The Hollywood movie “The Terminal” is an interesting story that unintentionally demonstrates the principles of 2nd language acquisition. When surrounded with an English environment, you absorb the language from your environment. You listen to more English, read more English, write more English and speak more English.
Chinese students studying English in China are surrounded with a Chinese environment and their functional English development is non-existent. Chinese who go abroad to an English speaking country experience phenomenal growth in their functional English capability.
It would seem logical and reasonable that Chinese universities would at least make a minimal effort to create a semblance of an English speaking environment for their English majors, let alone the thousands of non-English majors required to study English.
On the DOWNLOAD page see: China EFL: English Corner; China EFL: Why Chinese Universities Do Not Provide an English Speaking Environment; and China EFL: Programming Human Robots.
Those Chinese students who seriously wish to pursue functional English capability must endeavor to create their own personal English speaking environment. It begins with the small things like changing the mobile phone language to English and routinely answering the phone “Hello.”
Another step is changing the computer operating system to English or at least changing the home page to an English one and using English search engines instead of Chinese ones.
Do not speak Chinese in your English classes and ask your Chinese English teachers to teach in English.
Speak English with your room mates.
Read English newspapers or news web sites.
Listen to English radio.
Watch English movies with English subtitles or no subtitles. On the DOWNLOAD page see “Teaching With Movies.”
Wear a hat or patch that says “Speak English.”
Every time you make a choice for English input you are making a choice to make your functional English better. Every time you choose Chinese input, when English input is available, you are making a choice that you do not care about your English development.
It is your choice. It is your future.
On the DOWNLOAD page read “Mute English, The Latin of China” and “China EFL: The Four Great Lies.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM THIS MOVIE?
We need a brave,enlightened heart to our English study.But,it’s a pity that nearly all of us don’t have it.So,we can find that why we ,as a postgraduate,still can not speaking English fluently even we began to learn English many years ago.
Best wishes to all the people who want to learn English.JUST DO IT!
Listen to more English, read more English, write more English and speak more English.That is what we Chinese student should do.Yes ,it is my choice,it is my future.Learn English well,I think it is useful some day
Steels sharpen steels.We don’t need very standard English.Language is just for communicating with others,if we can understand each other,no matter the pronunciation is standard or not,it is ok.We all speak Chinglish in China,or go abroad.Don’t be afraid to speak English, just speak it,and then we can advance gradually.Listen more,read more,write more and speak more.We learn our English.Our futute is up to us.
Read more,listen more,watch more,speak more,if I can do these well,I think I can master english better than before.
In China, there is no English-speaking environment, because it is the chinese not the English is always around us.So we need to create an English-speaking environment for ourselves. This should start with doing the little things. Just like you had said,It begins with the small things like changing the mobile phone language to English and routinely answering the phone “Hello.” Everything started difficult, if you set a good start, then we will follow this path lately.
It tells us a correct way of learning English:Read more,listen more,watch more,speak more,which professor told us at the first lesson.
what i have learned from my oral english is just to do it if you have an idea.i have to recogize that i did very bad.i am just a muter.that is a pity.sometimes,i also want to try to do and express,but once think about something,i just give it up,then left regretting.Many times,i just become some safe-abased.I want to make some change.I will have a try.so beleieve in me.
I agree with your opinion, we should create an English Speaking Environment, When surrounded with an English environment, you absorb the language from your environment. You listen to more English, read more English, write more English and speak more English. Then your functional English capability will improved rapidly, just as the hero of The Terminal.
I know English environment is very important.And we need it.But we are live in China.More and more people don’t speak English.Even many people can not speak Mandarin Chinese well.Creat English enviroment is very hard.
We are lack for the English environment indeed,most people can’t go aboard to be affected by English because of money,so we should creat English environment by ourselves just as what MR.MARTIN said.
The film tell me a good way to study English well,read more,listen more,watch more,speak more.Also I think the film tell me that when you are in a dilemma you should have a optimistic attitude to face it and do your best to overcame it.And at last you would succeed.
When I wathch this movie,it makes me a little difficulty in understanding it,but still make me excited,because it’s the first time I watch a movie with a English subtiles,before it,all are Chinese subtitles or both English and Chinese subtitles,I don’t care about the English in the movies,but through the movie and later films that I need to watch to finish my homework,I find it’s uncomfortable watching movie with Chinese subtltles,just as if I have adjust to the English,which make surprise.
