Extreme English

Prof. Extreme can’t stand TV “reality shows” but rather likes intellectuals – so there was a 50-50 chance, it would seem, that he’d approve of the Kultura channel’s recent prime-time English instructional series “Polyglot,” Moscow’s first self-proclaimed “intellectual reality show.” Well…?

OK, I was prejudiced: after 10 years of teaching English to Russian-speakers, I felt immediate sympathy for the eponymous polyglot himself, someone who’d conduct a real-time, ongoing English class for Russians on TV. Here’s some other poor Sisyphus pushing my boulder up the hill, I figured, but with a skeptical audience of millions looking over his shoulder. Stout lad! / Молодец!

But sympathies aside, “Polyglot” was good. Very good. The TV audience liked it, the critics liked it, the “reality students” liked it, and so did I. Sometimes Sisyphus wins!

Now, why was the series so good? And why should you watch it if you haven’t already?

Learning and donuts

Most viewers tuned in the first lesson, I suspect, for one of two reasons: (a) they took English in school – but now that they need it, they’ve discovered with embarrassment that they can’t recall much beyond “Hello!” and “I love you”; and (b) human beings are suckers for ads offering the impossible (“Lose 15 kilos in 30 days – without dieting!”). Well, this series proclaimed, “Learn English in 16 hours!” With no ban on donuts…

A more critical question is: Why did subsequent audiences tune in lesson two – and three and onward? Let’s face it, actual classes involve little TV-style entertainment. Ah, but here the Kultura producers showed real savvy: they found a charismatic “star” – translator and author Dmitry Petrov, a 30-language [!] polyglot – and assembled an appealing cast of student “characters” to support him. The series featured seven young adults who were engaging, outgoing, pleasingly telegenic and easy to identify with: all but one had studied English before and come away frustrated – just like you!

Petrov spent much of the early lessons addressing this frustration – and helping the students address it themselves in the halting English they brought to the party. His prognosis was encouragement tempered by realism: having pointed out what the “English in 16 hours” come-on actually meant – that if you apply yourself here you’ll learn to function adequately in a fundamental-level English that satisfies modest needs and creates a solid base for the next stage(s) – Mr. Polyglot then set about pushing the rock up the hill in earnest.

Box lunch

Petrov drew up a “verb box” containing three essential tense forms (a past, a present and a future) for three standard circumstances (assertions, negations and questions). By taking a verb and marching it up, down, back and forth several times a day across this tic-tac-toe board – I loved, I love, I will love / Did she love?, Does she love?, Will she love? / etc. – the student can develop a level of automatic recall (avtomatism) that Petrov sees as key to faster and more comprehensive target-language acquisition.

See, when you know a verb infinitive and you’re not stumbling around trying to determine appropriate tense forms for it, your brainpan is (1) more relaxed – lowering stress is a critical part of Petrov’s methodology; and (2) free to deal with the other (simpler) building blocks necessary to assemble phrases and sentences. Briefly put, you can do more talking and less thinking about talking – and less self-nagging about its correctness (Hmm, is this right? Wait, should that have been…?).

It’s up to the students to do the repetitive, out-of-class verbal pushups, of course. And thinking about it isn’t enough; you have to say “We loved, We love, We will love” and so on – which may be inconvenient over your cafeteria lunch, but there it is. There’s no such thing as a free box.

The outcome

And indeed, not all the “Polyglot” students did all the homework all the time. This preparation shortfall visibly slowed some students’ progress, and as the series went on you’d find yourself, of all things, rooting for your favorite “characters” to do their homework (C’mon, Sasha, get this question right – and show “class clown” Volodya how it’s done!).

Yes, Petrov may have let his charges get away with too much box-slacking, off-topic rambling and in-Russian out-blurting for an “intensive” course. But you really can’t argue with his results: the mini-glots all improved over the 16-class sequence, and several markedly. Just as important, all underwent real attitude adjustment, from embarrassed and frustrated to coping and gratified.

In the end, English learners at all levels will profit from watching this entire series, as it offers both very useful reinforcement of poorly-understood fundamentals and a wealth of Polyglot-specific tidbits you won’t get from another teacher – even semi-glot me! So get the “Polyglot” set…and start singing “I will love” in your office cubicle.

Sisyphus doesn’t really win, of course, as there’s no top of the hill to language learning. But we can and should enjoy the climb! 

Extreme Extra Credit: Last time: The rule-mocking witticism about ending an English sentence with a preposition – which there is no rule against – is credited to Winston Churchill, as correctly ID’d by Muscovites Jennifer Howard and Zoe Rodionova, to whom congrats. Today: What famous “direct method” of instruction began with Nicholas Joly teaching Englishspeakers French?

Mark H. Teeter is an American English teacher and translator.