Job Discussion Forums

[moonraven]

You smell a logical fallacy? I don't think so. Spanish speakers already find English an impoverished language when contrasted to their own (and since I primarily read and write in Spanish, I agree with them), so teaching them an amputated version of English would not be in the best interests of either the student or the teacher.

You have not convinced me to buy any books; moreover, your pronouncement that any book gives the final word on anything is simply absurd pontificating.

In Latin America, hundreds of thousands of students are prepared each year for "American" exams, given that the majority of students here are more likely to enter universities in the US than universities in the UK. For that reason, most students find studying "American" English considerably more useful than studying the British version.

[Stephen Jones]

-----" I don't think so. Spanish speakers already find English an impoverished language when contrasted to their own (and since I primarily read and write in Spanish, I agree with them), so teaching them an amputated version of English would not be in the best interests of either the student or the teacher. "------

To talk about impoverished and other languages is really absurd. You sound like one of the old colonialists in reverse.

[moonraven]

"Old colonialists in reverse is a description" with absolutely no meaning. But I am not surpised by that....

It's patently clear that you dominate no romance languages, all of which are considerably richer than English--both in the number of descriptive words and in their sound.

[Seth]

actually, english is the most descriptive language in the world. a quick search of the net will tell you this, but here is one link:

http://www.wordempire.com/

please note that the website has nothing to do with empires or imperialism, before you start.

as for the language sounding nice, that's certainly in the eye (or ear) of the beholder.

[moonraven]

It is clear that you also do not speak any romance languages. Must be nice to pontificate with such confidence. I speak or read 8 languages....How many do you speak?

[Seth]

and it's clear you completely ignored what i said just to throw a few childish punches because you can't back up what you say. it's funny to watch people get desperate when they are proven wrong.

yo puedo hablar espanol, vieja loca. wo neng shou zhongwen, lao fengren.

besides, stop reminding us about how great you are, it's making me depressed.

[moonraven]

Your depression is anger turned inward. Don't try to make it my problem.

I am never desperate. I simply don't care.

[carnac]

Hey, kids, play nice!!
I used to think that some languages were more pleasing to the ear than others, but have modified my view over time. In any language, words of love whispered in the ear of the lover are the most beautiful possible sounds to the listener. Some languages may sound softer or more poetic to Western ears, because of structures such as ending nouns in vowels rather than consonants; some may lend themselves more easily to rhyming. But, they can all be beautiful to those who speak them. The first time I heard Vietnamese, I was entranced, like listening to musical water. Recite vegetable names in English, and they are just vegetable names. Say the same names in a Romance language and they become poetic. (Try whispering, to your beloved, "cabbage", then try saying it endearingly in French)
Even German (he shows his biases) can sound beautiful. I admit that I don't know the language, but when I heard, on the Three Tenors album, I think Placido Domingo singing this beautiful German song (something about Kline Hertz - Dearest Heart?) it was so beautiful.
I joke with my students about the sounds of languages, going through "I love you" in English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, hamming it up to make them sound sooo romantic, then come to German with "Ich liebe dich" (spelling?) purposely exaggerating the phlegm-clearing uvulars, causing them to erupt in laughter. A cheap joke, but they get the idea of some of the differences.
But, I return to my original point in this little note: all languages are beautiful to those who were spoken to, sung to, in those words by their mothers.
I think you may enjoy this link:
http://www.elite.net/~runner/jennifers/
Best regards -
Carnac

[Stephen Jones]

Dear Baronness Von Loonraven

I happen to speak three Romance languages fluently (French, Spanish and Catalan).

To suggest that some languages are more descriptive or "richer" than another is to open yourself to ridicule from anybody with more than a passing acquaintance with Sapir or Chomsky for example.

It is the kind of comment we would expect from the High School leavers who use EFL as a means of helping them backpack around the world, but from somebody with pretensions to be an intellectual of any sort. let alone a university language lecturer, it is really surprising. Or could it be that your purported academic qualifications are, like your imaginary, lightning ten-day ascent of the US military hierarchy, figments of your imagination, and that the only difference between you and the afore-mentioned backpackers is age and that they are better-looking and better-natured.

[valley_girl]

1. Not okay, possibly sounds poorly educated. (It's like nails on a chalkboard to me.)
2. I teach that "If I were" is the grammatically perfect option.
3. Always. Students will hear both so they will need to know why.

There is a lot of 'new English' that makes me cringe, but English is an evolving language so as educators we do have to make some adjustments now and then. Dost not thou thinketh so?

[Ben Round de Bloc]

[moonraven]

Tim,

MANY folks on this site are not careful readers--a consistent problem for folks who are attempting to communicate rather than to attack other posters whom they have never seen, and will never see, for their LOOKS (!!??) Not to mention the folks whose rhetorical skills are limited to calling other posters liars....Those same folks toss around the names of Sapir and Chomsky to impress others. (Boaz, Whorf and Sapir all indicated that the grammar of a language determines the way folks view the world around them--and interestingly, the Whorf/Sapir Hypothesis is even dealt with in the Listening section of one of the Barron's practice TOEFL tests.)

The Cambridge exams are offered throughout Mexico--yes. And the PET is taken frequently by kids in bilingual schools in both elementary and secondary levels. However, the TOEFL is of considerably more interest to students, as it is used by the ITESM system here as part of the entrance exam package for both high school and university levels, and it is also required by US universities. I have been asked to design several TOEFL courses for high school and university students here in Mexico, and have done so. I have never been asked to design courses to prepare for the British tests.

Kids in bilingual secondary schools using British textbook series that the Oxford and Cambridge publishing reps have sold to non-English speaking school principals are prone to complain quite actively about those texts, as they consider them irrelevant to the reasons they are studying English. They are not dummies, and I believe their complaints are more than justified.

[Stephen Jones]

It's called the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis, but of course getting things the wrong way round is not unusual for you :)

It also has nothing to do whatsoever with with Sapir (Whorf simply put his mentor's name to it to give it some kind of spurious respectability rather like Moonraven or myself inventing something stupid and calling iit the Jones/Moonraven/Labov hypothesis). It also has been completely discredited in its strong form.

On another tack, I suspect that one of the reasons the Cambridge or Oxford books get into schools in the Americas is that, despite being the wrong regional version of English, they are generally better EFL textbooks than those on offer by Anerican publishers. I suspect this is the reason we see American versions of Headway or Streamline, but never see British versions of American textbooks.

And at tne higher level of TOEFL or Proficiency. I would tnink that any student who could do well in one, would do well in the other with a minimum of acclimatization.

[moonraven]

Yeah, right. And is not that "acclimatization" the job of ESL teachers? Why not teach what's appropriate for the students' needs when they have been identified, instead of expecting them to pick up the slack later?

I have not used any ESL textbooks for many years, as I truly believe in student-centered learning--so your sales pitch for British books did not fall on fertile ground in my case.

I am amazed by the academic infantilism of folks who can toss off such phrases as "completely discredited", "completely put to rest", etc.--without thinking that the current "experts" will be dismissed in the same cavalier fashion a few years hence. Darwin's evolutionary theory supposedly laid to rest "creationism"--yet it is alive and well in the minds of the political extreme right of more than one country. Theories and hypotheses are, by their definition, ideas which are not necessarily supported by hard evidence.

[dmb]

Interesting point stephen. I have never thought about it before. surely though there must be an American English book that has been adopted by British English? I can't think of any