Morris Mtisi Education Correspondent
The Complexity of English (Part 1)
As we know, English has become the chief second or third language in Zimbabwe and many parts of the world, mainly for historical reasons; not because the English people have instrumentally and calculatedly imposed it, and certainly not because it is a simple language.
You will have or may have already read with interest the story of a nagging hoodlum who makes a blunt or cheap argument about a basic fundamental word whose use in English Language he does not know well or understand with enlightened depth.
Students must obviously begin by learning the simplest and most basic forms of the language. They will often be held up and puzzled by some of the less standard of expression and awfulness of hundreds of common errors, whether these are ornate or artificial. Dictionaries do not teach this. This is what the English language hoodlum who insults me about ‘firing people from work’ must know. There are ornate and artificial expressions in every language. That includes English Language. I will focus on that in next week’s Part 2 of The Complexity of English. Of course we also know that when any language has been in use for a long time, many of its words and expressions acquire a peculiar richness of significance. We talk about the ‘denotation’ of a word, which is its primary or literal meaning, as defined in any dictionary, and the ‘connotations’, which are all the additional ‘flavours’, shines, gleams and lustres and ‘associations’ which it carries.
Good speakers and writers of the English language particularly depend a great deal on this characteristic of language. This means that students or learners of English whose acquaintance with the language has been or is limited will not automatically be able to get the feeling of this richness or poverty after all, in English. The more they read and build experience in adding lustre/ flavour/ sheen/ gleam/ to their English, the more fully and skilfully will they become sensitive to English language learning.
The above text and thinking has been adopted from H.L. B Moody-Literary Appreciation: A Practical Guide (The Complexity of English). I have appropriately borrowed and adapted it here to clarify the purpose of the radio teacher programme on Diamond FM officially launched on radio yesterday –Thursday 7 June 2018.
In an effort to make radio a community tool of proper language learning and examination preparations for pupils and students (all learners), the radio teacher has started a huge milestone that everyone must be part of.
The radio teacher himself, MM for short, seeks to ably carry this vision through radio as Diamond FM’s contribution to educational community development. While Head-To-Head will continue to be the discussion and debate platform engaging education policy makers and implementers on pertinent topics to do with education, the radio teacher will encroach more appropriately on typical classroom practice to deal with challenges learners face in various learning areas, particularly English language for reasons already succinctly explored above; namely The complexity of English. This radio-teacher broadcast is critical for teachers and learners.
While Diamond FM has kindly donated only 30 minutes airtime, the radio teacher is busy identifying prospective sponsors of the programme needed to spruce up this radio effort and vision which is necessary to complement organised or mainstream teaching and learning. It is our hope that soon we will secure the good will of the corporate world, donors or organisations that share the same vision with Diamond FM Radio; to fund and advance this vision of teaching and learning through radio.
Of course for now we cannot possibly replace the classroom teacher, perhaps not in a thousand years, but our children are nowadays ready to learn through gadgets and other forms of technological connectivity. There is no going back on this. They enjoy learning via Information Communication Technologies, and radio and television are closest to the majority of our children.
Support the Radio Teacher broadcast on Diamond FM Radio! Participate! Be part of this huge dream and motivator of our children bored by the routine and custom of traditional teaching and learning. Let us be in it together! Tune in to Head-to-Head with MM every Thursday between 8 and 9 pm. The Radio Teacher comes in between 9:30 and 10pm. A SCHOOL AWAY FROM SCHOOL . . . any better way of benefiting from free extra lessons?o