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aishaaish
Joined: 04 Apr 2004
Posts: 21
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 Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2004 9:25 pm Post subject: native speaker |
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Last edited by aishaaish on Wed Jun 15, 2005 8:23 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2004 9:34 pm Post subject: Native speakers |
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Dear aishaaish,
Well, not by most standard definitions, I fear. That person would be a "native speaker' of whatever language(s) he/she was using from the time he/she began talking until age 12. By the way, not to be nitpicky, but in your posting:
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| If a person speaks English fluently since 12, |
it would have been better to have written:
"If a person has spoken English fluently since the age of 12, . . .
Regards,
John |
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aishaaish
Joined: 04 Apr 2004
Posts: 21
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| Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2004 9:46 pm Post subject: |
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Last edited by aishaaish on Wed Jun 15, 2005 8:24 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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khmerhit
Joined: 31 May 2003
Posts: 1874
Location: Reverse Culture Shock Unit
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| Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2004 9:50 pm Post subject: |
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Uh, I think you will find it goes with the territory. We are paid to be pedantic about certain things, namely the things students want to know--viz., how to speak and write the language correctly. If this is nitpicking, down with nits.
Your native tongue is the language of your native land. But you can be more fluent in a second language than your native tongue. I had a friend who left Finland when she was thirteen. Four years later, she got a scholarship to Harvard University, her fluency in English was that good. Then she died in a plane crash, but that's another story.
 kh--Dont take it too serious, matey..
PS --native speaker of English. Sorry, but you know. Nits...
Last edited by khmerhit on Sat Apr 10, 2004 9:59 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2004 9:53 pm Post subject: Nitpicking is our bread and butter |
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Dear aishaaish,
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| buttttttttt this is not an essay |
Very true. Buttttttttt being nitpicky about English is what we get paid for, in part, anyway. It's sort of an occupational habit, and one that's hard to break, for me, anyway. Moreover, as you noted:
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| almost everyone here is nitpicky anyway |
it'd seem I'm not the only one. Actually, it was the verb tense mistake, rather than sentence structure, that caught my eye,
Regards,
John |
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aishaaish
Joined: 04 Apr 2004
Posts: 21
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| Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2004 9:56 pm Post subject: |
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Last edited by aishaaish on Wed Jun 15, 2005 8:24 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2004 9:58 pm Post subject: |
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Dear aishaaish,
Good heavens - I know you weren't. Sorry if it came across that I thought you were.
Regards,
John |
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aishaaish
Joined: 04 Apr 2004
Posts: 21
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| Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2004 10:04 pm Post subject: |
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Last edited by aishaaish on Wed Jun 15, 2005 8:25 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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khmerhit
Joined: 31 May 2003
Posts: 1874
Location: Reverse Culture Shock Unit
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| Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2004 10:10 pm Post subject: |
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My friend did a CELTA, and I know there was another student on his course whose first language was not English, and in fact her language skills were not that strong. But they took her on the course. I'm sure you could do it too.
I'm a native speaker, studied English at university, but I was reluctant to take a course because i thought my grammar sucked. Eventually, I just started teaching with out having taken a course.
I should a done the course.
best of luck,
khmerhit  |
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shmooj
Joined: 11 Sep 2003
Posts: 1758
Location: Seoul, ROK
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| Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2004 1:31 am Post subject: Re: native speaker |
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| aishaaish wrote: |
If a person speaks English fluently since 12.....................then is she/he a native speaker in English?  |
I know that people commented on your English as opposed to your original question, but in actual fact, they answered your question by doing so.
Despite your early start in English, it is immediately apparent from your posts that you are not a native speaker. However, rejoice in your status. Non native speakers are shown consistently by research as being better teachers of English provided they are very proficient in it. This is down to several factors including having learned the hard way and therefore being more sensitive to learners.
The problem you will inevitably face however, is selling this FACT to people who presume that natives are better simply because of their language ability. Remind them gently that language ability does not a teacher make - teaching ability on the other hand is something that anyone, native or not, can possess.
