Let's imagine our brain as a computer: In computing, a process is the instance of a computer program that is being executed by one or many threads. Depending on the operating system (OS), a process may be made up of multiple threads of execution that execute instructions concurrently. As you read these lines, there are several processes in progress on your machine and the more tasks are being executed, the less processing speed you have, right?
Just like the processor, our brain has to deal with many things at once, and using a language system is like selecting a particular operating system, Linux, Android or Windows, for example. Is it possible to write text on each of these systems? Yes, but each text editor will have a different name, you will use Word in Windows, Nano in Linux, and so on. All of them have the same function, and same processor but different names and features. The same with idioms! That’s why it takes us so long to learn from the translation methods: you're comparing Windows to Linux to understand the differences between one and the other instead of learning how to use them directly. Translating feels like a comfortable process at first (after all, you already know your mother tongue) but the problem is that your brain does something totally anti-natural and very complex and sooner or later you end up looking for Microsoft Word but at a system other than the one developed by Bill Gates, and lost in that big gap of "where is it?" or "how do you say that in English?", overloading our "processor" with a very elaborated activity, which needs the same part of our brain which is already doing so many tasks related to business relationships, that tough subject at college, analytic data... and, of course, the whole thing decreases communication!
In our brain: our speech is like those processes in the background, which are completely hidden while using the computer, but which ensure that everything is working properly. What do you mean, Mariana? That's it! We talk without thinking! Calm down! I will explain: human language is something very complex and with many layers, some go beyond the understanding of our analytical mind! For example: Red! Red! Red! What color is the green apple? Re... wait!!! It is green! Even though you might not utter the first color in your mind, it definitely comes as a prompt answer. There are many ways to trick the brain like that (marketeers know them well) just because it is designed to respond to things without analyzing them all the time! And so we make sure we do not crash it. Normally, we do not think metalinguistically, that is, we do not reflect on the language itself and the construction of each sentence so that we can communicate! And precisely because of it, we have different areas in the brain associated with language use. Some things are still a great mystery, but many of them have already been attested by neurolinguistics and brain-organ analysis, such as the existence of an innate neurolinguistic apparatus, or a cerebral "universal grammar."
The famous "thinking in English" comes from this training: using the language intuitively, aiming at the message you want to deliver rather than the construction of the sentences, the comparison with the other language or anything like that. Once we have this wonderful "language-producing machine," why not using it to the full? But is language just that? A bunch of words together?
What is language, then?
Alike an onion, language has many layers of meanings. I’ve spent two years writing about a short story, and by the time I finished it I had written almost three times the number of words the story I wrote about had! Sometimes, as language learners, we force ourselves to know all these layers at once (something only possible for prodigies!), And we do not give ourselves time to mature linguistically. We are shaped by the experiences we live, and they affect our way of speaking and understanding language and language varies according to purpose, social and even geographical environment, for example, have you ever heard that Eskimos have more than 20 names for "ice "? Your vocabulary, your use of the language is, today, different from that of 10 years ago, but we are always learning, aren’t we? So it is always necessary to be in contact with the old and the new things, which in linguistic theory we call input plus 1. All in all, language is always new, whether you have been fluent for twenty years or just begun. For instance, does everyone you know understand what an upload is or even what it is to delete something?
This brings us to an important insight: language exists to represent the real world! The world around us! Another important finding is that those who grow up in total isolation can not develop a language that is similar to that of other humans. In fact, the thoughts are articulated in a different way, because without the presence of the other, we do not have to create a representative of the real world to communicate. The same holds true for those who do not listen: language and communication happen differently than usual!
Writing is a language code, a graphic representation of sounds! That is, language is not a "word", language is all about sound. How many people in our country have never been literate but are excellent speakers? In fact, language is everything we use to communicate with one another: images, mimics, letters, everything is language. No wonder emotions are taken as a universal language. We can even identify in other animal species emotions such as fear, pain or joy. But the language, the language itself, is made of sounds! And it is stored in our brain either by function or by image. For example, when we say "beach", each one imagines a representative for the beach, a mental image, sand, sea, coconut tree, sky. No one imagines "beach: noun” And when you read this text here, your brain is decoding the types (letters) and turning them into sounds in your head, even if you're not reading it out loud.
And how is storing by function like? For example, you know how to use the word "please", right? But what is "please"? If I open the dictionary now, what will be the definition for it? We do not know and do not need to know! Because we learn "please" as a function. In case you are a language teacher or an etymology professor, for example, you will be interested in explaining the origin of this expression and its dictionary entry, grammar usage and so on. This is the difference between being fluent and proficient. I am fluent in Portuguese, my mother tongue, but I confess that my proficiency in English is greater than in it, because of my knowledge of how language works through formal studies of tenses, agreement, classes of words, etc. I’ve spent much longer studying my second language than my mother tongue. Most of the time, second or foreign language students want to be fluent, not proficient!
So, how are we doing that? Having English as the second language?
There are many ways to teach English as a foreign language. For me it works like that: we talk! You can choose to interact only with me or start interacting with other people when you are a little more comfortable with your language (interaction with multiple people is something desirable, but not mandatory). Each week, we'll choose a theme and work on it in our face to face lesson at the time you pick, with lots of examples to inspire you! So that you feel the will to produce output (speak) from the very first day. And I will be there, attentive to your production, pronunciation, sentence construction, interfering whenever necessary so that you develop your skills!
But aren’t we going to study grammar? Of course! Yes! But in a very light and practical way so that the curiosity about the structures does not take the whole class and you check if you really learned it right by doing the proposed exercises, assessments. I guarantee you will be surprised!
Whatever method you choose to study with, be resilient! Knowing another language brings many benefits which go beyond professional achievements, international experiences and first-hand information: because it is a complex cognitive activity, it dramatically reduces the incidence of age-related illnesses, such as dementia. Wanna keep your brain healthy for the years to come? Start learning another language today.
References:
Krashen, Stephen D. Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Prentice-Hall International, 1987.
Krashen, Stephen D. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Prentice-Hall International, 1988.
Athanasopoulos, Panos. Think your world is fixed? Learn another language and you'll think differently. The Guardian, 2015. Available at https://goo.gl/GYgpfY in January, 2017.
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