On thin ice

When was the last time that you tried to learn something that involved falling down, not being able to stop or turn and getting cold? If you’ve tried learning a winter sport like downhill skiing or ice-skating, you probably know what I’m talking about.

My son, Patrick, recently learned how to ice skate, making his Minnesota-born mother more than proud. Everyone skates where I grew up, and most of us luckily learned to skate at a young age. What else are you going to do with 10,000 lakes and below-zero temperatures nine months out of the year?

The company Rollerblade was even founded by two Minnesotan hockey-playing brothers who wanted to skate year-round. Patrick recently asked us after a full day of ice-skating, “So when can you really do it?” Meaning, when can you call yourself an ice-skater? We assured him that even professional figure skaters and ice hockey players need to practise, and they still fall down.

During our ice-skating sessions, I started comparing skating skills to language skills:

• falling down and getting up again = self-correction;
  
• forward skating = using the present and future tenses;
  
• skating backwards = the past tenses;
  
• a simple spin = prepostitions, adjectives or adverbs;
  
• pair skating = negotiating;
  
• playing ice hockey = participating in a meeting, and so on.

Patrick could have asked, “So when can I really speak English?” I probably would have answered, even native speakers need to practise, and they still make mistakes.

Our students might ask us, “When am I finally going to learn this language?” The young Bavarian butcher that Andy Hewtison speaks about in the article “By leaps and bounds” (Business Spotlight, 1/2009) probably felt that he was on thin ice more than once during his business trips to Scotland. His positive attitude and perseverance are now helping him find his linguistic footing.

Paul Emmerson and Vicki Hollett point out that the wonderful effects of immersion and regular lessons won’t last unless you practise and review regularly, i.e. ice time for skaters, speaking time for language students. Having a few memorized tricks up your sleeve, as Mark Powell suggests, can help smooth out the bumps of daily conversation. So, while our students resolve to improve their English, I resolve to be the only one not complaining about the cold weather and learn a few new steps on the ice. After all, it’s winter, isn’t it?