Job Discussion Forums

[Kalima Shahada]

[Sashadroogie]

I have no doubt that what you say is true of the students you have taught. But I also have prepared students, mixed nationalities, monolingual groups for various tests and exams, and invariably I have found that students get pretty much the same mark as you'd expect no matter which of the well-established tests or exam they take. Give IELTS or TOEIC, low-level learners get low marks, higher-level learners get higher, funnily enough. This is true in any of the contexts I have worked - even when preparing students for TOEIC outside of the US, and when all there other tutors were also non-Americans. Vice-versa, plenty of American teachers successfully prepare students for PET, FCE or CAE etc.

True, exposure to as many varieties of English is important. But just knowing lift/elevator lexical items is not going to make a more appreciable difference to marks than students gaining proper exams skills or listening skills from lessons that truly prepare them for testing. Which may be equally why your students benefited from your lessons, and not from their previous teachers.

Overstating the differences between the very mutually-comprehensible varieties of English is missing the mark. Even using a loaded term like 'dialect' is something to be avoided, I find.

It doesn't matter nearly as much as some think.

[johnslat]

Dear Saschadroogie,

"Overstating the differences between the very mutually-comprehensible varieties of English is missing the mark."

Well, except for these dolts:

"Many American colleagues seemed quite baffled by terms like 'to have a row', 'to give someone a ring'. Which is understandable, I suppose, when first encountering them. But is it so hard to hear a term 'take-away' in a fast-food context and then to make the mental leap to 'take-out'?"

Regards,
John

[Sashadroogie]

You said it not me, but it is...true true! But the students, the ones taking the tests, seem to manage ever so much better.

[steki47]

[bluecatbabe]

I have encountered just a few published materials which are wholly US-centric, apparently unaware that there are any users of Englishes elsewhere.

They have fallen into two categories:

- Proprietory school materials (if it's Tuesday all students in level B3 at this school anywhere in the world will be on page 4.

Sample sentence for the word "statesman" - "George Bush is a statesman".

- Subject-based text books aimed at non-native speakers in Further or Higher Education (Management Skills for International Business Students, Osteopathy for International Medical Sudents, etc...)

Sample sentence "The pelvic bone cradles the hip joint in much the same way as the catcher's glove cradles the baseball."

Both examples genuine and recently encountered.