Interview with Richard Lewis as he approaches his 95th birthday on 13th July.  Heading for a century, and not out!

 

 

Transcript

Interviewer:

When you founded Riversdown House over 50 years ago, what were you thinking? What were your goals at the time?

Richard Lewis

Well, I was teaching English in Japan at the time and it was not very satisfactory because Japanese people, believe it or not, when they’re in meetings, they’re very often interrupted by other Japanese people and lose their train of thought.  If you’re learning English and the query (it could be in Japanese for instance) – it spoils the whole thing.  You’re not able to concentrate on what you’re doing, which is why you should be learning English in an English atmosphere.

Interviewer:

And did that give you an idea to create this place?

Richard Lewis

Yes. I imagined a kind of place in England where everything around you would be English.  All the people would be English, and it wouldn’t detract from the English in of the whole thing. So it’s also what we call the concept of total immersion.  You’re completely immersed in not only the language but the atmosphere around you: the climate, the food, the natural sounds of your environment and so on.

Interviewer:

And it seems to be very successful.

Richard Lewis

Well, it was in my case because I was able to, I came across this haven of Englishness, Riversdown House, which is a building here in Hampshire, probably at one time belonging to the church.  It was extremely English in all its senses.

So it’s the ideal place to learn English. It looks English, it’s not too far from London. You can get here very easily. There’s everything about it -it’s picturesque. So you are learning English in the same atmosphere as an English child, which is the best way.

Interviewer:

You have trained thousands of people at Riversdown House. Do you ever think about the impacts that these ideas of immersive teaching have had across the world?

Richard Lewis

Well, it’s been beneficial if they wanted to speak and express themselves in English for some reason.  We have been able to teach it rather quickly because of the immersion aspect of the thing. You learn like an English child learns, you learn it at every turn and much faster than a grown up learning a foreign language.

 

Interviewer:

Fantastic. Out of all the famous people and the executives and the politicians who have studied English at Rivers down, who really stands out in your mind as an amazing student?

Richard Lewis

Well, you would be wrong if you said anything other than the Emperor of Japan and Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of Germany.  They’re obviously important people for the reasons I even explained here. So that’s the answer. But of course there are other important people as well.

Interviewer:

And I believe, having taught so many different nationalities, you developed an idea of cross-cultural understanding. Could you explain that for anyone who hasn’t heard of it?

Richard Lewis

Well, Cross Culture simply means different cultures. And when you are teaching someone, if you know their psychology, which is part of their personality, you are able to communicate with them more easily.

Interviewer:

And so if, for example, you had a Japanese person in a meeting with a German person, what might they need to be aware of?

Richard Lewis

Well, the different ways of looking at things, which in some ways are similar as seen by an English person, that would be rather formal in these particular cases. But they’re very different from the way Italians would talk to each other. So every culture is different. Well, I decided to classify cultures in three ways. Linear-active, multi-active, and reactive. You can guess the meaning of linear-active, it means someone who walks in a straight line, acts very directly. Multi-active is someone who talks much more and interrelates with lots of people; and reactive is someone who is required to react more than others, and probably imitates the people he or she’s talking to. Those three classifications are fairly clear and they’re quite different. And very much so. If the linear active people have been German or America, the multi-active person being Latin, probably Italian or Spanish or French. And then the reactive person being an Asian nation, Chinese, Japanese, but other Russian as well, like Kazakhs and even Turk.

Interviewer:

Do you think that if our politicians understood your cross-cultural training, it might have an impact on their decision-making and their communication?

Richard Lewis

Of course I do.

Interviewer:

And the world would be a better place

Richard Lewis

And the world would be a better place. Absolutely. A more understandable place.