Job Discussion Forums

[MO39]

I have a two MAs - does that make me a two-time mistress?

[johnslat]

Dear MO39,

I would think that any mistress under the definition below was automatically a "two-timer."

"A mistress is a man's long term female sexual partner and companion who is not married to him, especially used when the man is married to another woman."
Regards,
John

[MO39]

It looks like I've never really been a "mistress" after all, unless certain men in my past life were not totally honest with me!

[johnslat]

Dear MO39,
And, as we all know, men, especially in "cases" (hey, I'm trying to maintain a tenuous thread to the spin-off from the original topic) involving romance can always be assumed to be "totally honest."
Regards,
John

[MO39]

And here, in the land of the charming Mexican macho male, that goes double!

[johnslat]

Dear MO39,
Or, I suppose you could say it goes "two times."
Regards,
John

You might try

bastardo de la doble-travesi'a

[MO39]

Now I've got to figure out how to say two-timing b****rd in Spanish!

[fat_chris]

[arioch36]

As always John, a master of research, with wit, and most miraculous of all ... common sense (something I saw little of in my time in grad school)

But back to the thread ahem!

Gaijin

Is that Japanese? I find it remarkable that many of your (students') common mistakes are the same as my students. I can theorize fairly well how their native language factors into these problems.
How to fix the mistakes. I can honestly say I believe, after my seven years, that the solution lies in their oral english practice (and to a lesser extent, lack of good novels to read).
grad school has been a while. Dancer, "mentation", some good pronciples in my Comunications BS and (unfinished) MA.
Oral english practice has a partner that will listen to your mistakes (hopefully). Writing makes it easier to use new words, but also, as most students never ask a classmate to proofread, mistakes are repeated forever and never noticed.
Good oral english makes responses automated. The proper response is repeated so often that "conscious" thought is not needed, which is the desired condition.
Bad oral english practice, where students are allowed to speak lazy english, creates an automated response that is wrong that is very very difficult to correct in writing english. I will mention such basic mistakes (he run/ he runsit, but not focus my time on these mistakes as it seems a waste of writing time.

[gaijinalways]

I was covering the same material with some other students orally today, but I would have to wait until we review it to see if that would help or not. Yes, been here in Japan going on 11 years this August, but still trying to get students not to 'yakudoku' is difficult.

[arioch36]

[Justin Trullinger]

[TheLongWayHome]

[gaijinalways]

[rusmeister]

A lot of stuff I'd like to comment on here when I get the time.

My little addition - you CAN teach grammar, even to native speakers. Your success or lack thereof really depends on how you go about it.

With non NS, what I do that works quite well is to teach them the rule for a given concept - and whether the context is family life or work or play makes no difference at all - and when they follow the general rule, I begin making the mistakes myself (I call it playing the "stupid" teacher). If they can't catch the mistake, then I didn't teach something right. I go back to square one and make sure I've covered the missing bases. For instance, with articles (ah, the bugbear of ESL teachers!) I cover the cases when they are not used, and then the general rules for when they are (rather than what most textbooks offer - mind-bogglingly long lists of rules that are impossible to memorize). When (with countables) they get that "a/an" means "one of many" and "the" means "the one that..." their success rate generally climbs over 80%. Then we start marching through the list of rules and scratch out the ones that are covered by the general principles, leaving a much smaller list of exceptions!