classic error

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ESL forum > Message board > classic error

classic error

_babz

dear spagman63..

there is no such thing as a �real � language. English has evolved so much....and there are various dialects and accents all over the world - doesn �t make those speakers any less superior than those in England.....

...as for the comments alien boy just made.....I think his space suit and helmet are a little too tight on him....his lack of oxygen might have caused him to use an expression like "gobbledygook...wot"....I �m sure that �s "real English" from where he comes from.

________

and to sophiegirl67:

he obviously understood I was from Quebec (French-Canada)...and of course, if you �re teaching ESL here, you �re obviously teaching in the French system, therefore, French speaking students.

ciao

18 Nov 2009

libertybelle

My students often say- I didn �t saw him yesterday.
Sort of the same kind of mistake.

18 Nov 2009

alien boy

Just so you get a feel for what my opinion of "real" English is, you can check the following sites... (& I �ll quote from an old post I made here - which also includes these links)

I read many discussions here about the �right� way to pronounce words (and numbers) in English. Maybe it�s because of a little linguistics study but I feel that there are many ways to pronounce English correctly - it all depends on where you�re from & who you learned English from.

Here are some really good sites with sound files that can be listened to or downloaded if you want some examples for yourself or your students!

http://eleaston.com/pr/home.html �Eva Easton�s Authentic American Pronunciation�

http://www.talkbank.org/ �Talkbank �

http://dare.wisc.edu/?q=node/44 �Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE)� - this link takes you to the story of �Arthur the Rat�, a downloadable sound file & a transcript (on the page) of a story read by 10 different Americans. I used this with my Junior High School students to share some accent variations with them!

http://www.alt-usage-english.org/audio_archive.shtml �English Speakers Around the World� - a collection of some great audio files. It includes �Arthur the Rat� by more than just Americans.

http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.html �Sounds Familiar? Accents and Dialects of the UK� - a wonderful collection from the British Library and very user friendly! This is another site I introduced to my students.

http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/johnm/eptotd/tiphome.htm �English Pronunciation Tip of the Day� - a useful site with a lot of tips in the archive.

http://www.convictcreations.com/culture/strine.htm �Strine� (my dialect) - an interesting site about Australia. It has some great info on cultural differences too! Explore the site if you�re interested in Australia. One word of warning though - the authors make a lot of generalisations, so always look for a second opinion (i.e. don�t use this as your only source of information!) if you�re going to study Australia in your class!

http://www.world-english.org/accent.htm �World English� - just click a flag to hear a sample. There are also a lot of other interesting links here too!

So please, babz, if you �re going to make flippant observations & comments, you should expect the same level of response without taking it so seriously. But then again , did you actually mean your comments to be taken as an inalienable truth???

Regards,

P.S. gobbledygook

1944, Amer.Eng., first used by U.S. Rep. Maury Maverick, D.-Texas, (1895-1954), a grandson of the original maverick (q.v.) and chairman of U.S. Smaller War Plants Corporation during World War II. First used in a memo dated March 30, 1944, banning "gobbledygook language" and mock-threateaning, "anyone using the words activation or implementation will be shot." Maverick said he made up the word in imitation of turkey noise. 

wot: "to know" (archaic), from O.E. wat, first and third person singular present indicative of witan "to know," from P.Gmc. *wait (see wit (v.)).

18 Nov 2009

alien boy

Okay babz, here �s a little more in the way of help rather than just the obvious...

of/ �ve is obvious, so I won �t mention more about that.

Have you looked at the word relationships & tense structures?

Went is the past tense of what?
What tense is the correct expression in?
Are there any underlying L1 influences on the students� T1 language application?

Now, I won�t spoon feed the answers to you... after all I don�t know anything... & you are obviously far more knowledgeable than I am about teaching & English in general... so what result do you come up with (other than the fact that whoever taught the tenses obviously didn�t do it particularly effectively, for whatever reasons)? It certainly isn�t a case of bad spelling (unless you�ve corrected it before posting your comment) but a case of incorrect application of tense... and therefore a teaching issue!

In Japan this happens somewhat because of the different tense structure. Japanese also doesn�t use plurals in the same way as English, so �s� is often dropped off the end of plurals. Group nouns are also very difficult for many students to acquire because of paradigm shift that is involved.

18 Nov 2009

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