AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW.

EL skills in unusual professions
AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW. Nina MK, Ph.D. Summer is the season for meetings, travels, self-development, conferences, cultural growth, relaxation… yes, I love summer. Former students come to visit and tell me how they use the skills I taught them. My current champion is a nice young man who graduated the psychology department of the local university and went on to work as a barman. True, barmen are often natural-born psychologists, or so I am told. Where does the English language come in? “It is so good you taught us how to fill in various applications and questionnaires, how to compose a resume, and how to write all types of business letters”, he said to me. “You also taught us how to use the Internet wisely and how to benefit from ICT.” So he started working at a bar, making his own cocktails, inventing various unusual concoctions, and listening carefully to people’s opinions. Any visitor to the city tends to end up at a place which is called “Irish Pub” eventually, so my former student has ample opportunities to hear and to practice all kinds of English. Since he studied with me for several years, he took part in many international projects via the Internet. He began by searching the web, looking for the information in his sphere of work. It seems that there are plenty of contests, conventions, and diverse events locally, nationally and internationally, not to mention an enormous amount of web sites devoted to bars. He started taking part in different contests and then projects; now he regularly travels around the world. The more he learns, the more competitions he wins, the more contacts he accumulates. The opportunities to develop his EL skills are endless. I confess it is an unexpected usage of the English language, especially in our Academic Town where almost everybody who finishes school enters a university or college, and then goes on into research or teaching! It is also a very welcome addition to my own sum of knowledge. Now I have a good answer to that familiar question, “Why must I study your subject if I want to be a bus driver?” You never know! Another student is getting her BA in Arts & Design. She told me that in addition to her good English, she also learned how to take part in contests and projects. She continued this type of work at her university, and when her group became a winner, they went to Switzerland for an international event. Young mobility is a fact of modern life. Those who start communicating and taking part in international projects when they are still children are usually interested in continuing this type of work later. They use English as a tool for communication and for gathering information. Here is a nice modern definition: “An educated person today is one who knows how and where to find the necessary information, and who learns the language needed to understand what he found”. And we EL teachers are the ones who can give the students both the EL skills, and the intelligent use of ICT. In my travels, I meet lots of people who have professions and occupations which were not traditionally associated with the need to have a good knowledge of languages. Hotel receptionists, waiters, bus and taxi drivers, security guards, cooks, shop assistants, transportation terminals staff, medics, caterers… A hotel receptionist switches from her native Spanish into English into German into French into Russian into Italian within one hour. True, her English is not the same as mine, but then she is not an EL teacher. Like many or her colleagues, she speaks several languages well - within her job requirements. It is a huge step in communication, and a good way to accumulate a larger vocabulary daily.
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