(Sorry guy, just working on some other projects and not able to come every Monday to post UTSP, but I will make sure every week this site is updated – Tapish Dongre)
This story is particularly told on various platforms of language and learning classes and I would tell you my version of it.
Once a lady of sub Asian region gets her first visa to go to Prestigious University of America. She gets her visa approved on a exceptional basis that she had the highest academic scores of her region. She topped in all subjects and thus wanted to discover what more she can do with the skills she has. Acceptance to a World renounced University for higher studies brings both joy and sadness in her family. Joy for the progress and sadness for the distance separating between her and her relatives. With full enthusiasm she boards the plane and lands in a new country. New country new rules, New way of living which she is ready to adapt. And this adoption goes on a faster level with new technology being already acquired theoretically in her primary education. After a month or two, the results of primary examination comes out. She scores the least marks of her class. Calculation, Science, History or Language, she looses her marks in all. As being an international student, her case is forwarded to Authorities concerning the academic growth. The panel of four members checks for her entry requirement in the class and is again astonished that even in subject like English, she scored 92 out of 100 which is a difficult score to gain. Without further delay the panel asks her first question, ” Our university comes form the top 100 universities of the world. We do our best to teach students the latest theoretical and practical guidance as best we could. But your scores seems dropping. Can we know do you have any problem that we can work out?”
To this the girl starts staring at the panel and gives no reply.
The panel asks again, “Dear let me re-frame, Can we help you by any other means that can boost up your marks? Is the teaching going well in your class”
The girl is again quite.
This time one member of the board gets quite grumpy and raises his voice and shouts, “Are you Deaf? Can you Hear What we are asking you?”
The girl is quite again and let me tell you form here, The girl was Deaf. Not Deaf by physical attributes but a “LANGUAGE DEAF”
She has learned English in her own Dialects and not by the way it is spoken in the university she is into. Yes it is true that English is the most spoken language throughout the globe but along the history English has developed numerous number of dialects separated by region or time. Thus Even after being academically having highest marks in region, she was practically deaf in all the classes of university as what ever the lecturer use to say in class was never being understood by the brain of this little girl.
This is a very old story and now various steps has been taken to irradiate this issue, but truly speaking the problem still persist. Very recently my co-worker and friend Bhavesh Patel told me another very funny incident what happened not too long ago in our working history. A Manager with primary English language decent gave instructions to her staff, the staff was language deaf and thus was not able to understand the instructions and thus did some work which was not suppose to be done. After finding out the mistake Manager came and inquired the staff the reason of the mistake and then the staff started explaining in her own accent what happened in the working arena. After the whole explanation Manager was still confused as she did not understand even a word coming out of staff. The co-worker of staff re-explained the matter to Manager and then she took over. After a while the co-worker asked the staff, what you told she didn’t understand at all. To which the staff replied,
“Dekho Didi, Maine Jo Bolna tha maine Bold Dia, Ab Manager nahi samze wo unka Problem hai” 🙂 lol.
Translation : “Sister, I spoke what happened at the working site completely, she dint understand its not my problem, its her’s.”
The joke was funny for us as this was the first ever example where the Manager was Language Deaf, and most of the time the case is reverse. 🙂
Concluding this article, I can only advice, learn different accents, different dialects, try again and again to hear what other dialect person is speaking, as in no time, human brain gets the rhythm and learns any language or dialect with repetitive practice. Speaking for Experience, as Even I was a Language Deaf 🙂
Happy Day Guys, Happy Week Ahead 🙂
Tapish Dongre 