EPSR'S ENGLISH FUNNELLING APPROACH
 Through the funnel right into your brain...
1-BACKGROUND
MOTIVATION
The English Funnelling approach is essentially based on the personal experience of EPSR founder Patrick E. Hayeck in learning English as a second language from the age of 21. Prior to the age of 21, Patrick had never received any form of English education. Both his school and college education had been delivered in Arabic and French. Like many young men in Lebanon, Patrick was summoned for the compulsory military service after finishing his college education but instead, he chose to come to Australia to pursue further education. However, there was one major obstacle for him to overcome, that is, English. Australian universities require a certain IELTS or TOFEL score as a condition for enrolement. Unfortunately, Patrick had not only had financial limitations, but also time limitations. He had only had a total of 7 months either to be drafted (military service), or to be granted a student visa. Patrick had not also had the money to afford attending an English course. Thus, the only option he had was self-study. By the time Patrick began his self-study, he had had an elementary level of profiency in English and upper-intermediate in French. Ironically, his Arabic grammar was mediocre. He had only had 6 months to sit for the TOFEL test and obtain the score required by the Australian University. This almost seemed an insurmountable challenge. Had he failed, he would have had to do his military service, and in doing that, waste a whole year of his life servicing an institution in which he hadn't believed. Failure was not an option.
DILIGENCE
So Patrick bought one novel (The fountainhead by Ayn Rand) and decided to read that novel several times until he would acquire all or most of the novel's vocabulary. Being an elementary student made reading the novel a tedious and painstaking process. Almost every word needed to be looked up in the dictionary, every sentence needed to be read several times to gather some understanding of the message intended to be communicated by the author. After every reading Patrick achieved a greater understanding of the book's content, story, plot, characters, etc. This understanding enabled him to acquire the English grammar without learning the English grammar as a set of rules. In parallel to reading the novel, Patrick was also listening to rap music following the lyrics he would have printed from an internet cafe. 6 months later, Patrick sat for the TOFEL test and achieved a 500 score securing himself a letter of enrolment from University.
PERFECTIONISM
Few months after arriving to Sydney, Australia, and beginning a Master degree in Communication and Cultural studies, and specifically during a camping trip in Kiama in New Year's eve with a group of Australian friends, Patrick realised that his listening and speaking English skills were shocking and quite disappointing. He was quite taken aback when he couldn't understand what his companions were joking and laughing about. That night, he found his new year's resolution, and his resolution was to never go out with any Australians before he would reach a native-like proficiency in English. Patrick then chose one song "Lose yourself " (by Eminem) and practised the same song relentlessly for 3 months until he could follow the rapper's speed. Throughout the 3 months, he attempted to emulate the rapper's tone, stress, word linking etc. While attempting to master this song, Patrick was also tiressly observing native speaker's mouth movements and consistently experimenting through recording his own voice. 8 months later, Patrick was asked for the first time where in America he was born. Patrick's answer was that he had never been to America and he had been studying English by himself for the last 2 years. Most people were and continue to be dumbfounded by Patrick's achievement.
2-THE FUNNELLING APPROACH
The exposure of a second or foreign language learner to English resembles the upright positioning of a tight rounded mouth waiting to be filled by the drops of rain. The drops of rain represent non-contextualised ununified-content English learning and every drop falling outside the mouth is just another linguistic element gone to waste. The few raindrops that manage to find their way through inside the mouth lack the shape and density of thirst-quenching water. Most of our students who come to our schools are being exposed to a vast array of linguistic elements wastefully being poured down over their thirsty mouths. What is required is the funnelling of English. The funnelling of English will procure for the learner a greater number of linguistic elements that will increase the density of English learning. Linguistic Funnelling is the process of using a very well defined unit of content such a story as a funnel to facilitate the passage of a greater number of linguistic elements into the learner.
Reading and re-reading one book featuring the same storyline, characters, meanings, conflicts, objects, places and times, could be the most effective method of exposing and revealing both the basic and complex patterns of a certain language and thus facilitating the acquisition of its different components. For language to be acquired, exposure to that language needs to be provided, and for second language to be learned or acquired an artificial exposure to that language needs to be created and an ideal exposure is one that best contextualises the grammatical, lexical and morphological patterns of language making them an easy target for the human intelligence to identify and experience.
