Laughing at the language

 

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The most intriguing yet neglected psychological aspect of language learning.

Laughing at the language is the greatest deterrent to language learning. This hidden hence overlooked factor can adversely affect the learning effectiveness of an entire batch if the facilitator doesn't pay timely attention to it. 

Even after months of learning, it has been observed that the participants do not learn anything; it is because they continuously indulge in laughing at the language. Participants do invest time and money and they do want their B2 certificates but despite that, they fail in the examination. The percentage of failures far exceeds the percentage of successes in many language learning institutions. It is not uncommon to find the external candidates cracking the examination while the internal candidates flunking at the examination. 

It could just be because of this soft factor! Some bad apples in the class continuously laugh at the language. It hurts me to use the term bad apples, because they're not conscious of what they're doing; they hardly know they're lollygagging by judging the sounds, the grammar and delaying the process of learning.  These participants need counseling and need to be segregated from the rest of the class. 

They ruin the growth of the class. Laughing at the language happens primarily because it is effortlessly lazy and because it is also smart to laugh at the language in that it influences the crowd into not learning. 

Unless this psychological aspect is dealt with with proper care and vigilance, the finger is eventually pointed toward the competency of the facilitator in question. Therefore, it is the facilitator's job to ensure that learners laugh with the language and not laugh at the language. 

The language instructors' objective is to initiate the learners into a) an auto-learning mode and b) making themselves, the instructors, redundant. When the learners, from the A2 level, take charge of their own learning, even beyond the classroom hours, magic happens.  

This can only be brought about when there's acceptance of the differences the language in question offers.