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There is no denying that the English language contains oddities. From discrepancies in spelling, to quirks in vowels and consonants, to exceptions in the usage of singular and plural nouns, the process of learning the language can be fraught with difficulties for native and non-native speakers alike. In his poem, 'The Chaos', the Dutch Linguist, Gerard Nolst Trenité, eloquently summed up the challenges particular to English pronunciation, "I will teach you in my verse/Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse," while more modern critics such as Richard Lederer, a self-proclaimed "verbivore, logolept, and wordaholic" are quick to poke fun at the language's self-contradictory nature itself in books such as "Crazy English," which point out: "How is it that your nose can run and your feet can smell?" Levity aside, the rigors of teaching English to non-native speakers – be they adults or children – are two-fold. For one, the process of learning languages is often contingent, at least in the early stages, on establishing patterns of similarity between words. The English language sadly complicates this with the introduction of homonym words that sound the same, but have different meanings, or homophone words that share similar pronunciations but differ where the spelling is concerned. For a student who has barely begun to grasp the nuances of the language, the alphabetical difference versus the identical pronunciation of words such as pair/pear can seem arbitrary at best, ridiculous at worst. For another, the English language may seem entirely too loaded with synonymous words that seem designed, at least from the perspective of beginners, to muddle their understanding with denotative and connotative baggage. One example is words borrowed from different languages, with similar meanings, such as the English/French doublets of castle/chateau or warden/guardian. While these words, and many others, may have been imported into the English language as a result of Gallic, Celtic, German, Nordic and Latin influence, the fact remains that such a high level of hybridity is not common to every language, and therefore makes it easy for new learners to feel intimidated. Subsequently, to keep students from becoming overwhelmed, it is necessary for instructors to take lessons one step at a time, solidifying the foundations of grammar and structure before introducing these seeming hurdles. One method to alleviate student anxiety, as evidenced by Gerard Nolst Trenité and Richard Lederer, is to learn how to poke fun at the oddities of the English language, and to therefore remind students that it is as a learning process for native and non-native speakers alike. Another fact is to remind students that language evolves just as society does, and that English as a tongue can be dynamic, unpredictable and self-contradictory - and yet these very qualities can be part of its charm. New words are added to the Oxford and Webster dictionaries each year; colloquialisms and turns-of-phrase continue to shift as our own speech patterns and vocabularies grow more dependent on Internet shorthand. By teaching students the formal as well as the informal aspects of the language, it therefore encourages them to understand and accept both sides of the coin. What's more, it reminds them that the true joy of learning a language is in the process, rather than the outcome, and that said process can allow them to grow as flexible in their learning experiences as the core nature of the language itself.
