Some Complaints About Vocabulary!
Okay, not "vocabulary", but "vocabulary lessons". The idea of learning all those new words, blah blah blah.. Don't get me wrong, I realize the need to learn vocabulary at a younger age, but 9th, 10th, and possibly (and probably) even before that vocabulary? Come on. I particularly hate it when they call it English (since we should assume we already know English), but it's somewhat justified in that English isn't always vocabulary. Sometimes it's writing, or whatever else they have. Which in itself is annoying, since it gets a bit confusing; you have your English lessons ("So this is learning words?" Said the confused pupil. "Or is this writing?" "No," Said the teacher. "This is learning how to read while standing on a bench doing yoga poses upside down." The student replied "Oh."), your English lessons, your English lessons, and your English lessons.
But I digress. After a certain time, you know how to talk, or so you should assume. By learning how to write letters and how to spell the words you speak, you've learned essentially all you need to know. After you learn all the words essential for language, you don't need to know any other words, unless you want to. Because what is a language but a form of communication? And English is a language, and we can all speak it without using the words we learn much later in the said grades. After we have learned what we need, every word we learn becomes simply yet another potential road block in the field of English, which already is an obstacle course in the world of communication. You can tell others of the new words you have learned, the long, confusing new words; they won't understand them, but you can tell them. And if you don't use these new words regularly you'll lose them. They'll drop out of your head, most of the time. And why would you use them? You can say what you need to say with what you knew before you learned the new word. The obstacle course metaphor I used has a point; whenever you learn a new, long word that you don't use that often, you'll probably forget it, so if you use it in front of someone and they don't understand it, you can tell them what it means, but chances are they won't remember. And so another word is added to the mass of words floating in our heads, and it becomes ever harder to communicate with others because there are so many ways to say the exact same thing.
People will get confused. You have so many different ways to say things. The point of communication is communication, and nothing else. Not seeming fancy. Not confusing people, certainly not. Whenever you learn a word that most likely won't be understood, there's no point in using it. Because it hinders communication.
But I digress. After a certain time, you know how to talk, or so you should assume. By learning how to write letters and how to spell the words you speak, you've learned essentially all you need to know. After you learn all the words essential for language, you don't need to know any other words, unless you want to. Because what is a language but a form of communication? And English is a language, and we can all speak it without using the words we learn much later in the said grades. After we have learned what we need, every word we learn becomes simply yet another potential road block in the field of English, which already is an obstacle course in the world of communication. You can tell others of the new words you have learned, the long, confusing new words; they won't understand them, but you can tell them. And if you don't use these new words regularly you'll lose them. They'll drop out of your head, most of the time. And why would you use them? You can say what you need to say with what you knew before you learned the new word. The obstacle course metaphor I used has a point; whenever you learn a new, long word that you don't use that often, you'll probably forget it, so if you use it in front of someone and they don't understand it, you can tell them what it means, but chances are they won't remember. And so another word is added to the mass of words floating in our heads, and it becomes ever harder to communicate with others because there are so many ways to say the exact same thing.
People will get confused. You have so many different ways to say things. The point of communication is communication, and nothing else. Not seeming fancy. Not confusing people, certainly not. Whenever you learn a word that most likely won't be understood, there's no point in using it. Because it hinders communication.
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