Puzzle said:
And a guitar is also a great instrument for sitting around a bonfire with people, don't you think?
That's exactly what I had in mind as well!
Thank you for the above links, I must look more into that. :)
Puzzle said:
The only question I do still have is, whether there are other reasons for people in Chinese speaking countries being ahead in learning English than Westeners in learning Chinese, as the only thing that comes to my mind is that it's English being the international 'lingua franca', and that most English speaking people thus don't see a need to learn another language -- especially a language that's so different in linguistic roots and thus hard to learn as Chinese.
Forgive me for not making myself clearer, but there was more to what I said, which I was kind of hoping you would pick up on:
Novelis said:
the Eastern world has been forced to learn English for decades now, and although the way that language learning is promoted has achieved little success, at least when compared with Western people learning Chinese, well, we are far behind in that sense.
In order to answer your question, allow me to first clarify the extra dimension that I think you missed.
I am saying that while it is true that English learning is promoted in the East, it has also achieved little success, but that, in spite of this apparent failure, the East is still ahead of western people learning Chinese.
In order to understand other reasons why the situation is as it is (while leaving out the extra dimension I just added for now), it is only prudent to delve into the relevant historical, socio-cultural and educational data, which serves as contextual information, in order to really understand the “backdrop” lying behind our discussion.
You stated that English is the “Lingua Franca” in the world today, but exactly how did this come about?
According to what I’ve looked into, English, as an international language, underwent a
process, or a certain "evolution" to get to where it is today. There was a massive boom for the demand of English learning ever since the second world war, and as different methodologies were tried and tested “in the field” (English lessons being taught in classrooms around the world), different theories of language learning
also evolved according to progresses in the fields of psychology, pedagogy, social sciences, technology and linguistics, to name the most prevalent factors.
This didn't only result in more people being able to speak English, however. This process also brought the field of applied linguistics to a certain stage of scientific maturity and logical irrefutability, concerning how languages are learned.
So, as far as how languages are learnt, and therefore taught, the Western body of knowledge is, by and large, more well informed and scientific than how languages are taught in the East.
Coming back to my earlier point, where I have said that the Eastern world has "achieved little success" in English language learning, I stated this because, according to my observations, while they
are promoting English learning, they are doing so against a pervasive backdrop of social and cultural “traditions/conventions” (ignorance and ponerisation in other words) that act as barriers for acquiring the most scientific, and thus effective way of learning English.
For example, in Taiwan, there is a strong convention whereby the teacher is the absolute authority on all matters, and so, students are never given the opportunity to practise autonomy and interest in one’s own learning, resulting in students being quite unable to creatively express themselves using English, keeping them locked up at a premature stage of using English merely as a means to communicate, while more spiritual modes of English expression remain inaccessible.
It is also interesting to note that these social, cultural (and certainly ponerological) factors, however, are not merely “sides of an equation”, like a machine where one inputs the variables and out comes a predictable result. These are factors that interact dynamically with the “subjects” (By which I mean learners of languages) that produce nonlinear outcomes, in what quantum physics calls "complex systems".
Before I digress too far into that side note, however, let me just conclude simply by saying that even though the East is ahead in general English proficiency, they are only ahead in a certain "premature" way, under a system of learning, that is essentially detrimental towards the higher goals of learning a language that is as diametrically opposed (if languages can be considered as such) as can be in respects to Chinese.
So, the fact that the East is ahead of the West, in the way I’ve described, and the reasons
why, are quite irrelevant when one considers that, in the end, neither East or West are any closer towards understanding the spiritual dimensions of one another, which is, I can only surmise, one of the many strategies that 4D STS employs to keep everybody separated.
I hope that this elaboration suffices, and, as usual, if the above elicits in you any questions, disagreements and/or insights, then please let me know.