There's a secret to learning English - and it isn't grammar

With due respect, I believe that some Thai teachers have led the study of English astray through an overemphasis on grammar. Though they might beat many Britons in a test of English grammatical rules, these teachers are often poor at actually communicating in English. Meanwhile Thai students who attend schools in England are usually surprised to learn that grammar is of secondary importance in the teaching of English communication. The emphasis there is placed on reading, reading and more reading, rather than on learning grammatical rules. Changing the framework of teaching English in Thai schools in this direction is the first contribution that willing native-English-speaking retirees in Thailand could make.

As American writer Joan Didion said, “Grammar is a piano I play by ear.” 

Songdej Praditsmanont

 

The Vatican’s dirty 

World War II secret

 

Re: “Open the Vatican’s Holocaust-era files,” Opinion & Analysis, September 22.

There is surely no great mystery about why Pope Francis won’t open the Catholic Church’s World War II archives. The then-pontiff, Pius XII, was not an anti-Semite, but he knew very well that many in the Vatican hierarchy were. After the war, these officials helped Nazi war criminals escape to South America through well-established “rat lines”. Pius also fretted that making too big a fuss about “the final solution” would jeopardise the fate of Catholics in Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe.

Papal apologists have argued there was a real threat that the Vatican might be invaded by the German occupiers in 1943 and the pontiff kidnapped if he stepped out of line. The evidence for this plot comes mostly from the unreliable memoirs of German generals, including Karl Wolff, head of the SS in Italy. It is likely that the Vatican invasion thesis was, in reality, Allied propaganda.

Many wartime files are still unopened. The British files on Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, are closed until 2045. Obviously, there is much more to Hess’ amazing flight to the UK in 1941 than we have been led to believe. I’m sorry I won’t be around to find out.

Barry Kenyon