A Language Lesson from Love, Actually

I saw the movie Love, Actually in a theater when I was in college. Set mainly in London during Christmas after 9/11, the movie contains a series of intersecting love stories. One particular story line always succeeds in making me emotional, that of Jamie and Aurelia, an English man (played by Colin Firth) and a Portuguese woman (played by Lúcia Moniz) who fall in love despite not knowing one another’s language. Ultimately, Jamie learns as much Portuguese as he can so that he can propose to Aurelia. His words are translated into English as captions on the screen:

“Beautiful Aurelia, I’ve come here with a view to asking you to marriage me. I know I seems an insane person because I hardly knows you but sometimes things are so transparency, they don’t need evidential proof. And I will inhabit here, or you can inhabit with me in England. Of course I don’t expecting you to be as foolish as me, and of course I prediction you say ‘no,’ but it’s Christmas and I just wanted to check.”

By the end of Jamie’s proposal, I have tears in my eyes. Although he uses incorrect subject-verb agreement, redundant language, and awkward word choice, his meaning still shines through. (Spoiler alert: Aurelia says yes…in English.)

When we provide feedback on student writing, the temptation sometimes is to focus on any incorrect grammar and mechanics. Meaning, though, is paramount, and students deserve to know if their writing achieves its purpose in spite of a comma splice or a misplaced modifier. Moreover, in the introduction to the 2021 Oklahoma Academic Standards for English Language Arts, one of the purpose statements says that our ELA students “must … be given the opportunity to speak with the voices they choose for themselves in the writing they create.” This stance has a number of classroom implications:

• We can give choice to our students in the topics they choose for their various writing assignments.
• We can encourage students to create drafts of writing in which they use any word or phrase that comes to mind.
• We can give permission to our English learners to use their native language in their personal narratives.
• We can give permission to all our students to mine their teenage vernacular to add surprising word choice to their writing.
• We can focus on providing feedback on the meaning of the writing that our students create.