All the best... |
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Sara Avalon
Joined: 25 Feb 2004
Posts: 254
Location: On the Prowl
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| Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2004 11:51 am Post subject: |
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OP - My first word was "baba" not "dada" but I don't think this makes my native tongue Arabic (like some posters seemed to suggest would be the case). My parents are both Middle Eastern, so naturally they spoke to me in a mix of Arabic and English up until the age of 6. But I was enrolled in English schools since kindergarten. I consider myself a native English speaker with 12+ years of English language education... and I am NOT fluent in Arabic but consider it my second language in terms of competency.
For those who argued that whatever language you spoke up until the age of 12 is your native language... what do you say to someone like me with a 50/50 split but no continued education in the first fifty? I can't write in Arabic to save my life, and my obvious deficiency in the spoken language is laughable.
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| Native - One of the original inhabitants or lifelong residents of a place. |
Off topic - a lot of internet savvy individuals do not use proper grammar or spelling to post entries. There is no rule that states: "thou shalt spell/grammar check all entries or face the scorn and correction of thy peers." Unless someone asks for help with their writing, I find it rude to point it out and use that as a basis of judgment (especially if a grammar error is used to validate a point about an individual�s language capabilities). |
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Sara Avalon
Joined: 25 Feb 2004
Posts: 254
Location: On the Prowl
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| Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2004 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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| We are paid to be pedantic about certain things, namely the things students want to know--viz., how to speak and write the language correctly. If this is nitpicking, down with nits. |
| Quote: |
| Very true. Buttttttttt being nitpicky about English is what we get paid for, in part, anyway. It's sort of an occupational habit, and one that's hard to break, for me, anyway. |
Yes, you're paid to teach the language to your students by an employer... in the classroom. This is the internet. You wouldn't go around correcting homeless people's grammar errors and calling them non-native speakers by their apparent illiteracy, would you? |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2004 12:58 pm Post subject: Irony abounds |
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Dear Sara,
I'm afaid we're going to have to disagree about this one. If a person posts, asking about whether his/her language ability is that of a "native speaker" (OK, admittedly I am making an inference here), and, in that very post makes a (to me, anyway) glaring grammar mistake, I'd say that's relevant to the topic. So, your example of correcting "homeless people's grammar" doesn't seem applicable to me. I think that a person who is being paid to teach English should have a command of the language good enough not to make such a mistake, especially when asking other teachers if his/her language is good enough for him/her to be considered a "native speaker".
Regards,
John |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2004 1:51 pm Post subject: |
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In Saudi Arabia they look at a number of things in deciding if you are a native speaker :
1. Skin colour
2. Nationality
3. Ability to speak
Use of the seal of the Ottoman Emperor as in your avatar will not convince them that you are a pukkah native speaker |
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Ben Round de Bloc
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Posts: 1946
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| Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2004 3:32 pm Post subject: |
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The problem you will inevitably face however, is selling this FACT to people who presume that natives are better simply because of their language ability.
- shmooj |
I agree with this. In defense of employers who give preference to native speakers, their clients/students are often the ones who want native speakers over non-native speakers. A school owner can have the best non-native speaking teachers working in his/her school, but if potential students are set on the idea that they won't enroll unless there are native speakers, the school won't survive.
I admit that I feel somewhat hypocritical here.  As I look back at my own experiences of studying a second language, I must say that some of my best teachers were not native speakers of the target language. However, at the point where I am now in learning the language, if I were to pay someone to continue teaching me, I'm afraid I would opt only for a native speaker. Of course, I wouldn't be willing to pay just anyone who spoke the language as his/her first language. It would have to be a native speaker who understood the complexities of the language and could explain them in a way that I could comprehend. Most important for me would be having an informant/teacher who could tell me what was standard usage and what wasn't, in which situations native speakers would use specific forms and expressions, where certain forms and expressions fit in the speech register, etc. I think my chances of finding a non-native speaker who could do those things adequately would be very slim. |
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