Learning English without teachers: Street kids' English

• Introduction
• Characteristics of street kids and their English
• Some theoretical considerations
• Conclusion
• References

I would like to start this paper with a fascinating conversation with a group of street kids at Ho Guom (The Sword Lake) in the heart of Hanoi. The examples included in this paper are taken from a recent ethnographic study of English learning in the Vietnamese context.

Kid 1: You, Where you from?

Tourist: Melbounre.

Kid 1: Melbounre, you American ?

Kid 2: you Uc, Mr.

Tourist: Uc? I don't understand!

Kid 3: Australian!

Kid 1: you Aussie

Tourist: (laughing) , Australia, Aussie, you're right. Where did you learn that?

Kid 1: Aussie friends, many, very many.

During my time visiting different places in Vietnam, I was puzzled by the language usage of these kids. They could be grouped into two categories: Postcard kids and Tourist kids. Each group seems to have its own linguistic characteristics, communicative behaviour, communicative discourse and intercultural awareness. This paper will examine these aspects and raise some pedagogical questions about second language learning.

CHARACTERISTICS OF STREET KIDS AND THEIR ENGLISH

Socio-economic background

They were poorly dressed. Some were school children and others did not go to school at all as I saw them around the same place most of the time. Some were barefooted. In Vietnam, street kids are normally viewed by people as uneducated children who are trouble-makers. Parents normally discourage their children to mix with street kids. However, tourism has enhanced the lives of some street kids financially, particularly those selling cards and books to international tourists. According to Furtado (2000, p.135), street children in Hanoi earn double the average income. In North Vietnam, the average monthly income is 100,000 Vietnamese Dong per month (10 Australian dollars). Street children in Hanoi earn an average of VD 180,000 to 210,000 per month.

Communicative Enthusiasm

Some street kids were very demanding and pushy. But generally, they were very friendly, persistent, and enthusiastic. They were genuinely interested in communicating with tourists. They often remained with the tourists and continued a conversation even after the selling had been completed. Their common strategy was to try to make tourists respond to their initiating verbal act. When this was successful, their next strategy was to maintain the conversation.

Humour

Smile and laughing were common features of the kids in communicative interaction with tourists. They smiled and laughed at little things that tourists showed them. Their innocent laughing could be misinterpreted by tourists as unfriendly and nasty. For example, a tourist stepped on dog drops or fall off a bike. Laughing can be interpreted as a demonstration of non-seriousness from the point of view of Taoism, which is important in Vietnamese culture. According to Taoism, life is too serious to be take seriously.

Working collaboratively

Working collaboratively was a special feature of the street kids' sense of survival. I did not witness any fights, mildly or violently, when they were engaged in selling with tourists. They were active in their selling task but did not show animosity as we often see among traders.

Code-Switching

An interesting phenomenon about street kids in Vietnam is that some of them were bilingual or multilingual. Apart from Vietnamese, their mother-tongue, they could speak English, French, and German. However, English was still their most widely used language with tourists. This could be due to the fact that most foreign tourists in Vietnam come from English-speaking countries. Their skill of code-switching was very impressive. In a conversation with a group of tourists, they could switch from one language to another.

Stereotypical speech

A fundamental aspect of grammar is its creativity. Language users have different ways to create a message. Even when we try to repeat a message, we can easily 'reconstruct' it as demonstrated in the language game 'Chinese whispering', in which a message transmitted through a number of people tends to be distorted and can become a new message. However, in human languages, there are also expressions which are stereotypical in the sense that they are 'already made'. Proverbs are the best examples. When we want to express an idea, we may borrow a proverb to represent the idea. We do not need to create our own expression or linguistic form. Stereotypical speech is automatic in the sense that it is used without the act of deliberate encoding of a message. Words and expressions have already been fixed. Stereotypical speech is often used in rituals and celebrations such as marriage, church sermon, court case, etc. They are also widely used in greetings, emphasis, apology, addressing, farewell . For examples,

• How are you?
• Good morning.
• I'm sorry.
• You know!
• You know what I mean!
• I beg your pardon.

The street kids in this study used stereotypical expressions such as:

• Hey, you.
• Where you from?
• Welcome you.
• You like Vietnam.
• Cheap cards for you.

However, they use stereotypical speech in such a 'creative' way that it does not stifle the flow of a conversation.

Linguistic Interference

Linguistic interference occurs when the first language interferes with the second language. In this case, the interference of Vietnamese in the way the street kids used English with tourists. The word 'you ' was used by these street kids as a direct translation from a number of Vietnamese words of addressing. In English, the pronoun 'I' indicates the addressor and 'you' indicates the addressee. In Vietnamese, different words are used for the addressee and addressor depending on their social status and interpersonal relationship. The English word 'you' can be translated as 'em', 'anh' , or 'ong' in Vietnamese depending on the two factors just mentioned. Misunderstanding could occur when the street kids uses 'hey you' to address tourists. It could be interpreted as rude or impolite.

Conversational ability

Amazing ability to initiate and maintain a conversation.

A number of publications about Vietnamese students tend to stereotype them as passive learners. Their learning style tends to be suitable to a teacher-centred curriculum in which teachers are the source of knowledge and students are the sponges which absorbs knowledge transmitted from teachers. This could be the case in a formal classroom discourse where explicit and hidden curricula are rigidly reinforced. However, the street kids did not show any signs of passive children when they functioned in their own social context. Here, they were active and creative in conversation.

