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Techniques and methods in Language Teaching > Time for TENSE (Teaching English to Native Speakers of English)?
Time for TENSE (Teaching English to Native Speakers of English)?
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almaz
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Time for TENSE (Teaching English to Native Speakers of English)?
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To what extent should native speakers accommodate non-native speakers of English? Is there such a thing as "World English", and how far does it diverge from the "Standard Englishes"? Is it time to teach World English to native speakers? A thought-provoking article here from Spencer Hazel:
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11 Feb 2016
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EstherLee76
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You hit a homerun here! Thanks! |
11 Feb 2016
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spinney
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Thanks! I may adapt this for my business students. |
11 Feb 2016
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Manuhk
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Thank yo very much for that.
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11 Feb 2016
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Gi2gi
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The article is intended to make the non-native speakers who consider themselves to know descent English commit a suicide because of the newly-acquired inferiority complex :)  |
11 Feb 2016
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cunliffe
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I don �t really buy this. What it boils down to is that there are a number of new business-related phrases that people need to get their heads round. It pitched wildly from gross generalisations to anecdotes - not evidence. By the way, as my old language guru used to proclaim, �No-one ever masters English. � Thanks for sharing the link though; thought-provoking and interesting. |
11 Feb 2016
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spinney
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Kind of siding with both Gi2gi and Lynne on this although it is all about business talk at the end of the day. I teach at a few multinational companies and many of my Spanish students have no problem whatsoever speaking in English to Germans, Italians, Chinese, Arabs etc. but once the are in a meeting with Brits, Americans, the Irish, Aussies and the rest, they start to suffer. This hasn �t been helped by very technical business vocab which I can �t help correcting only to have students wave a document under my nose telling me it was written by a native. In fact, many people claim that street slang and argot has corrupted English (it enriches it!) but quite often, in my opinion, there is a lot more influence coming from the business comunity. A lot to chew over in this article. Very enjoyable. I may just have to develop some kind of debate activity. |
11 Feb 2016
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almaz
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It�s not just about certain words, phrases or specific constructions. I was discussing this with a friend who pointed me in the direction of a paper by Deborah Cameron (Professor of Language and Communication at Oxford University) where she commented on how there was a certain type of ethnocentrism (you might call it a newer form of linguistic imperialism) which involved "promoting particular interactional norms, genres and speech-styles across languages, on the grounds that they are maximally �effective� for the purposes of �communication� ". She then went on to say, by contrast, that she knows "of no case in which the communicative norms of a non-Western, or indeed, non-Anglophone society have been exported by expert consultants." Finns, for example do not run workshops for British businesses on the virtues of talking less, and Japanese people are not invited to instruct Americans in speaking indirectly. It�s not about mastery or otherwise of a language (whatever that means), but rather about the presupposition that one�s own cultural and linguistic norms are somehow superior.
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11 Feb 2016
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alien boy
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Thanks for sharing that Alex. I �ve been working on intercultural communication with some of my business & technology�clients�here in Japan. The essential perspective being that one culture isn �t superior to another, but that understanding meaning of communications (& thereby improving the effectiveness of�negotiating & communicating) is heavily influenced by how the recipient interprets those communications through their cultural filters.�
Edit: This is something that many native English speakers seem to forget about when they speak or write with non native speakers. We need to be much more culturally aware and sensitive in order to communicate effectively! |
11 Feb 2016
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almaz
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Yes, AB! Couldn�t agree more. Intercultural communication (verbal and non-verbal) is definitely one important area where we, as English language teachers, native and non-native alike, can make such a valuable contribution. The author actually links to a Danish research paper where this is discussed (you�ll probably recognise many of the authors cited). Incidentally, I don�t know where the idea came from that the article is simply about problems in explaining a few business-specific terms (in case anyone was wondering, "ballpark figure" isn�t a technical term in business, but an idiom, which may have originated in the US military). I�ve noticed in international meetings (business and education) that specialist content is much more easily handled than informal conversation.
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12 Feb 2016
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