I’m reading “Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry”.  Queenie was still waiting for Harold. Thank God. Because of that, Harold decided to go on, and he decided to do it his own way. I’m glad to read that. It’s just too hard to insist on something when the whole world seems to be against it. In fact, Harold reminds me of another old man, and what happened to him today.

I’ve joined in several English learning wechat groups and this old gentleman came from one of them. It’s a large group of about 130 students. You can imagine how hard it can be to maintain it in certain rules and meanwhile to keep it as active as possible. And this gentleman stood forward and voluntarily helped to organize this group. He called himself Vice-monitor. From his conversation we knew that he always retired from work. His English is surprisingly good, if it has not reached at professional level, at least better than most of us. In the following days, we all know how serious he meant it when he said that he wanted to help. From day break to midnight, he has almost spent all of his time in this group. He seems to be on line all the time, reminding those who forgot to do homework, adding comments here and there on our speaking. Why does he take so much troubles in this learning group? No one is going to pay him for that. Perhaps he is bored, or perhaps he just like the feelings of being useful, whatever the story behind this, I think he deserves—at least—some respects for his efforts. I wonder if he was once a teacher, he sounds like one. Sometimes if he thought I didn’t speak right, he would ask me to do it again. I might hold reservations about some of his comments, but every time I happily do as what he said. What’s the shame of following the order from an old man, who keeps learning after retirement, and who likes to give comments and suggestions to the others? As far as I think, that’s the spirit we should encourage and learn. However not everyone felt the same way. Another young student doesn’t like his way of doing. He dropped lines to question his qualification, hint that he was too intruding. And today, when he was trying to hand in his homework, he was interrupted by that old man’s comments on another student’s speaking, he exploded. “Blar, blar, blar, who do you think you are? “ “If you are so good, why not apply to be the monitor. If you are not, then stop acting like one.” “Just speak less, old man!” One by one, his words dropped like heavy stones, throwing to the old man.

I was shocked. I really didn’t understand what all these angers for? Is it really so hard for him to just say:” Hi, guys, it’s my turn. Would you please stop for just a few minutes?”

I’ve joined several English learning groups. Some of them are very quiet. No one shares, no one drops any messages. When the monitors calls for homework, few answered. Is this the right way of learning a foreign language? As far as I concern, you need someone active in a group to make it work. We should be lucky to have Mr. Vice-Monitor here to inspire the others. If you think a group too active, turn on Mute Notification button. If you don’t like your speaking being commented, just ignore it. If you don’t want the others suggestion, then at least learn to respect their efforts. There’s many better ways to deal with it, why choose the one that hurt the most? English is the tool of communication, and the No.1 rule for communication should always be respect.