One of the important factors in engaging in a conversation is to initiate a conversation. Conversation initiation can be seen as a 'make or break' stage of conversation. In the West, conversation normally starts with a neutral and impersonal theme: the weather. It is safe to start with weather as a topic and other topics will develop gradually depending how comfortable one feels about the others. Here is an example:

Speaker 1: Hello.

Speaker 2: Hello.

Speaker 1: The weather is so nice.

Speaker 2: We're lucky. It hasn't rained for a long time.

The weather is not a popular topic in Vietnamese conversation. People talk about the weather only when there is a flood or storm. In contrast, a conversation normally centres around personal things such as family members, friends, and events relating to their existence. Here is an example:

Speaker 1: where are you going?

Speaker 2: I want to buy a chicken.

Speaker 1: Are you having a special guest at home?

Speaker 2: My uncle from Nha Trang is visiting us.

Speaker 1: Is he old? Is he married.

Speaker 2: He is old, but not married.

Speaker 1: Why isn't he married.

The street kids in Vietnam did not have any problem with initiating a conversation. They were always the first people who broke the ice. They did not need to beat about the bush with the weather. They could tell strangers things about their friends and families. They were more interested in human affairs than the weather.

Intercultural awareness

Here is a sample of a kid's initiation of a conversation:

Kid: Happy you!

Tourist: very good.

Kid: you from where

Tourist: Australia

Kid: Welcome you!

Tourist: Thank you.

The street kids tend to have a good intercultural awareness. Though some of them have never gone to school, they know names of cities in different countries and the languages of those countries. They know big names in sports, music, and cinema.

Personal praise

Street kids were very eager to praise tourists, particularly when an attempt was made to speak Vietnamese:

Kid: You very beautiful!

Tourist: Thank you!

Kid: You speak Vietnamese.

Tourist: No, I wish I could.

Kid: Speak: "chao em"

Tourist: Chao em.

Kid: (laughing) very good, you number one.

Direct topic

The use of direct topic statements often occurs in a situation in which the encounter between street kids and tourists are very brief, such as walking along the street, getting on a taxi, sitting at a restaurant where street kids were not allowed to come in. Here is a sample:

Kid: Mr., buy chewing gum.

Tourist: No, thank you.

Kid: please buy postcard.

Tourist: I 've already had.

Linguistic Advertising: cheap postcard; 20 postcards only one dollars

These street kids tended to be very good at advertising. They knew how to use powerful strategies to persuade tourists to buy their things. Eg.,

Kid: Look at this pocket knife.

Very cheap. 40 dollar at shop, me, only 4 dollar.

Tourist: No thank you.

Kid: Buy for your girl friend.

Tourist: (smiling)

Kid: Your girl friend love you, this knife.

Pleading

Pleading was not a common strategy among old kids. Pleading was often used by very young children, around the age of five or six. It seemed that these young children were instructed by their parents or older siblings to sell small things to tourists. Seeing very young children trying their best to sell things late at night, it was very hard for foreign tourists to refuse buying from them. Examples of pleading expression:

• baby hungry
  
• I want soup.
  
• Please help.
  
  

Offering

Guiding service was often provided by older children, approximately 13 years old. Their English was fluent. They learned some basic knowledge about a certain historic site and acted very competently as a tourist guide. They could carry out a conversation and knew how to joke in English with tourists. Expressions of offering are:

• You want go to pagoda; I'm your guide.
  
• I show you Hanoi.
  
• It is very far, you go this way with me.
  

SOME THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The strength of Hymes' concept of communicative competence lies in its focus on social context as an essential factor determining language ability. Language is not syntactically based. It is socially based, as human beings know what language is because they know what language does for them: interacting with one another in a language community. Communicative competence is real because it exists in a socio-cultural context. It deals with a human discourse involving participants, setting, topic, communication channel, mode, and purposes.

However, many parents and teachers tend to view communicative competence on the basis of the standard English and communicative norm which are highly valued in some prestigious social functions such as conferences, lectures, public meetings, and examinations. Academic English is the target language to be taught to students. This tendency is very strong in the practice of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other languages). Since Labov's work on the role of non-standard English in education in America, there has been various studies on linguistic features and sociolinguistic functions of non-stand English. Labov showed us three decades ago that non-standard English used by African Americans had logic, grammar, and communicative functions. It was not a deviant version of English. However, little research has dealt with the theme 'learning English from the streets' by children in a non-English speaking country.

A study of street kids' English could be used to support the view that language learning should be functional. It should be meaningful and contextualized. In other words, it happens in a real social context. The street kids in my study did not have textbooks, multimedia labs, and teachers. They did not have a curriculum which was based on a profound theory. They learned English because they knew what language could do for them in real life. For them, learning took place without teaching. My hypothesis is this: If these children had been taught in a formal classroom context, their communicative competence in English could be extremely poor, like many other children who went to formal English classes in Vietnam.

CONCLUSION

In the field of TESOL, it is recognised that apart from general English, attention should be given to English for a specific purpose (ESP), such as English for academic purposes, English for maritime workers and English for engineers, etc. This has taken place in many TESOL centres and schools. However, there is only one school which teaches street kids' English very effectively: the streets of life.

REFERENCES

Furtado, X. (2000). The human security/welfare implications of the Asian crisis in Vietnam. Vietnamese Studies, N.1-2000. (pp. 127-143).

Halliday, M.A.K., (1975). Learning How to Mean: Explorations in the Development of Language. London: Edward Arnold.

Hymes, D., (1972). On communicative competence. In J. Pride & J. Holmes (Eds.) Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguine.

Labov, W. (1972). Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Le, Mark (1999). Vietnamese Discriminatory Language: A Sociolinguistic Analysis. Journal Language Society and Culture, No.4.