YouTube / iTunes / Spotify / Radio Public / Pocket Casts / Google Podcasts / Breaker / Overcast
Listen to ArtisanEnglish.jp posts & lesson intros here.
Idiom: Throw in the towel
As an English teacher, I have the opportunity to meet all kinds of people.
My job revolves around success, not big successes like landing ￥1,000,000 contracts, but little ones like placing an article in the right location in a sentence.
Life, in general, is built on small achievements.
Unfortunately, not all people mind you, but some choose to throw in the towel too early.
To throw in the towel means to give up or quit.
You admit defeat and abandon whatever it is you are attempting to accomplish.
They admit defeat and abandon whatever it is they are attempting to accomplish.
Mostly it’s due to a lack of confidence.
I worked in a high school where most of the kids had thrown in the towel a long time before they ever arrived at high school.
I noticed that there were three words to describe their attitude toward English language learning.
These words were used for any subject but mostly English.
They were, in Japanese: しかたない, 関係ない、いいらないえ.
The attitude was I’m Japanese, I can’t understand English; It can’t be helped.
I’m Japanese. I speak Japanese; English has no connection to me.
I’m Japanese, I live in Japan; I don’t need English.
They had thrown in the towel and given up on ever learning English with one exception.
They enjoyed swearing at me in English.
The problem was their pronunciation was terrible, and they didn’t do it correctly.
I remember one time a rough-looking guy, who had earlier been caught sniffing gasoline in a plastic bag, yelled, ‘Kiss my penis!’ at me during class.
The intention to offend me was there, but he failed in the delivery. Ha, ha, ha.
Now, I only have determined, dedicated and diligent students.
I don’t miss the days of teaching in high school, but I do regret that I didn’t do more to stop those kids from throwing in the towel.
I wonder what form of success they found.
Like or follow ArtisanEnglish.jp on social media.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 74.
The higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100, the easier the passage is to read.