Guerrilla English Dr. Emmanuel F. Nzunda Department of Forest Mensuration and Management PO Box 3013 Chuo Kikuu, Morogoro Tanzania Phone: +255 765 815 265 Email:
[email protected]
In SUACONE vol. 15 of 2012, there were two articles that dealt directly with the subject of learning and teaching English at SUA and a third article that indirectly touched on the same subject. I was particularly interested in the arguments raised by the two articles that dealt directly with this very important aspect of learning for a person caught-up in a post- and neo- colonial situation of dependency that necessitates the knowledge and use of other languages than their own. Note that other people’s languages (be they English, French, etc…) are less important in countries that are politically and economically more independent, who use their own language, whatever that language may be.
There were many points that were discussed by the articles. In this discussion, I will pick two arguments. I will not focus on the positive aspects of the arguments, because those were already discussed and those that were not are obviously obvious. The first is the likelihood of learning English as one of the benefits of travelling and staying abroad for whatever reason but especially for studies and; the second is the issue of the language centre. Travelling and staying abroad is a very opportunistic event. Not everyone gets that opportunity. Plus, it may come quite late when someone is already well entrenched in whatever form of English they already have crafted for themselves grammatically and phonetically. It also may not be long enough for one to learn anything meaningful. Other people also travel and stay abroad in a country that is non-English speaking and I have met people whose English literally deteriorated during the stay and thus they had very poor English on arrival (Needless to say, their English improved after staying in Tanzania once more). Similarly, others stay abroad in countries that use a version of English that is even more catastrophic than what is available in Tanzania. The consequences here are also obvious.
On the other hand, the language centre is not there yet (or am I not aware of its existence?). Thus what should one do who is at SUA now, has not yet got an opportunity to go and stay abroad and has no access to the language centre to nurture the growth of their English? I am proposing what I call “Guerrilla English”. This is both a process and a product.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary (Merriam-Webster.com), a guerrilla is a person who engages in irregular warfare especially as a member of an independent unit carrying out harassment and sabotage. I am not using this term in terms of the actual meaning and usage as given by the dictionary; only as a metaphor. Given the meager resources that are available to the guerrilla and the harsh environment under which the guerrilla fights and the fight that the guerrilla gives, you may understand why I decided to use this expression. As they say, it is not
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the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog that matters – guerrillas are a good example of this old piece of wisdom (I mean in terms of the spirit of fighting but not in terms of the destruction they may cause, depending on the side they fight for).
OK. Let’s forget about war now and think of Guerrilla English as an expression in its entirety. What does it entail and how relevant is the concept to learning and teaching English at SUA and similar settings? I will approach the answer to these questions by itemizing some points as a way of structuring the discussion. I will not present many points. The points are: to be able to learn English, or any other language for that matter, there are external and internal factors (external and internal relative to the learner). The external factors that I consider here are resources, access to the resources and interaction with the resources. The internal factors are awareness, ability to learn and willingness to learn.
Resources may be places, centres, people, books, videos, TV, internet, libraries, etc. I will not classify them. The important point to note here is that one has to be flexible in terms of the resources to use because not all the resources may be available in all situations. For example, for someone at SUA, it is not easy to have an English speaking person as a resource because almost everyone does not speak English apart from using it as a medium of instruction (for those who stick to using English). As already mentioned above, the language centre is not there yet. However, we have books, videos, TV the internet, the library, etc…How may or should one use these resources? For example, the internet and other resources provide facilities for pronunciation in addition to translation of terms – how many do care to learn pronunciation when they look up for meaning of a word? So much can be learnt from TV in terms of intonation – even while watching the English Premier League (if it is not from a channel that broadcasts in Arabic!). And the vocabulary that is buried in books may only be exhausted by ants once the books get their turn to be buried. So why do not people benefit from the wealth of these resources? It is a question of access to the resources and interaction with the resources.
Access to resources may be through ownership, travels, employment (e.g. some cooks employed by the English during colonial time learnt English), exposure, friendship, education/schooling, etc. I remember the days when some people had to pretend that they were taking a drink at a bar or restaurant just to be able to watch a movie – that is one example of how one may access a resource. When we were students at SUA, we would crowd up in rooms of foreign students because they were the ones that had enough money to spend and spare some for buying a video set (this applied only to those of us who studied at the time when such things could happen – the time of scarcity on this land of abundance).
Interaction with the resources may be superficial or deep, intentional or unintentional, formal or casual. When one watches TV with the aware intention to learn English as well as to get what news or entertainment is presented, the effect will be different from another who watches TV just for the sake of news or entertainment. Have you met someone who watches TV (presentation in English) in mute mode and then listens to radio (in Kiswahili or music of whatever language)? What would be the English learning benefit of this habit? OK, let’s not get too personal here lest we embarrass someone. Thus, somehow intentional interaction with a resource in a given way may vary the
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depth of interaction with the resource as the previous few sentences show. This has somehow touched on the internal factors, which we must now turn to.
Awareness may be with regards to the need to learn, the resources availability and techniques, among other things. It is somehow unfair because those who are more aware of whatever get even more aware (this is another version of the universal law that makes almost all the water flow to the sea and leave our lands cracking dry). Is everyone who is supposed to learn English at SUA aware that they are supposed to do so? Are they aware of the resources around them or are they caught up in a wishful attitude of waiting until they get an opportunity to travel and stay abroad or until there is a language centre? Are they aware of the techniques to enrich their learning of the language, and especially the Guerrilla English techniques? When is one supposed to learn English? I remember one of my classmates who said that they would pay for special English lessons after getting their degree – were they right or wrong?
With regards to the ability to learn English, allow me to be biased and state that if people can master such difficult subjects as to be able to join SUA, they should have more than the needed ability to learn English (I mean a not-soembarassing version of it). That leaves us with the question of will: is there anyone who does not want to learn English? For those who want to learn English then the problem may be how to operationalize their will. There are many complications including fear of criticism and such things. How do birds learn to fly? – they get pushed off the nest by their very loving parents. To be able to learn one has to get pushed (by none other than themselves) off the comfort and safety of their nest and spread their weak wings and fly away. They have to join a guerrilla unit (a one-guerrilla guerrilla unit) and fight a guerrilla war (which they are already in, willingly or willy-nilly). One needs the spirit of a guerrilla in an environment such as ours. That is what I call Guerrilla English.
This article was published as: Nzunda E.F. 2013 Guerrilla English. SUA CONE: A newsletter of the Sokoine University of Agriculture, vol. 15, November 2013. Pg 8 & 14.
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