[etni] [FWD: Re: Example Please!
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- Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 11:09:07 -0700
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From: "Esther Lucas" <lucas@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Example Please!
While reading the correspondence with interest, I was definitely put
off by
Lev's generlisations. But perhaps he was joking and I was taking him
seriously. You can't generalise about teachers any more than you can
generalize about students.
Many NS students are uncomfortable with NNS teachers. In life we have
to put
up with all sorts of situations. So may be our NS students who have NNS
teachers will overcome their discomfort as people very often do in
other
circumstances. I happen to believe that if one can employ NS teachers
to
teach NS or near NS students, all concerned will feel comfortable. We
can't
always have what we want.
Esther
Lev wrote:
> 1. the teacher in question ("pedaling to the metal") is definitely NOT
> an excellent English teacher - her command of English is lacking in at
> least two fields (namely, knowledge of idioms/slang and in the ability to
> correctly use newly acquired vocabulary).
> All things considered, the ideal teacher for a "NS" class would be a NS
> teacher with a perfect command of Hebrew and solid didactic training.
> Look around, and you'll find that there are many who fall into a different
> category: "a NS who happens to be teaching English," rather than "a
> professional teacher who happens to be a NS." But...
> 2. the so-called "NS" Israeli pupils' grammar is horrendous. You may of
> course disagree, but NNS teachers can teach grammar better than NS
> teachers:
> the latter "acquired" the language (often with fairly limited explicit
> grammar study), while the former learned it through systematic
> instruction (probably closer to adulthood, when their L1 grammar was
> sufficiently well-developed).
> 3. NS teachers have certain ostensible advantages: for example, they
> know not only the language but also the culture inherent in this language.
> I strongly doubt, though, that this aspect is so important for Israeli
> pupils.
> At home they will speak a code-switching variety of English littered
> with too many Hebrew words (which is understandable: English has not yet
> developed many notions required to express local realia); they watch
> Israeli cable, listen to Israeli radio and talk Hebrew most of the time; their
> values and cultural preferences are Israeli, not American nor British.
> As regards the rest of the Commonwealth, they can hardly tell Australia
> from Austria.
> 4. Another advantage of NS teachers as perceived by employers is their
> accent. May I tell you something: clarity of speech has nothing to do
> with accent. "Hebrish," offensive as it may sound to your ear, reflects
> spelling in a much better way than the speech of many NS teachers who often
> disregard the decoding difficulties experienced by many of their pupils. And
> besides, what career are you preparing your pupils for if accent is so
> important?
> Spies?!
> 5. Talking of accents: for 25% of speakers of English it is their L1
> (native tongue); another quarter (about 400M) speak it as L2; finally, about
> a
> half (800,000,000 people) speak English as a foreign language. So the ability
> to decode utterances of another NNS is probably more valuable than the
> ability to speak with a "native accent" (which one?). Read David Crystal for
> more on that.
> Finally (and don't take this personally): you have just made a spelling
> mistake: "definAtely" instead of "definitely" (typical "phonetic spelling").
> So what's the point in being a native speaker? We all make mistakes;
> no-one speaks or writes impeccably.
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