The most rewarding personal activity (3) - The oldest and most effective language training method

By Xiaolai Li, rewritten in English by Mr. Y

Before the advent of writing, humans were already able to speak, but what they could say was not that complex and what they wanted to say was also very simple. With the advent of writing, and later, the development and mastery of logic, the thoughts and expressions people could think of began to become increasingly complex. In a sense, the ultimate possession of writing is the most profound essential difference between humans and other closely related species. Once humans possessed writing, conscious and purposeful education became a necessity.

All cultures share this point: reading aloud is the oldest, most widespread, cheapest, and most effective form of language training. Unfortunately, this supreme training method is underappreciated even in our native language education. Moreover, each generation thinks that they can find a better way and ignores this means which is actually unsurpassable.

Over the years, I've been making progress, but I've never considered that I was good at English - at least not to the extent most people typically mean. However, I certainly didn't find the learning process that difficult. I owe this to my father. He's a polyglot. He graduated from the Russian Department of Heilongjiang University, and not long after the Cultural Revolution began, he was sent to teach English at Hailin County No. 1 High School. Later, when policies were changed, he was transferred to Yanbian Medical College, where he served as the director of the foreign languages ​department until his retirement. Since my father was an English professor, I was appointed "English class representative" upon entering junior high school. My homeroom teacher mistakenly thought that since my father was an English professor, my English would naturally be good - he was totally wrong.

There's a saying, "A doctor cannot cure himself". Similarly, my dad was a wonderful teacher with incredible patience with his students, but when he came home to teach his own son, he couldn't stand it after just a few words and started scolding me: "Little brat, are you really my son? So dumb!" Of course, I wasn't going to back down: "Didn't you say you picked me up?" (Note: many Chinese parents would jokingly tell their kids this when kids asked where they came from) So, we parted ways on bad terms. At that time, I thought it was his business if he was good at English, and it was also his business if I was not good at English.

But I had become the "English class representative". Every morning, I had to stand in front of the class and lead the reading. If I stuttered, it would be embarrassing. So I had to bite the bullet and ask my dad for help. Back then (around 1984), English textbooks didn't come with tapes (let alone today’s convenient electronic devices). My father was the director of the foreign language department, so we had a tape recorder at home very early on. He took advantage of his position to get two blank imported TDK tapes and recorded himself reading all the textbook passages aloud for me.  From then on, I spent dozens of minutes at home every day fluently following the tapes before leading the reading at school. Finally, I no longer felt embarrassed.   

Junior high school textbooks were simple, starting with "This is a book. That is a table." Each book didn't have many units, and each unit could take the teacher a week (or even longer). So, I couldn't count the number of times I had to lead the class in reading aloud each sentence. I soon found that after three to five times, I had practically memorized the text. After I finished a sentence, the next sentence would automatically come to mind as the students followed suit - I didn't even need a textbook to lead the reading.

For many years afterward, I never paid close attention in English class, yet my English test scores remained consistently high. When answering multiple-choice questions, I simply chose whichever option came to mind, with an incredibly high accuracy rate, almost never making a mistake. It wasn't long before I noticed that when my classmates asked me why my choice was correct, giving an honest answer would often earn me doubtful looks, so I started to talk nonsense using the jargon I learned from my teacher: "Well, it’s a matter of language sense, you know, the intuition..."

Oddly enough, when they heard this vague reply, their expressions often turned serious, as if they were in deep thought, then they would nod slowly and walk away silently.

Many years later, I somehow became an English teacher. Looking back carefully, I realized that I had been incredibly lucky: Without even realizing it, I had stumbled upon the cheapest and the most effective training method and managed to spare myself countless hardships.

Copyright & Republication

Original Chinese text by Xiaolai Li (copyright released). English translation ©2025 Mr. Y.

Republication of this translation is permitted, provided that both the original author (Xiaolai Li) and the translator (Mr. Y) are credited, and a link to the original translation on blossomsblog.com is included.

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