It’s true: we’ve grown up and become responsible and independent, but believe me—we have to bring back the naturalness we had as children from time to time.
Children playing with Lego. By: www.flickr.com/photos/emrank
I’m talking about curiosity, spontaneity, and a willingness to experiment and explore new things.
Children play simply for the pleasure of playing. A little girl invites her friends to play house; they make “food,” give each doll a name, take the dolls for a walk, and within minutes they’ve made up fun stories.
A boy—and this was the case for me in the past—meets up with the gang to play mirim (soccer with small goals) in the middle of the paved street, along with various other games.
Now I’ll talk about two particular playthings: Lego bricks and modeling clay.
My suggestion is that, at first, we think of English as Lego bricks. They come in predefined sizes and only fit together in certain ways, but we can make lots of interesting things with them.
Then we can think of English as modeling clay. It has no predefined shapes, so it allows endless possibilities for creating almost anything we want.
Figures made with Play-Doh. By: www.flickr.com/photos/chanchan222/
When we think of English as Lego pieces, we can try out the various systems available, as long as the system prioritizes learning by listening. Like Lego pieces, these systems follow a certain pattern. That’s great, though, because it gives us a sense of security, and the materials have been carefully selected.
Once we’re comfortable and increasingly familiar with English, we can look for more interesting podcasts, more complex material, richer vocabulary in our reading, travel to countries where English is the official language, and, in short, follow our own path (the modeling-clay metaphor).
So my suggestion is that, whatever approach we choose—whether it’s like Lego bricks or like modeling clay—we should play at learning English!
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