入口处一个红色为主的大展台是主办方的,有7、8工作人员,在销售BC Golf Red Book,现场打折30刀。这本小册子就是相当于Mcdonald或者PizzaHut的打折券。一入场我就急着找人聊,从第一个展台开始就用目光先和对方交流。但对方似乎没什么反应,可能需要我上前去询问吧。我看看是一个球场展台,就开始慢慢往后走。还是一个球场,这个男展员倒是比较热情。我就开始聊起来。
其实我最近思考的语言话题,是发现智人的语言能够创造虚拟的事物、虚拟现实。而人的意识和语言密切相关,具有相辅相成的关系。意识中很多能通过语言描述出来,很多也无法描述。在记忆语言的时候需要图像的辅助,就是我的英语老师让我们学习的Marzano Method of rapid word acquisition。记忆一个新单词用一个scenario相关联。
“Learning English has fundamentally changed my life,” says newcomer Hauwson Yu. “The Y is the one who helped me do it.”
Hauwson Yu joined the LINC (Language Instructions for Newcomers in Canada) at YMCA Newcomer Connections in April 2020; aside from only two in-person classes in the late summer of 2021, Hauwson attended only virtual study in the LINC program.
Yu works as a Tourism Contact centre Specialist. When he started working in the spring of 2020, Yu got headaches out of frustration at the end of his workdays, such days full of calls over the phone entirely in English. Yu battled to understand his clients, often failing and losing them. He believes his pronunciation frequently led to communication breakdowns.
“He was remarkably hard on himself, calling himself a ‘loser’ publicly many times during his class work,” says Matthew Mott, Language Instructor at YMCA Newcomer Connections.
Yu continued the LINC classes for 20 months, insisting on working full time and coming to class, attending only half-classes when his demanding work schedule required him to do so, but never allowing his attendance to dry up to nothing. He persisted through the LINC program, even in the last two months of the program, when he had to use vacation time to allow him to attend class to finish his CLB 7 (Canadian Language Benchmarks) certificate, crossing the Intermediate level language ability.
“The valuable 20 months of English classes with you is the most crucial phase in my immigration life,” says Yu, appreciating Matthew Mott. “It’s not only the English language speeches and grammar, but also the food, the weather, the finance, the pharmacy, and the NB history knowledge that stuck with me.”
After months of classes and of playing and teaching golf (he is an avid golf enthusiast), Yu said that his English-caused headaches stopped happening—they are not a problem anymore. He has built tremendous mental resilience in his new language. Yu has also become a proponent of positive psychology, saying that he has learned that being kind to himself is essential to being happy in his work and his learning. He practices positive self-talk daily now, extending to himself patience and kindness and enthusiastically speaking on the benefits of self-kindness. He does not call himself a “loser” anymore.
“The reason I keep living in Saint John is that I can focus on English learning and golfing,” says Yu. “Comparing from when I arrived at Saint John, I really appreciate what the Y taught and that it inspired me.”
Yu’s pronunciation progress is marvellous; his pronunciation not only no longer impedes communication, it seldom ever has a clarity problem. He is the envy of his peers as they approach him to praise him; Yu is quite proud of these moments when his peers remark in this way. He no longer has problems understanding what people are saying over the phone and is pleased to say that he has moved on to clearly understanding “what they mean by what they say.” Yu is further proud to utilize this understanding of what his clients mean to grow the business, trying to meet everyone’s needs.
In the Zoom classes, he went from saying almost nothing for multiple whole classes at a stretch, saying for months on end that “he just wants to listen,” to being a leader among the students, often laughing and telling jokes, holding the floor easily and often for 15-20 minutes at a time, telling lengthy, detailed, specific, and emotionally charged stories. Yu went from being serious-faced all the time in class to laughing frequently, with a big smile reaching all the way up to his eyes. He feels empowered because now he is empowered, and he knows it.
“I like to help people in return of I got here. I will be happy if my story can encourage more newcomers to come and improve their English.”
到了这里经过了culture shock以后,第一个感受的词是:hypocrisy。我看过一个短视频,里面的观点是:移民在加拿大想融入一个圈子是不现实的。就是自己过自己的日子,能有几个要好的朋友就是很幸运的事了。那些潮人、每天晒着有观点、倾向相关的人,我都不是很认可。他们极力炫耀着美好生活,否定着一切和他们炫耀不同的任何一个现象。小城市好啊,Vancouver有海啸地震,Toronto有枪击,Montreal是法语区等等,只有这里的人更善良。Saint John优于Fredericton、也优于Moncton,要是实在没找到什么比较优势了,就连气候也不断说着自己的好。殊不知这里是frog city all the way!
Nobody knows the true meaning of the picture I posted on that day. After all few people live in my current circle from 20 years ago. Maybe Michael knows, he attended the class Archie made.
Archie is a runner, I always see that he runs along. I can catch the feeling, running along lonely.
Today is the anniversary of FVC, For 19 years, I registered for Shanghai Freedom Vacation in 2002. I don’t know how many people remember this day. The members know because it concerns their privilege. I must write some, no matter I had OT and worked for 12 hours today.
When I started the journey of FVC, I said to my people: we may not build a business for a hundred years, we can certainly build a business for twenty years.
Now the enterprise does not belong to me anymore, but I still recall it, I put too much personal emotion into my business.
FVC.cn, our company’s domain, I don’t know if the domain name exists? I created the industry magazine <Freedom Vacation>; the vacation concept: live the dream; the blog BBS of members; shared travel experience among members; formed a free travel group with each other; and established a member management committee, etc…
These seem to be yesterday. I am isolating myself here.
One of my elder brothers said: at our age, there are not many people who call “Gemen-er” and even fewer people who can drink together.
After landed Saint John New Brunswick, I’m always thinking I was born here . This town is the same location as my home town – JinZhou in Northeastern China.
As a newcomer I’m a baby here, too many things need to learn .
After this class – BIMP, I’ll never say that.
Immigrated to Canada, I chose it ! That’s my fate.
Few weeks ago I visited King’s Land at Fredericton. Read a lot of stories about the former immigrants to these land, they paid a lot to constructed this land. I admire them.
Now we are here.
We are lucky we can live in such beautiful city.
We are lucky because Saint John people gave us so warmly welcome and taught us how to settle down here!
We are lucky we joined this class.
Even through I know I have a long journey; I prepared to face baptism by fire.
Not only say we should pay back to Saint John . I should be a Saint Johner. I’ll live here as a family.
I will use my strength to unite all of you building Saint John into a better home land.
I would like introduce the beauty of Saint John to my friends and families ,