The best way to improve English is the English Speaking Environment.In the movie Victor has no way but to learn English better to comunicate with other people.In the airport,English is the only language used,which forces him to improve his English.
The spirit that how Hanks learned English is worthy learning.
Though this is the second time for me to see this film The Terminal, I am still attracted by the plot deeply. Viktor sets us an example of how to pursue a meaningful life by showing his own living attitude and way of life. What impresses me most is the sentence in the film “Life is waiting”. In the film, in the process of waiting, Victor gained the friendship and love and completed his father’s promise. Yes, he succeeded in the end after months of waiting. At the moment when he went out of the door towards the America, he was happy and proud. Life is waiting. We wait for friends, for lovers, for success, and there are so many things for us to wait. What’s the most important thing for us is to wait for the happiness. The process of waiting is the approach of enjoying the happiness. Waiting means persisting and not giving up. Everyone has his or her dream. To live is to make our dreams come true. To achieve this, we need to learn to wait. No one can tell us how long should we wait for, but as long as we wait, we can achieve something. Though the process of waiting is long and painful, the end is happy. I hope that everyone can get to the happy “Terminal” after years’ waiting.
Personally, I find the movie very interesting. It seems like a big joke with an absurd story and a funny way of telling. I like Victor, very much because his attitude towards difficulties. I can’t imagine me doing what he did if I were trapped in such an occasion with nobody I know and even unable to speak the language. One must feel really frustrated with no one to talk to in a foreign place. I think Victor is very initiative in changing his situation. He collected carts to buy food, fixed the chair as his bed, turned off the lights by pulling out the thread, received food from the Spanish guy by helping him talk to the girl. What he did was very creative and refreshing, because he was stuck in the airport, but he built his new life with his efforts. I do admire his courage and positive mind, which will definitely help when one is in trouble.
What I don’t like is Amelia’s choice. Contrasted to Victor, she was pessimistic in changing her life, for the fact that she struggled with her relationship with a married man, and went back to him finally. She said that she couldn’t do anything about her life, and she thought that her life was a mess, with 39′s age and a ten-year disastrous relationship.
It shows that people choose their life, and the environment can play a less important role sometimes. I’ll think more.
Here in China, we have our Chinese way of conceiving things and asking questions, such like the well-known sentence “Did you have your meal?” If we want to learn English well, we have to change our ways of thinking, open our minds, which means we have to jump out of our own life circle and care more about what is happening outside our country since Chinese language is sort of monopoly. You can’t blame people for not speaking good Chinese, you can’t alter the world’s mainstream, then change yourself as soon as you can.
Well, when I first saw the article which is named “The Terminal”, I expect people heatdly discussing the movie and lots of”what I like/dislike about the movie is”. But it turned out to be an article on the second language acquisition. Not that I am complaining about it. But I still want to say something about the movie itself, since it seems that few people do. Well, what I like most about The Terminal is that the girl did not end up with Victor. Usually, an entertaining movie will have a happy end, especially when love is involved. However, in The Terminal,the girl gave up Victor, only to maintain her pathetic relationship with a married man. I was a bit surprised, but having more thoughts about it, I came to see the cleverness of the director. Men’s instinct is to stay,only when they are cornered, will they be willing to make a change. It requires courage to make changes, and the girl simply did not have any. It’s quire normal for her to make such a decision, which accords with human nature. The arrangement of the girl leaving Victor raises the movie to a new level and makes it more than an entertainment.
Personally, I think the movie is a little exaggerating the role of an English environment. A person is unlikely to learn English that fast if he/she does not try consciously. Take my personal experience as an example, I am surrounded by a Korean environment for one whole year, but all I can say is “Hello”, “Thank you” and a few other phrases. Even these few sentences are fading once I come back to China. Thus, we have to be motivated to study in an English surrounded environment, let alone in a Chinese-speaking country. Hope governments and schools could cultivate the next generation’s interest of English instead of coercing them to study the language.
It’s a great movie which I have watched two times. It was so moving.
When a person met difficulties, the friends were so important to them. He a foreigner at the New York airport didn’t know the language and lost his country in a sudden, whose life was completely ruined. Luckily, he met the workers of the airport. They did so much for each other.
