Job Discussion Forums

getDM · Joined: 05 Jul 2012 Posts: 24 Location: Taipei, Taiwan

Teaching Comrades!
I'm in Taiwan and they're increasingly global, dealing with lots of nationalities, all with various accents. India, Japan, Korea, Singapore - they're using English but having problems with cross-cultures.

So I'm looking to get in touch with teachers in other countries, through which we can share tips, information, and resources. I have some ideas on how we can use our students to help counterparts in other countries, making the lessons more relevant to our student's needs.

Interested? I hope so! Please drop me a line....

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

What "problems" are you trying to overcome, exactly? Your question is rather vague.

getDM · Joined: 05 Jul 2012 Posts: 24 Location: Taipei, Taiwan

Sorry for vagueness - a lot of Business material uses 'core' English (US, UK), both in topics and recordings, but my clients use English to comunicate with others in non-UK and non-US countries. Voice recordings and topics from Indians, Singaporeans and Japanese would serve them better than that usually found in books.
I would suspect these are problems shared by others in countries also dealing internationally?

Shroob · Joined: 02 Aug 2010 Posts: 1339

When I was on my CELTA course the instructors hinted at this problem. I vaguely remember one of them saying that there are more people using English as a lingua franca than there are native English speakers. I could be wrong though, that seems a bit of a stretch. Though there are more English speakers in China than there are in the U.S.A.

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

English has more non-native users than native speakers. No doubt.

7969 · Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 5782 Location: Coastal Guangdong

voltaire · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 6:46 am Post subject:

Sounds like you may be interested in Globish, comrade. Check it out:
http://www.globish.com/

Let us know what you think. Smile

Teacher in Rome · Joined: 09 Jul 2003 Posts: 1286

Like Glenski, I'd also ask you to specify the problems a bit more. For example, is it when telephoning, for example, that your Taiwanese students have problems understanding other speakers of English? Or is it also face-to-face, understanding emails etc?

The reason I ask is that in mixed nationality groups of students, I've often found that students can generally understand each other - reasonably well - to have a conversation. But understanding is more challenging when they're not face-to-face.

getDM · Joined: 05 Jul 2012 Posts: 24 Location: Taipei, Taiwan

@Voltaire - that's the bunny Smile

But even without going into the whole "Globish" (what a horrible label!) debate, it's something I find increasingly needed with english as lingua franca.

getDM · Joined: 05 Jul 2012 Posts: 24 Location: Taipei, Taiwan

@Teacher in Rome and @Glenski:
Me as teacher: "How do you use English?"
Business students: "To communicate with teams in Japan/ Korea/ Australia/ Poland/ Netherlands/ India"
Me: "What problems are you having?"
Them: "Understanding their accents."
Me: "Spend time listening to them."
Them: "How?"

And it's true - there are very few (none) resources of non-core nationalities speaking English.
Please see the next post for a possible solution...

getDM · Joined: 05 Jul 2012 Posts: 24 Location: Taipei, Taiwan

I'd like to hear from teachers in other parts of the world with students who use English as a lingua franca for communicating with other nationalities.
If you are such a teacher then please drop me a line!
(Or if you know such a teacher then please forward this message to them.)

I hope to help our students understand English spoken with different accents.
Ideally, lessons will allow the students to discuss and present their ideas vocally - nothing lengthy, but spoken.
Covering various topics will keep this fresh so it would be great if you are free to set the content of your lessons.

I'm still formulating the idea, so your input will help shape the plan.
Please fire through any questions you have if you think you can collaborate, thanks.

Henry_Cowell · Joined: 27 May 2005 Posts: 3352 Location: Berkeley

What techniques have you used with your own students in Taiwan who have expressed this concern with understanding other English speakers? Surely you have tried to help them in some way?

You say you have a plan (a "cunning" one, in fact), so perhaps you can share some initial ideas here to give others an idea of what you're thinking.

haleynicole14 · Joined: 20 Feb 2012 Posts: 178 Location: US

I think I may have originally learned of this link from another forum post, but I did a search and was happy to find this website again easily!

http://accent.gmu.edu/browse.php has recordings of English accents all over the world - great for helping students understand speaking differences between regions.

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

I still don't have enough info. Cannot understand the accents of most foreigners? This is a HUGE can of worms, and if you or they don't describe the exact situations or types of verbal/aural problems with the situation, I really don't think you are going to get clear answers. It's almost as if a private lesson student wants to hire you, and when you ask what part of English they want to study, their answer is "everything". Very frustrating to answer. No diagnosis possible.

Solutions that I can offer at this level.
1) Watch movies, and strategically use/remove subtitles (in L1 and L2).
2) Talk to the foreigners on campus. This can be as casual and unplanned as asking to sit with them at luch, to planned with the teacher as in bringing them to class for presentations and Q&A.
3) Scour the Internet as a class, then see how many accents they can find on audio or video, to later share as a group. Commercials, podcasts, English teaching materials, etc.
4) Teacher plans some Skype conversations with other country classes.
5) Make a class video for YouTube, ending with a plea for other nationalities to contact you or make a similar video.

Make your students take charge of their own learning. Number one point is to be sure they understand they will NEVER be exposed to all accents. The U.S. alone has about 30 dialects. Point no. 2: exposure to the point that they feel comfortable will take LOTS of time and effort. No.3 point: stop trying to understand each word in conversations, and settle for the gist instead, plus learn strategies to help youself (asking to repeat only the word you didn't catch instead of the whole sentence).

kucinggarong · Joined: 15 Apr 2012 Posts: 7 Location: Australia

This is a fascinating point made by the original poster about communication in English between English users from different countries - what form of English do they use- American, British, Australian, Indian, or even Singlish? The Sri Lankan born linguist Suresh Canagarajah proposes a collaborative approach to analysing these interactions between L2 English speakers from different places- rather than imposing one of the "standard" English rules on them he argues that they should be free to seek to make meaning collaboratively, at the expense of "correct" grammar and lexicon. He sees English as a creole anyway, and that collaboration is at the centre of communication.
Here is a link to an interview on ABC radio Australia http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/linguafranca/2012-08-11/4185544
This may seem like an academic, obscure point, but I think that it really is something that is increasingly important in the globalized business world and obviously for ESL teaching. In my own teaching I am unsure of how much to stress "standard" pronunciation.
Anyway , one of the cool things about this forum is that topics range from pedagogical and linguistic controversies all the way to which countries have the cheapest beer!

Cheers KucingG.