Frustrated learners

It's very humbling to be bad at something.

I'm trying to learn to hula hoop. I have NEVER been able to do this. Not as a child. Not now. I want to do it because (a) it looks like fun and (b) I want to prove something to myself, that there's nothing wrong with me and I really can do this.

Obviously, there's a lot of psychological baggage tied up with this. It comes from watching everyone else do something and making it look so easy.

Is this how my students feel who tell me they've never been good at English? For some of us, language just clicks. Like someone who succeeds at hooping their very first time, people who are "good at English" probably enjoyed playing with words at an early age, took pleasure in their sounds and variety. And it came "naturally." Of course, "nature" depends on a lot of factors, like how much their parents read and their early teachers.

I suppose there was a time when language wasn't easy for me. I remember in kindergarten, my teacher asked me to summarize the story of the three little pigs after we had just watched a film on it, and I was embarrassed that I couldn't do it. There must have been other struggles before that. But it was so brief and so long ago.

Some of my students, though, have been stuck at the same skill level for years. They learned to read and compose their thoughts up to a certain level, and didn't progress beyond it. And it's terribly frustrating. If they feel anything like I felt tonight at my hooping class, they sometimes want to cry.

I think it's important to recognize that learning can be an incredibly emotional process. It's easy to turn off and give up when something causes us pain. Tonight the other students told me it takes time and that it was hard for them too. I don't fully believe them, but it's comforting. That's something our students need from us: the awareness that getting to the skill level they want to be at will take time, and the assurance that eventually they can do it.