那会是怎样的一种状况呢？
开始的情景是尴尬和痛苦的。Sharon回家经常诉说听不懂别的小朋友说什么，更难受的是别的小朋友都不愿意跟她讲话，也不同她玩，因为她只会讲中国话，美国小朋友们压根儿听不懂她在说些什么。
有一天，Sharon的班主任打电话到我工作的地方，对我说不知道为什么原因，Sharon今天在上课时突然站起身来，冲出教室，过了几分钟，又自己回来坐到座位上了。老师和同班小朋友都十分惊愕，不知道她发生了什么事。放学后Sharon回到家，我问了她，才知道是闹了个笑话。原来那天她在课堂上尿憋急了，但不知道怎样用英语向老师报告，只好一声不吭自说自话地冲出去上厕所了。我把这件事说给老师听后，她也止不住大笑，说是平生第一次碰到这样的事。
即便这样，我也不把Sharon退回到ESL班读书，因为我想看一下，随着时间的推移，情况会不会发生变化，以及如何发生变化。
我的预期没有错，三个月后，Sharon跟她姐姐来时一样，已经能与周围的美国小朋友正常交流了。
半年以后，Sharon也跟她姐姐一样，懒得跟她母亲讲英语了，因为嫌她英语太差。
一年以后，Sharon已经完全融入了美国小朋友和Lisa一伙的圈子。也就是说，完成从一个8岁中国小孩到美国小朋友的自然转变，她只用了一年。
