One evening, I heard my roommate talking about something. Their basketball team was training at the court in the evening when two black people approached, thinking that my roommate and his team were playing a game and wanted to join in. However, none of the basketball team members could say a complete English sentence to express that they were training and couldn't play together, as the black people didn't understand Chinese. In a desperate situation, someone from the basketball team managed to squeeze out a few words: team, play games. They wanted to convey that their team was training, but the black people misunderstood it as an invitation to form a team and play. In the end, it was unclear how the situation was resolved.
My roommate felt embarrassed, both for himself and for having studied English for so many years. I also found it puzzling. If someone had been able to say, "We are training, we can't play with you, sorry," the situation could have been resolved immediately. Why does this kind of problem still occur after studying English for so many years?
In my opinion, there may be two reasons.
- Lack of regular English conversations and practice in spoken English. Relying solely on teachers using English for questioning and communication in the classroom is far from enough.
- Nervousness. When chatting with familiar people, whether in Chinese or occasionally throwing in a few English sentences, there is no nervousness because the environment and state are different. However, we have limited contact with foreigners in our daily lives, and we rarely interact with them. During the first conversation, we may not even know how to start, naturally leading to a blank mind and not knowing how to express ourselves.
I do not deny that there are problems with English education today. English learning under exam-oriented education is only for the purpose of entrance exams, lacking consideration for specific applications.
English learning involves four aspects: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Knowledge should not just stay in textbooks, notes, or our minds; we should learn to apply it. "Practice makes perfect." If we don't use the knowledge, it will always remain as knowledge. If we learn English but don't know how to use it, then we only know that it's called "English."