I want to learn fast, period. Most people want to do so. There’s nothing wrong with that. We
want big things and we have high expectations. However, reality will not grant you this wish
easily. We have to work hard in order to get it, and learning a language is no exception.
Having said that, the movie “The Matrix” always comes to mind. In this film where machines are
the dominant species and humans are just “batteries”, people are connected to a huge virtual
reality world where everyone lives a “normal” life. However, some rebels are beyond this reality
and can manipulate this world to their heart's contempt. They can do whatever they want by
learning any skill in a matter of seconds.
Well, life is not “The Matrix”, though. Every and any skill we want to acquire requires time and
patience. Coming to the United States of America to learn the language is a good idea, that
would be what I would call “The Matrix” of our reality and the first step of our journey. Our
playing field has been established, we have the “world” ready to do what we want, that in this case
is learning the language. The second step would be accepting the language the way it is, not
the way we want it to be. We do not have a pill to swallow or a USB port attached to our bodies
for updates and add-ons. Our reality is simple, we want to learn something, and we have to train for
it, period.
However, not because students come to the United States, means that automatically they are
going to improve their level of English, like some kind of magic. Coming here is a good idea, but
we, as learners, have to help ourselves too, though. Coming to class and not participating,
coming to class and ignoring the teacher, coming to class and checking our phones knowing
that we paid thousands of dollars to be here, is not helping ourselves.
Even more, not because we pay more money, it means that we are going to learn more and
faster. We have to have our priorities straight. Do we want to learn English? Do we need English
in our lives? No one can answer those questions but ourselves.
Everything I just mentioned feels like high exceptions to me. We want to learn English fast
because we are running out of time. We want to learn English fast because of a deadline or a
job opportunity, and English is getting in our way of getting it. We could have studied English
years ago, but we waited until the last minute to start from scratch. This is what I call high
expectations, expecting something to be good or successful, and then we see our dreams
shattered just because we did not see things ahead, and we did not plan accordingly.
Another example of high expectations is pretending to learn and speak the language as if we
were native speakers, although possible is certainly challenging. Sometimes getting by is more
than enough, without falling into mediocrity, of course.
Setting our goals to achievable standards is a good idea. I know this sounds as if we were
settling for less, but I don’t see it like that, though. We have to be aware of our skills and
limitations, and at the same time, ask ourselves what level of English we need. Sometimes what
we need is not that high.
In conclusion, living by high expectations will lead to big things if achieved right. However, these
same high expectations will prevent you from accomplishing little things one at a time, little
achievements that later add up to your overall satisfaction. We cannot let these unachievable
goals blur our current progress. We need a good foundation to be able to reach amazing things.