Less is more

“Less is more” sounds like a cliché. But I still use it today.

In my previous post, I wrote about a way to generate more ideas when we fail to come up with anything to write/talk about. However, today, I’ve come back with some content on how we can simplify our thoughts in order to vocalize our minds better.

From my experience as a teacher of English, when it comes to speaking or writing, students are more likely to fall into the trap of being too sincere. I don’t mean to criticize their honest answers, as the fact is “honesty is the best policy”. Nonetheless, we should resort to alternatives if being honest is troublesome. And please don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling anyone to be a liar.

Below is a real-life experience in my teaching journey to exemplify what I mean.

In Vietnam, for the most part, high school students, especially those in public school, are too familiar with the terms “học khối A, B, C…”, which means they have a particular set of subjects to study for a slot at their dream university. For example, a “khối A” student must put much effort into math, physics, and chemistry to prepare for their university entrance exam. So the problem arises when they get asked: “What subjects do you study?”

Instead of having their instant reply, I’ve been requested to “translate” the “khối A, B,…” into English for them before they can answer my questions about studies. To put it simply, “Khối A, B…” can be “Block A, B…” literally – I mean, if I’m a lazy teacher. If so, there wouldn’t be this post.

I always advise my students to simplify their ideas to maintain fluency and other factors. Sometimes, the content or reality isn’t that significant in our speech, particularly when preparing for the IELTS test. The assessors might not fully understand our Vietnamese educational system, so the concepts of “Khối A, B,…” might be a myth to those foreigners. Besides, trying to clarify those alien terms to someone from a different cultural background traumatizes the students. Therefore, why should we waste time trying to explain by beating our brains to find their “translated version”?

My solution is simple: stick to “global knowledge”. If you google “global knowledge”, the results may not be what I define here. What I mean by “global knowledge” is everything understood globally. My answer to the question “What subjects do you study?” is “I’m a 12^th grader at … high school, and I have to learn 13 different subjects. However, my favorite subjects are…”.

That’s it. Believe me, as long as your listeners understand English and have some common sense, they’ll never fail to decode what you’re trying to convey.