Job Discussion Forums

[Kurochan]

Once again, my students, even ones who have studied English for 20 years, are mixing up he and she all the time. Has anyone found an exercise that help students stop doing this?

[stillnosheep]

Have you tried sex? I understand that it is also very efficient as a calory burner.

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

My boss, who's English is excellent, does this occasionally as well. The reason is because there is no he/she in many Asian languages (Chinese being the prime example).

What to do?

Tell your female students to remember "hee hee hee" as if laughing at the guys. Tell your male students to remember "shhh!" as if telling the gals to be quiet.

Works for me...

[Roger]

That's a problem at the consioence level - where language is produced with input from the brain. If the brain is switched on the wrong thinking mode, nothing will help.

I usually repeat after the student, then point to a person of the sex that's been used erroneously in the sentence.
They usually see the comic side to their wrong English, and in the long run, that alone may help more than anything else.

[Yu]

My husband still does this all the time. He is calling my mom he, our son she, me he, my dad she, his sister he.... Whenever he does it I just repeat the wrong thing he said until he realizes what I am doing. Sometimes it takes him a minuite to figure out why the sudden repetition of she or he... so I am inclined to say they just don't think too much about it when they are talking.

He also used to mix up frog/fog, and he would sometimes say froggy for foggy. This was my favorite one.

[Antaraaaa]

"Have you tried sex? I understand that it is also very efficient as a calory burner."



STILL NO SHEEP THAT MADE ME SNORT COFFEE OUT MY NOSE!!!

TY

Ant.

[stillnosheep]

Thanx ant. It's nice to know that I'm appreciated. Hop on over to the Japan board now and again. They have lot's of fun there. There again being in Japan maybe they have more need of a good old-fashioned coffee-snortin' belly-laugh now and again.

[burnsie]

How about a 4x2 piece of wood kept handy in reach. After a couple of blows they will get the message.

[hesterprynne]

try he/she goose- a variation on the old duck/duck/goose game
also try meaningful looks and feigned incredulity- it increases their awareness and self-correction rate

[yaco]

This ' he/she ' issue baffles me !!!!!!!

When there is only 2 choices -

man = he/him
woman = she/her

How does you get wrong so often.

[MES]

Tell 'em if they meet an English speaker out in the real world and start mixing it up, the person may become confused and might even wonder if they are gay (which is fine if they are, but if not they'll be horrified - there are no gays in China right).

In class, put big, colorful pics of males and females on the walls. Whenever someone makes a mistake, point to a relevant pic so they can self-correct.

You can also place piles of king (male) and queen (female) playing cards within easy reach of your Ss. When they hear someone make a mistake, one St (the quickest) grabs a relevant card and gives it to the offending person. None of them will want to be the one with the most cards at the end of class. Or you could have the Ss ring a bell or buzzer or tap the table; whatever you think will work in your class.

I tried all the above as part of an action research project about 2yrs ago and it definitely improved the in-class situation. Outside, I can't say.

Cheers

[Ludwig]

http://www.specgram.com/Babel.I.1/03.slater.hakka.html

[migo]

[Roger]

This permanent confusion thing of my Chinese students baffles me too! To say in Chinese there is only one phonetic form though two different graphemes doesn't explain this to me at all.
When they speak English they must forget Chinese! They mustn't translate word by word all the time, fuyll stop.

[migo]

Well, it would just be a conceptual it/that thing. So since that's not appropriate in English they just have to guess.