Reader comments on "Why we don't like English classes"

Tom's good experience with classes and his bad opinion of them

Joanna Wlodarczak writes:

You [Tom] believe that English classes are useless and ineffective. And yet you write in your story: "My first two years in high school were very important for my English. My English teacher, Mr Janusz Laskosz, gave a lot of good advice, especially on pronunciation and vocabulary."

You could be more responsible for your, let's say 'controversial' statements. In that paragraph you deny yourself. It verifies you are wrong to call English classes pointless.

Tom's reply: No. It only shows that there was one class, among the dozens that I have attended, which was quite effective -- because I learned about the English sounds and the phonetic alphabet there, and because the teacher encouraged everyone to get a good English-English dictionary, read in English on one's own, listen to recordings, etc. The class was simply about many of the things that you can find on Antimoon.

The class was exceptional. I haven't seen another class which would teach so many effective techniques. If your class teaches these methods, then it's a great class! But most classes aren't like that, and that's why you can read about "Why we don't like English classes".

Competition with other students — a reason to take English classes?

Joanna Wlodarczak writes:

Further in your [Tom's] story, you write: "My brilliant friends were both fantastic English learners. I didn't want to be worse than them, so I studied harder, and my English improved."

I'm glad you see this advantage of classes over other methods of learning (including SuperMemo and learning by oneself only). If everyone learned at home, there would be no rivalry. Even you call this element important. It is another proof against your statement 'classes are useless'.

Tom's reply: You are right that competition with other people is a great way to build your motivation for learning English.

However, this is not a serious argument in favor of taking English classes. You can compete with people at conversation classes (which I recommend). You can compete with your friend (I recommend having a friend with whom you speak English). These methods give you a chance to compete with others, but don't have many of the disadvantages of normal English classes.

A learner's (good) experience with English classes

Marta Sokolowska writes:
I'm an example of a person who used to learn English only at school. I was probably too lazy to work on my own. I started learning when I was in the fifth class of primary school, that wasn't much, only two hours a week. Idon't know how it happened but in the class of 30 people I was able to learn good English. I must say I had a really good teacher, he liked me because I had a kind of an inborn skill to English and I showed some interest in what he used to say. I didn't have to learn pronunciation, it has always been part of me.

Tom's reply: Have you ever been to an English-speaking country and tried to communicate with normal people (not teachers)? I haven't heard your spoken English, but I know some people who thought as you do ("My pronunciation is good enough") and completely ignored pronunciation (which is easy to do because pronunciation is rarely taught at school) only to find out that they are unable to communicate in a real-life situation. (see our article on why people should study English pronunciation)

I was good at talking without learning grammar rules, I can't explain how I knew how to say this or that, I guess it was a matter of intuition. After four years of learning the language at school I was able to comunicate freely while other people from my class to the simpliest question " What's your name?" would always answer "I'm boy".

You say that you were able to communicate in English because of your "intuition". Well, that explanation is a little too magical for me. I would say that you had heard a lot of good English sentences (through listening to your teacher). Other people did not listen as much as you did, so they learned little.

Solving tests and reading in class — are they good ways to learn?

Marta Sokolowska writes:
At my English classes in high school we used to do a lot of tests as a form of preparation to the exam at the end of high school. It wasn't a matter of lerning grammar rules by heart, we had to elaborate an ability to cope quickly with tests.

Tom's reply: Of course, if you are going to take a test, then the best practice is doing tests! However, you have to remember that you are only learning to solve tests — you are not learning English. Even if you can quickly fill a sheet of paper with the correct answers to the questions, you are not any better at speaking or writing in English.

Our lessons weren't boring, we used to do many different things. We have been working with "Here is the news". It was a good introduction to reading Newsweek. Many useful phrases were "packed" in the articles in the book. Without knowing this words reading real articles would be far more difficult. In the fourth class we started reading Newsweek. One lesson in a week was devoted to summarising articles and to discussing the hottest issues.

If you like reading the news, then classes such as you described are okay. But not everyone enjoys the news. For instance, Newsweek magazine puts me to sleep very quickly. :-)

The problem with classes is that they make everyone do the same thing. Usually, the teacher chooses a text, and everyone has to read it. Even if "the class" chooses a text, it will really be the choice of the majority of students. It is certain that some students will not feel good about it.

This is a big problem of reading in class: It is impossible to choose a text that everyone will like. I think teachers should rather promote "free reading" — where every student spends his own time on reading things that he or she finds interesting.