The Elvises of English
By Thursday, May 15, an essential new book will be out on the stands. I recommend its acquisition by every English-language teacher, as well as all earnest writers and publication editors.
The 10 Most Annoying English Grammar Errors by Jose A. Carillo follows up on his best-selling English Plain and Simple, which won the 2005 National Book Award from the Manila Critics Circle.
Its detailed compilation of egregious acts committed on an acknowledged world language isn’t simply a list that prioritizes the commonest or vilest incidents of vexation. Employing a comprehensive format, Carillo elucidates on what constitutes popular errors, and how speakers and writers who will surely benefit from this assiduous tutelage can untangle themselves from the web of misplaced convention.
The 200-million-Elvis-fans-can’t-be-wrong syndrome is thus turned on its head by this chaste if rock-‘n’-rolling lover of language. His extensive critiques turn into step-by-step tutorials that should serve the commendable cause of proper, let alone elegant, communication.
I wrote something like the above as a back-cover blurb for the book, which should be available at National Bookstore, Powerbooks, Bestsellers, and Goodwill Bookstore — in a softcover edition of 122 pages at a cover price of P120.
Here’s an advanced review from Dr. Ma. Luz C. Vilches, Dean of the School of Humanities, Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila University:
“This book is a great English grammar teacher! In an engaging fashion, it raises awareness of grammatical problems by quoting examples from local context use of English; takes the reader through the process of revision via specific strategies before calling attention to the rules of accuracy; and builds the learner’s potential by providing exercises with answer keys. Perfect! It is every English teacher’s delightful reference guide to a methodical way of teaching grammar!”
Our buddy Butch Dalisay also recommends the new title as “another treat for everyone who loves and uses the English language.” He adds: “Beyond simply providing a ‘hit list’ of frequently misused words and phrases, Carillo delves into the logic behind the language, embodied in its grammar.”
And poet-playwright, children’s story writer and perennial Palanca Awards winner Ed Maranan, who certainly knows his English, having worked in London as our embassy’s Information Officer, weighs in:
“As his examples show, even wizened editors are not beyond committing the most basic grammatical lapses. And some of Carillo’s interesting exchanges with passionate readers of his language column (in The Manila Times) are reproduced in this book. Thus, we get not only clear lessons in proper usage, but also deep insights into controversies about language. This is definitely a must-read for all, from bumbling barristers to befuddled beauty contestants.”
A recent article in The New Yorker, “Crazy English” by Evan Osnos, details the efforts of one Li Yang, whose battle cry at classrooms has been “Conquer English to Make China Stronger!”
Antics that have made him wildly popular — and controversial among academicians who regard his methods as partaking of “huckster nationalism” — include the practice of having students shout foreign words and phrases to help cement these into one’s memory. His self-styled cosmology in joining “the national scramble to learn a new language before the Olympics... ties the ability to speak English to personal strength, and personal strength to national power.”
As the founder, head teacher, and editor-in-chief of Li Yang Crazy English, Li supervises China’s first official English-language intensive-training camp for volunteers to the 2008 Summer Games — for which he was recruited by no less than the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee.
Osnos reports: “He is China’s Elvis of English, perhaps the world’s only language teacher known to bring students to tears of excitement. He has built an empire out of his country’s deepening devotion to a language it once derided as the tongue of barbarians and capitalists.”
Among his current students are “doctors in their 30s and 40s, handpicked by the city’s hospitals to work at the Games. If foreign fans and coaches get sick, these are the doctors they will see. But, like millions of English learners in China, the doctors have little confidence speaking this language that they have spent years studying by textbook. Li, who is 38, has made his name on an E.S.L. technique that one Chinese newspaper called “English as a Shouted Language.” Shouting, Li argues, is the way to unleash your ‘international muscles.’ Shouting is the foreign-language secret that just might change your life.”
Thus, like a revivalist preacher, Li leads scores of medical practitioners through sessions where they scream at the top of their lungs: “I! Would! Like! To! Take! Your! Tem! Per! Ture!”
“To his fans, Li is less a language teacher than a testament to the promise of self-transformation. In the two decades since he began teaching, at age 19, he has appeared before millions of Chinese adults and children. He routinely teaches in arenas, to classes of 10,000 people or more. Some fans travel for days to see him. The most ardent spring for a ‘diamond degree’ ticket, which includes bonus small-group sessions with Li. The list price for those seats is $250 a day — more than a full month’s wages for the average Chinese worker. His students throng him for autographs. On occasion, they send love letters.”
From detractors, however, the most serious charge against Li is “that the frenzied crowds, and his exhortations, tap a malignant strain of populism that China has not permitted since the Cultural Revolution.”
Influential novelist Wang Shuo wrote: “I have seen this kind of agitation. It’s a kind of old witchcraft. Summon a big crowd of people, get them excited with words, and create a sense of power strong enough to topple mountains and overturn the seas. I believe that Li Yang loves the country. But act this way and your patriotism, I fear, will become the same shit as racism.”
Li Yang Crazy English has a global headquarters in Guangzhou maintained by some 200 employees, with another 200 working nationwide. The founder incessantly dreams up new projects, “including a retail plan that would create, in his words, the Starbucks of English education.”
He envisions people getting off work and heading for the Crazy English Tongue Muscle Training House before going home, just as they would a gym.
A recording titled “What Is English?” appears in his website. Waves and seagulls are heard in the background, while Li trades sentences with a girl: “English is a piece of cake. I can totally conquer English. I will use English. I will learn English. I will live in English. I am no longer a slave to English. I am its master. I believe English will become my faithful servant and lifelong friend....”
And we thought the Koreans who have been coming in droves considered us their Elvises of English.
On a related matter, ASSERT or the Association for English Research and Teaching in the Philippines, in cooperation with British Council Philippines and U.P.’s Department of English and Comparative Literature, conducts its 3rd National Conference this Saturday, May 17, at the National Computer Center on C.P. Garcia Ave., U.P. Diliman.
Registration starts at 7:30 a.m., with the first plenary speaker, Dr. Angi Malderez of University of Leeds, U.K., whose visit is sponsored by The British Council, opening the full-day session at 9 a.m.
With “Research and the Teaching of English: Eurasian Encounters” as its theme, the conference revisits and resolves the question of how the classroom can become a basic source for empirical “Research in the Teaching of English” (RTE) and how such research can lead to effective learning.
Other issues that will be discussed are: What are the trends in classroom research in Asia and the West today? What are the conceptual, ideological, and methodological concerns? What are applicable to Philippine classrooms? What are the constraints and possibilities?
The conference aims for cross-cultural perspectives on research and the teaching of English, but the eventual goal is to contribute to the development of Philippine-based RTE.
Other plenary speakers are: Dr. Topsie Ruanni Tupas of National University of Singapore; Dr. Isabel P. Martin of Ateneo de Manila University; Dr. Lalaine F. Yanilla Aquino of U.P. Diliman; Dr. Beatriz P. Lorente, of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; and Prof. Gad S. Lim of University of Michigan.
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For more information, e-mail decl.kal@gmail.com or contact Annie Ilagan at tel. no. 926-3496 or Ms. Victoria Calderon of the Ateneo Center for English Language Teaching (ACELT) at 426-4322 or 426-6001.