Since language lies at the heart of communication and the latter at the heart of meanings, language needs to be locked inside a “bubble” of precise meaningful events the revisiting of which is likely to disclose its secrets, expose its conventions and crack its codes. The relentless and repetitive attempt of the reader to interpret and construe the “drama” or association and interconnection of events will explain many of the linguistic phenomena in the process. The advantage that adult second language learners possess is their education or knowledge of the world which enables them to take an analytical approach in attempting to apprehend the interdependence of events being progressively unveiled to them after each reading. The “goings-on” of the book then, which can ideally be a novel, are to be employed as a funnel through which a certain item is being passed to the learner. The “goings-on” or the content of a language is also like a set of variables in an experiment that are to be controlled if reliability of results is hoped to be maintained.
Learning a second language needs to be dealt with as an experiment. Experimenting involves researching, documenting and reporting data so that future experiments can benefit from the body of knowledge built by others. Most inventions and breakthroughs came as a reward after several failed attempts to resolve a problem, explain a phenomenon or find a cure and regardless of whether those attempts were successful or not, they formed a stepping stone for inventors and innovators to solve their riddles. Without those attempts, the process of elimination wouldn’t have existed nor does the process of comparison, and thus this body of knowledge or unit of data represents a set of facts, positively or negatively tested and demonstrated, a reference that contains small units of knowledge according to which the newly found knowledge is assessed, compared, contrasted and analysed. I suspect that if the same approach has been taken by second language learners, the acquisition of second language will occur more rapidly than in the case of another approach. I will elaborate on this notion a little further below.
A scientist relies on a certain body of knowledge to carry out further researches. I also would like to emphasise that it is A body of knowledge, which means that it never ever changes, it will perhaps grows wider but the existing content is ever stable. It is this stability of content that allows for increasingly revealing observations of the smallest details and most complex phenomena constituting a certain field. Language is one of those fields. However, the body of knowledge in experimenting learning a second language should not be that of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation or psycho, socio or any other linguistic sub-discipline. This body of knowledge should be one meaningful unit of ever changing events, characters, storyline and context. More explicitly said, this body of knowledge must be represented in one book such as a novel with one beginning, one ending and one series of events and utterances produced by one group of characters and personalities. The unity, stability and coherence of content caused by very well defined contextualised parameters will assist learners to conduct their own linguistic experiments and thus experience an accelerated process of pyramid construction of linguistic knowledge. Reading the same book repeatedly will deliver small chunks of structural knowledge that will gradually and increasingly grow bigger due to the learners’ progressively maturing experience of certain contextualised events unified by time sequence, social purpose, and motivational profiles of participants, characters or personalities. Once placed in one context, one set of events, one meaningful unit of clearly defined parameters, learners will begin to analyse the language as part of an exploratory journey of meanings and written utterances stemming from a need to make sense of a world they have increasingly become more familiar with. The communicative teaching method promotes contextualised learning and does focus on content and meanings but what it does not do is provide that stability and unity of content that is crucial for experimenting the language. To learn a second language, learners need to experiment and experiments need a body of knowledge, one that is made of meanings and content not rules. Furthermore, this content is defined and unified by a well organised and structured set of events that provide the learners with the same experiential, interpersonal and textual messages. Learners revisit this content and develop their experience building upon their previous ones. This is how second language can effectively and rapidly be learned.
3-EPSR'S METHODOLOGY
EPSR's methodology has recently given birth to the PRON method (Pronunciation, Repetition, Oral correction and Neural Networks), which is currently exclusively owned and taught by Ability English in its Pronunciation & Fluency Courses. The Methodology, in its teaching, chooses to place a strong emphasis on the two basic forms of language: WORD & SOUND. It fundamentally teaches learners the sound of a word, the tone, intonation, pitch and rhythm of a sentence as well as their meanings if required. The repetition of a certain set of dialogues consisting of meaningful interactions between two or more specific characters unified by a common and unified purpose while concentrating on the utilisation and delicate role of mouth organs, tone, intonation, pitch, rhythm and voice in altering an intended message will also assist learners in the acquisition of syntax. This basically resembles the manner in which babies acquire the language. Children uses the present perfect without learning the grammatical rules behind using the present perfect but they intuitively employ it appropriately. The advantage of newborns and infants over second language learners is that their acquisition of language knows no interference from any other linguistic entity. Another advantage for infants, of course, is the elasticity and flexbility of the brain muscular functionaltiies that deteriorate as learners age. However, the diligent, deliberate and well targeted practise and guidance of an ESL teacher could produce outstanding results in second language acquisition. Emphasis on the phonetic, phonologic and semantic aspect of a language as well as on their interrelatedness could help second language learners rapidly acquire the syntax of the language. The psychodynamics of a certain dialogue or any social interaction and its connection with phonology need to be stressed when teaching a second language. The limitations of such methodolgy may lie in the different proficiency levels of a learner, nevertheless, dialogues could be tailored and designed to suit the learner's ability and profiency level.
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