The Need to Build Ability, Not Just Skill

In addition to being a teacher, I’m also a tennis coach. I find that there are similarities between learning English as a second language and learning tennis. Both are skills to develop, and it is the teacher’s/coach’s job to develop the learners’ skills but also their capacity (ability) to execute the skills effectively. What do I mean by learners’ capacity? Language ability and tennis ability are muscles that need to be honed and developed. I will give a few stories to illustrate how ability is different than skill and why it is important to build that ability base, especially early in the developmental journey.

At the start of one of my tennis lessons, the mother of the 9-year-old girl I was coaching spotted some high school boys playing a competitive tennis match. The mother told me that she wanted her daughter to play like those boys. I agreed with her that it would be nice for her daughter to play like that. I didn’t say this, but it would also be nice if she could play like the #1 tennis player in the world and win major tennis tournaments. Of course, we know the actual level of this girl, and it is my job to provide lessons and activities that will develop her at where she is at currently. Her current position was at the beginner level where building hand-eye-coordination would give her the greatest gains, even more than learning a certain tennis technique. I still worked on technique some with the girl, but I recognized that building her base of hand-eye-coordination was crucial.

Many times people (parents of players and players themselves) think that they just need to master the technique. They think that it’s just a cognitive problem. They think “I just don’t know the right technique. Once I learn the correct technique, then I will be great and that’s all there is.” That’s mistaken thinking. Technique is built on ability that has been formed over a consistent period of time. It starts right from birth when a baby starts moving its hands, becoming aware of them, and manipulating items with the hands. This ability is continually developed and even the greats who have reached extraordinary heights in their sport and hand-eye-coordination, like Roger Federer, continue to develop and hone that ability. For example, here is a video of Roger Federer developing a variety of ability areas upon which his technique sits:

Here is another story on the language learning side. I started learning Russian in Saint Petersburg, Russia with different people from around the world. There was one girl from England who just caught on very quickly, and she acquired the Russian language much faster than the rest of us in the group. Is it any wonder that she also spoke more languages than the rest of us? It’s also not surprising that I had the most difficulty with the listening component since learning a foreign language and hearing foreign sounds was the most foreign to me out of all the students. The other students were from Europe, and they had all learned at least English to fluency. I, on the other hand, just knew English. I had some Spanish and German classes in the past, but my past American language learning was laughable compared to these European students’ language skills. I had to listen to a lot of comprehensible Russian in order to get more comfortable with hearing and understanding the Russian language. The point of this story is that learning a language is just like building a muscle and building hand-eye-coordination. It’s something that is worked consistently over time like water slowly forming a rock by washing over it.

This might be depressing for some because they or their students got a late start, but the best time to start is now. We cannot let comparing ourselves to others demoralize us and stop us from achieving our goals. We must recognize our current ability and then work to build our capacity at the point at which we are located. Understanding this point can actually help to prevent frustration with our lack of progress. Think about it - a person pours a lot of time and money into learning proper tennis technique but is still not playing at a high level. It takes more than learning proper technique. And the SIFE EL may not be passing Advanced Placement (AP) exams. I think it’s great to shoot high, but there is a reason why there is testing and competence levels. It helps us to know our current level and what activities and improvements are needed to move the needle and take us, including our abilities, to the next level. It is a life-long, consistent process.