Viktor was such a positive person and it was his attitude helps him to be a successful person. He made so many good friends and realized him father dream. To the love story aspect, he was also a winner, because the girl’s heart belongs to him. It was pure feelings between them, although they couldn’t be together. Finally, he went back to his own country.
This is the second time i see this movie and I have totally different feelings. The first time I thought its humor is a little bit artificial. But the second time I saw the sorrow under the funny episodes, which makes it deep. The sorrow includes Victor’s loss of his motherland and identity, the Indian cleaner’s longing for home, the flight attendant’s loneliness and the trauma after 911. Even though so much sorrow is gathered in one film, we cannot easily see it. It’s happy, encouraging and moving. The bright colors of it please the viewers and we may easily be taken into the movie. Besides, I find that classroom or a teacher is not the major element that determines whether a man can achieve something, the person himself is the key. So learning outside the classroom is very very practical. It requires one to be independent and has a persistent belief to acquire one or more languages.
What impressed me most is Viktor’s optimism. No matter what he met, he still tried to adapt to surroundings. Even without any complain, he just do his best. I think it’s what I should learn from him. To be brave to the changes in my future.
Allow me say something which is not related to this story ,i just have a crush on the chief actress: Catherine Zeta Jones ,i can’t believe she’s even thirty-five years old when she performed in this movie,she seems much prettier than some other female film stars who’s younger,what a beauty!
The movie “The Terminal” is thought provoking. No one can imagine what’s going on when someone lost his identity suddenly,and was only allowed wandering at the airport transit lounge, and he was stuck there for 9 months. When Victor heard the news from TV that his country was in riot,his grief touched me. He’d been through a lot. Such an optimistic man loved his country that he will never give up.
I also want to comment about Dixon the director of the airport. He is a person we will come across anytime and anywhere. He left Victor there,didn’t let him earn money by himself,teased him,it seems everything was under his control but not at all. I was glad that the other people in the airport helped him unselfishly, and eventually, Victor fulfilled his father’s will and back home with satisfaction.
This movie saddened me immediately when Catherine Zeta Jones uttered the word destiny as she attempeted to unveil the reason that she would leave. As a matter of fact, i thought of another touching movie “Serendipity”, whose chief actor and actress would give up their incoming weddings to meet the call of destiny. An interesting comparison!~
Victor communicated with others only using some simple phases at his arrival.Though,he can not understand what others told to him.Then he learned english by news ,magazine and talking with staff at airport .Compared with my volunteer work these days ,i find that talking with foreigners who’s mother tone is english is quite useful for our oral english .Yeah ,we have to speak more ,write more ,listen more ,exercise more .What’s more ,a english learning environment is most important .If there are thousands of english speakers on campus ,if we’re compelled to speak english everyday ,three months later , english is quite easy for us.
The story describe the man named Victor just want to American through the door. This is a common thing to anybody.But is not for him because his country is in war and he has no right to New York. He was eager to realize his dream for his father. By trying to win the respect of others, and ultimately realize his dream. Usually there will be a story of such a kind of ending.
But the story is not. When the heroine played by Catherine Zeta Jones say she must leave because she believes destiny, I feel very sad. How can you believe destiny! This’s funny! Why don’t you to change the destiny.
So I think the hope will not be terminated unless you terminal it by yourself.
No doublt that one thing worth fighting, struggling, and waiting for your whole life, is a promise. There are many difficulties, obstacles to fulfil your promise. Be sure to enjoy the process, in “Terminal” after “Terminal”, before reaching your destination.Overcome difficulties and obstacles one by one, to fulfil your promise whether it to others, or to youself
Though I have seen this movie many times,everytime I was deeply imoressed by Victor’s optimism.When he was trapped in such a depressing position,where he lost his meal coupons,have no job,and cannot speak english even understanding it,he did not blame anybody.He is always keeping optimistic,looking for chances to feed himself,making new friends.He is also a man full of sympathy.After he knew a man took some medicine which was not allowed to taken abroad to save his father’s life,he lied even the offcer knew it,and didi not cared about the allowance to New York promised by the offcer.Last he always acted like a gentleman.Even when he was very poor,he told the assitant to keep the change.
I always think that in fact Victor can never be a famous person ,but he deserves our respect.
It`s very impressive!