The use of language involves many cognitive processes; it follows, therefore, that mental health may have a profound impact on the way one learns language, the way one processes language and the way one produces language. I believe this to be true on an individual level, as well as on the collective level of the community. For example, a depressed person may give clues about their depression by their language choices, or by their unwillingness to use language. A society that has widespread mental health issues may manifest widespread use of violent imagery, disrespectful terms, and abusive language.

[What follows is a revision of a part of a note I wrote to Alex Silverman in response to his comments on one of my papers for him.]

There are many examples I can give of the mental health of my students manifesting itself in their linguistic behavior in the classroom. Situations where I felt it important to respond (or not to respond) with conscious awareness. In the three examples below, names and details have been altered in non-substantive ways to protect the anonymity of the students described.

1. Yoshi was a very hardworking 17-year-old Japanese student whose English was terrible, despite lots of study. Every time he spoke English it was with tremendous effort, hesitation and obvious discomfort. He asked for, and received, extra tutorial assistance from one of his teachers, but nothing seemed to help. If anything, his English became more self-conscious and more uncomfortable to listen to. He seemed to get more and more withdrawn, and I wondered if he was depressed. One day, hurt his knee, and had to spend a couple of weeks in a soft cast, using crutches to walk. It seemed like he had hit rock bottom: now, it wasn’t just English, everything seemed difficult for him.

One day, still walking with crutches, he had a class on the sixth floor, and the elevator was broken. A strapping young Korean classmate scooped Yoshi up and carried him up to class. I marveled at the Korean student’s attitude, and at the way in which a simple (though physically demanding) act of kindness seemed to undo, at least in that place and time, generations of cultural enmity.

I didn’t run into Yoshi for a few weeks after that. When I did finally have him in one of my classes again, he was completely transformed. not only was his English much better (he still made many mistakes, but he was clearly thinking in English), his whole persona was different. He was confident, he was joking with his classmates, he had found his place in the world.

I don’t know if there is any relationship between Yoshi’s transformation and the incident with the Korean classmate that I witness, but I do think that more generally the experience of hitting rock bottom and rebounding was both an important part of his personal emotional growth, and of his language learning.

2. Lisette was a 25-year-old Belgian student who was completely fluent in English, so proficient, in fact, that I wondered, initially, why she had bothered to enroll in an English class. She told me that her teachers in Belgium had recommended it, which I found puzzling. And then I started to notice an odd quality to her conversation: simply put, it didn’t make sense. It was shortly after I had got my CELTA certificate, and I remembered thinking to myself: aha, now I know the difference between coherence and cohesiveness. Lisette’s English was cohesive, but incoherent. I could not relate her answers to my questions. Politely, I told her I could not understand what she was saying or how her answers related to the conversation, and, to my surprise, she did not seem either shocked or perturbed by what I said. She nodded sagely and continued in the same vein. She was talkative, but not disruptive to the class. I reported her behavior, and my concern about her wellbeing, to my supervisors, who responded by switching her to another class, and ignoring the issue.
3. Björn, a German student of multi-ethnic background, was a challenging student for me. On some days, he could barely keep his eyes open in class, while on other days, he couldn’t stop talking, to the point where other students had difficulty participating. When he was asked to modify his behavior, he would say “okay, okay” dismissively, and then continue as before. On a couple of occasions, he spoke about disturbingly personal matters in class, that, for me, were entirely inappropriate.

On one day, however, his behavior went far beyond anything I had observed up to that point. We were playing a trivia game. Games are not my thing – but my students were asking for a change and I organized a trivia game. I am very much against competitive activities, but, acceding to student request, I awarded points to teams for correct answers.

As soon as the team Björn was not on scored a point, Björn went ballistic. He started yelling at his opponents, yelling at me, accusing them of cheating, demanding that I take away the point they had been awarded, etc. It became instantly clear that Björn could not behave appropriately in such a context, and I apologized to the class and ended the game abruptly. Later I reported Björn’s behavior to the school administration, who had received many complaints about him, and to whom he had complained many times as well.

Shortly after that incident, Björn left the US to work in Slovakia. I was relieved. I have often wondered if he was bipolar. And I have wondered what my responsibilities are (1) to such a student and (2) to the classmates of such a student.

In any case, I saw Björn’s mental state mirrored in his use of language: he was by turns lethargic and unable to speak, and capable of tirades delivered with machine-gun rapidity.  He disliked having grammatical errors pointed out intensely. His lack of boundaries was reflected in his inappropriate choice of register, and subject matter in conversation. I am trying, in writing these notes, to learn something from the experience of working with this student, but I’m not sure I have succeeded.

These are three examples of many I could write about; the second and third seem like pretty serious mental health issues to me, the first does not. I think in most cases, the impact of mental health on a students’ language is a small issue, relating to confidence, or self-image, or how one chooses to interact with others. But mental health is always there, and always relevant. It might not be a bad idea for English teachers (all teachers, in fact, but that is a different discussion) to have some training in recognizing mental health issues through language-related behavior.