Job Discussion Forums

[jud]

Here low level students will say "Good morning" until about 4 p.m. because in Italian there's Buon giorno and Buona sera, and it's acceptable to use Buon giorno in the early afternoon.

I had one student who constantly used "By the way" to mean "in any case." Drove me crazy.

We get a lot of "No_____, no party" here because of a Martini commercial with George Clooney (No martini, no party.)

[Lynn]

[shmooj]

Anyone get the Mr. [first name] thing wher they are?

Got an email last night from a student which began "Dear Mr John,"

I even had one Filipino member of staff a few years back addess me as "Mr John" until I could stand it no more...

[Lynn]

[dmb]

I am guilty of it! I hear it so often that I now use it. I tell my students 'you have to go and see Mr. Hammad' L2 learners influence on my L1? Crazy

[scot47]

"Mister" plus first name is almost universal in the Arab World. I am pleased to say that in our institution we insist on students saying Mister plus surname.

But they still say,"Teacherteacher !"

[jud]

I deal with clients on the phone in Italian and I am always Mrs. Giudi to them.

Note the spelling. It's not because Italians don't use Mr./Ms. Surname, but because when I give my real surname Italians become unsettled (it's Beylorussian, but not THAT difficult to say.)

I love it when they call me Prof, though. I know it's not correct for us but it's usually used affectionately, like, Hi Prof, want a coffee Prof, can we get lunch for the Prof, etc.

[Roger]

I think it should be part of our job to teach our foreign charges how to address people in the West. Here in China, they are awfully under-informed.
I don't want minors to call me by my first name. Familiarity breeds... you know what I mean. I do think there should be a decent distance between them and me. And so, I insist on the proper Mr plus surname.
Problem is Chinese get confused over what is what because they line up their own names in the exact reverse order. While we in the West ordinarily learn to identify an East Asian's surname, the Chinese don't seem to get to grips with our surnames. CHeck your residence permit - and see in which order your names have been transliterated!
And, why do Chinese students keep asking me, "Do you want us to write our English name or our Chinese name on the essay?"

[shenyanggerry]

Roger said

[shmooj]

[Lynn]

[shmooj]

Yep, FYI, both he and the Filipino were my colleagues. Yeah, I was thinking that Mr + first name to equals is strange anywhere in the native English speaking world. Sounds like the southern USA tallies with this then.

[arioch36]

I know every teacher has a right to be called what they want to be called in their classroom, but one of my pet peeves is when a foreign teacher has the students us his first name. My first name is Chris, short for Christopher. So the FAO writes down Mr. Christ. Unlike the spainish, I don't feel comfortable being called Jesus or Christ. But the FAO tells the class monitor, the class monitor tells his classmates, and so it begins. ]

My youngest students would call me teacher, which makes sense because they say in Chinese "Laoshi ...teacher" and not Mr. or Mrs. But i expect a little more from my college students

Another pet peeve...foreign (and Chinese) teachers teaching bad english on purpose . So one semester i was using a book by a Naomi Woronov, called "Get It, Got It". Overall not a terrible book, but it loves to teach bad english (gotta, etc.). The the book says to the students, "Don't actually say this" Too late! Now they all use the badder english. Sounds cool, man!

CCTV9 ... China's official TV station...always uses so on, for instance in talking about silk weaving; "There are many famous stitches such as the cross stitch, the inverted stitch, the double hitch stitch, the loop stitch, the under and over stitch, the half stitch, the wavery (?) stitch, AND SO ON" Save me!

" Their