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dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

Do your students ever ask you questions about your home country that you do not know the answer to because you haven't lived there in ages? Things change back home-don't they?
I ask this question because my student asked me about the role of the Scottish parliament and Westminster.(The scottish parliament is fairly recent- well recent as in it happened after I left Scotland) I honestly don't know the answer. I know more about Turkish politics than Scottish politics.

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Hasn't happened exactly like that to me yet, though I'm sure one day a student in Mexico will be the one to inform me of the new nation of Quebec.

Some little things caught me by surprise such as the redesign of Canadian money. I hadn't known about it until the bank handed me some odd looking notes as I was changing in pesos for a return trip. I thought they were giving me Aussie dollars!

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

My students (and sometimes friends too) catch me on current American music and film questions. I've been away eight years, and I admit that I tend to avoid keeping up with what's going on culturally. Can't claim to be the North American cultural and entertainment guru anymore, but that's ok with me.

basiltherat · Joined: 04 Oct 2003 Posts: 952

Asked by a traineee recently: "Who are the top singers/musicians in the UK ?" Not a clue. So I lied by telling them.... the Dave Clark Five.
Lord, forgive me.
regards
basil Smile

Justin Trullinger · Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2005 5:06 pm Post subject:

For this, teenagers are the worst. Teenagers here are well informed on US pop culture, and are always asking me about singers, actors, and slang. I often don't know. Examples over the past few years-

Jennifer Lopez (who has she married, what does she wear, is she a good actress...how the hell do I know?) They call her Jello, or some approximation of this, which I really thought was a childrens dessert.

Eminem. (I thought it was a chocolate candy.)

Friends (I can't even tell the characters apart)

George Bush (People ask me what Americans think of him. I admit to being confused about this.)

Related, and amusing, questions are when they ask me what I do in my home country. (Nothing, really, as I haven't lived there since I was 24)

Or where I live in my home country. (Strangely, I don't live in my "home" country, as I would think that people who see me every day in Quito would notice.)

And an all time favourite: "What is the weather like in the US?" (Think, BIG country. Many different climates.)

But most of the places I've taught have a stronger sense of national, and even local, identity, than I do. People can't get the fact they I know less about day to day life the US than I do about a lot of things, because they feel a stronger attachment to their distant roots than I do.

I have a student who told me he isn't Ecuadorian, he's Colombian. Fine with me, but as I detected no trace of Colombian accent, and many very Ecuadorian regionalisms, I asked him when he came here. He didn't. His grandparents did. Frankly, if we go back that far, I'm German, rather than from the US.

Regards,
Justin

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

I don't worry about not knowing who is the most popular singer, what celebrity is married to whom, or what the most popular books/movies are even if I were to live back there. And, I would TELL people that if asked. I am far older than my teenage students here and they have to realize that I'm not someone who can tell them about fashionable things for people their age.

I can get news about Bush or other more serious matters online to keep up with current events. It won't be as perfect as what I'd get back home, but it's close enough.

What does concern me is not knowing the teen slang. I'm often asked to teach "regular conversation expressions" to kids here, but I don't know what the popular ones are. Of course, I'd have just as little clue back home, but it's a bit more relevant as a teacher than knowing the characters on the latest TV programs or who divorced whom. Fortunately, expressions are often just as much a passing fad as clothing, so I can get by with a few of the more common expressions that never seem to change.

denise · Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 3419 Location: finally home-ish

I get questions about weather, geography, food, culture, etc. When people ask, "What is America like? What are Americans like?", etc., I just tell them we`re all different. For me, there is no distinctive American culture--the cultural aspects that are familiar and homey to me are not "th norm," nor is the food, etc. Basically, I tell my students that the US has everything--climate, geography, food/people from all over the world, many different political and religious beliefs, etc. I don`t feel bad at all if they know more about US pop culture than I do.

d

darkside1 · Joined: 16 Feb 2005 Posts: 86 Location: Glasgow, Scotland

For anybody interested, here is an interactive website on the Scottish Parliament. I have to teach this stuff to kids and it can be dry, but it's not a bad website and the parliament itself is worth a visit if you are ever in Edinburgh. Don't hold your breath for a refund of the oil money though.

www.holyrood.tv

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

^ Now in the process of planning a lesson around the above link. Thanks darkside1.

expatben · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2005 7:45 pm Post subject:

I was never "hip" anyways so no big loss.

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

Deconstructor · Joined: 30 Dec 2003 Posts: 775 Location: Montreal