How I think I learned English

There was a time, while growing up that I wouldn’t go to church because I wanted to watch TV; there was a time, in those days, that I listened more to/for what they had to say on TV than… And while acknowledging the contributions of my teachers and classmates in primary school to my ability to speak English, TV really made a difference. It was language learning by immersion; It provided all the examples we needed to build sufficient intuition for English, and without stressing the technicalities of the language. The child was immersed in TV.

Now, I may not recall most of the technicalities, but I speak like I know enough of them. Truly, and regardless or language, the explicit knowledge of the rules of sentence construction, grammar, meaning … is irrelevant to fluency.

What we had on television, then, was innocuous compared to today’s childrens’ and teens’ programming; even perhaps more helpful intellectually. This reminds one of the evolution of the swim suit and bikini.

So, sated with cartoons, series TV, and some network news, we grew.

These were some of my TV teachers (the regulars, not exhaustive, perhaps incorrect/misspelled titles):
Sesame street, Captain cave man, jumbo, jabberjaw, Scobby and scappy doo, Some mothers do have them, Knight rider, Inspector gadget, Dempsey and Makepeace, the love boat, Matlock, CI5, Jacko, The avengers, The new avengers, Jake and the Fat Man, Moonlighting, Jemima Shaw investigates, Tom and Jerry, Ovide and the gang, Superted, The ‘A’ team, Another life, Samurai X, Voltron, Thundersub, G-force, Speed the racer, Danger mouse, Atom ant, Allo allo, The wonder years, Hanna Barbera cartoons, The Adventures of tom sawyer, famous five, little women, Domby and son, The adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, Muppet babies, fraggle rock, ghost busters, family matters, the cosby show, the Jeffersons, a different world, the fresh prince of Bel-air, Roger Ramjet, Different strokes, Fawlty towers, Chips, The Amazing Spiderman, Dukes of hazard….

Tales by moonlight, Cock crow at dawn, Behind the clouds, The new masquerade, Basi and company, Jagua, Ojo Ladipo theatre group’s Aluwe, The NTA news (of the time), Checkmate, Samanja ….