Job Discussion Forums

[enigma]

[Mark-O]

Hi Shmooj,

I'm afraid to say that I don't know how my speech will alter due to teaching English as I have not started my TEFL career yet! I'm still trying to gain the credentials back home so I can start off properly and never have to come back to this hole again!

This is just a question I have been pondering lately - wondering how/if my speech would vary from what it's like now. Currently, I have a neutral english accent (I'm a 'soft southerner' as they say in the UK), but I was wondering whether there would be any danger of turning into a monotone TEFL robot - an english version of Stephen Hawkings voice synthesizer!

I anticipate my speed of speech to slow and to start pronouncing my t's more emphatically (many Brits have a tendency to relax the t, especially towards the ends of words). The main thing I will be really conscious of is talking to other ex-pats in the same manner - I could come across as really patronising ... either that or Hugh Grant! I'd prefer 'patronising' in that case.

[Gordon]

Mark-O,
Don't worry about sounding like Stephen Hawking.
Most ex-pats will understand and will at times sound like a record playing at a slower speed too.

[FGT]

How about increased use of gesture/body language when conversing with other native speakers?
Overheard/seen in the teachers' room today:
Colleague 1 (Scottish) to colleague 2 (American) : "There's a man working upstairs today." Accompanied by hand wafting in the air to imitate someone using a paint brush! I know this is something I do to excess too.

As far as speaking is concerned; I speak very clearly, and some say more slowly than normal, and I wondered if this had changed over the years (11) that I've been in TEFL so asked my brother his opinion when on a visit to the UK in the summer. Apparently it's my normal way of speech and he assured me I still sound like a native speaker. For this relief much thanks!

[Snoopy]

I was brought up to speak clearly articulated English and it makes no difference whether I am talking to the class, colleagues at work or a taxi driver back in the UK. Or even to my aged mother on the phone. If I am speaking French or Spanish, it happens at double or triple speed!

[Capergirl]

[Lynn]

[dduck]

I don't think my language has changed much because of TEFL. As a Scot who's lived in England for 8 years, I already had to modify my language to talk to 'foreigners'. I also spent 3 non-tefl years in non-English speaking countries, so my speach was often simplified and slower. However, talking to foreigners with very little English was something new, so I've learned to speak even slower than before.

When I returned to Scotland I was shocked and horrified that some Scots, in my home town, thought I was English because I didn't use any of the local dialect (after about 6 months back in Scotland I started using the odd word again) and my accent is non-standard. English people wouldn't imagine for a second that I was English, and some Americans comment on my rolling R's, saying that I'm sometimes incomprehensible. My students don't have this problem, bizarrely enough!

Iain

[dmb]

Which alters your speech more. Teaching elementary or drinking too much beer?

[MELEE]

[jud]

I've gotten so used to telling the time using "past" and "to" that it's become instinct.

In the States we don't use this as much, so I get some pauses or strange reactions at times.

When I lived in Germany with my ex we spoke English at home, so I took on his accent. People in New York used to ask me where I was from. But now I speak Italian in my personal life and I've gotten my mid-Atlantic states English back.

I do occasionally say strange Italish things, though. Like "touristic" and "let's do a control."

[Sherri]

A little rant here...
I really hate the way some native English speakers in Japan, start to use Japanese words and expressions when they are speaking in English. For example they tack "ne" or "desu-yo" on the ends of sentences, or sprinkle their conversation with words like "genki" (being in a good mood). I have seen countless people answer the phone "moshi, moshi" when they can't even carry out a conversation in Japanese, why bother? Especially when the caller is likely to be an English speaker.

I suppose if you are with your good friends you can communicate any way you want, but I find it strange when people I hardly know do this. I especially dislike it when people do it in job interviews!
Rant over.

[Gordon]

Hey Sherri,
I like genki. It's a great word and is better to express how you are feeling or doing than a single English word.

[denise]

[shmooj]

Denise, don't feel guilty about this. Language is about communication. There are no rules about sticking within the boundaries of one or another accepted definition of a language. Where is the English for natsukashii, genki, yada, ittekimasu, guruguru etc etc... ??? They don't exist so my wife and I use them all the time in our English with each other and other English speakers here in Japan who know them.

We love it. We also still use a couple of Hindi words we picked up years ago in India and can remember.

Why not? We do this because we have found that these languages have a word for something that more accurately describes what we want to say than any simple words in English do. So long as they communicate, what is the problem Sherri is ranting about

Now, before anyone draws a knife on me I am talking about English speaker to English speaker communication in a foreign country. I am NOT talking about communication involving students learning English.

Mind you, it is pretty hard to help them when they ask me the English for words like guruguru though....