Korean Job Discussion Forums

[coolsage]

To quote Dennis Miller:" 'Deep South' is an oxymoron. Those people are anything but deep." Nonetheless, these little charges of ours should be exposed to more than the mythical 'Mid-Atlantic' accent, simply because they'll be dealing with people who are not necessarily from the Mid-Atlantic (would that be the Azores?).

[katydid]

Azores? What's that?

As far as I remember from Social Studies class, Mid-Atlantic refers to the region that is made up of the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and maybe Ohio?

Oh I don't know. I want to teach in a horrible accent one of these days. Ha ha. Seriously speaking, I truly wish that at the college level, there was a class about exploring the different kinds of accents English speakers have. It'd be perfect for someone who studied Linguistics.

[Leeroy]

"I was watching the N.Z. girl star of the new Dances With Whales film or whatever being interviewed and could hardly understand a word she said."

Like I said in my earlier post. What the hell is wrong with you?

[dogbert]

[Leeroy]

Well I still maintain that it's pretty sad when native speaker EFL teachers say that they can't understand native speakers from other main English speaking countries.

[katydid]

Agreed. When it's a matter of the person using such poor grammar and you can't understand what he says, that is one thing. Getting around the slang is totally another. It's surmountable.
I remember finding it abslutely ridiculous that MTV in America used subtitles with the Gallagher Borthers from Oasis in their interviews. But then TV always panders to the lowest common denominator, and MTV tries to push lower even still.

[tmcurro]

[Leeroy]

It's been proven that regional differences in Korean can be great. In some cases it's dialectual, not just different accent.

Standard Englishes among English speaking countries differ mostly in accent only. Sure there is some unique vocabulary but essentially we're speaking the same language with slightly different pronunciation. That's all. Region specific dialects and all their little idiosyncracies are a different story.

[dogbert]

[tmcurro]

Yes, Korean dialects differ. But, they do not differ to the extent of say Cantonese to Mandarin, which in effect are different languages, with different numbers of intonations and as far as I know, different grammatical rules.

Northern English and Cockney type "accents" are a lot more than mere differences in pronunciation.

Even some of your New Zealand terms would be unintelligible elsewhere-- Dairy for what many would call a convenience store? jandals? Bach? I only understand these having met a fair number of kiwis.

The point of my previous post was not to claim that Korean is less diverse. It was to illustrate that it isn't exactly ridiculous for MTV to put up subtitles. People unfamiliar with that accent could findit difficult.

The real issue in this thread though, Koreans firing due to accent, is farcical on the part of the bosses. I rather doubt that they can even HEAR the different accents. As evidence, I know a guy from Ecuador who used to teach part-time. His former boss used to praise his "British" accent. He has an Ecuadorian accent when speaking English....

[tmcurro]

[Leeroy]

Just pointing out that the subtitles on Korean TV were there because they were probably speaking in their very regional specific dialect. On the subject of subtitling other English speakers. I was talking about standard varieties of English, not regional dialects. You're right. Cockney and other regional varieties in England are more than just differences in pronunciation, they are regional dialects. They are not considered as the nation's standard form of English. Standard forms of English were what I was talking about. They really don't differ that much.

But anyway. You're right. We're losing the topic of this thread. The firing of teachers because of their accent is farcicle. It really is true how most Koreans can't tell accents apart. I mean, I would often get into situations in Korea where I'd be talking to a stranger (Korean) for quite a while. Later they'd ask me "Where in America are you from?" When I told them I'm from NZ they were somewhat embarrassed. That also shows that Koreans can actually understand non NA pronunciation quite well seeing that I never make an effort to change my pronunciation at all.

[jpal75]

In our small part of town there's only 25 English teachers. Different hagwans of course but we're quite diverse.

Hagwan 1: 3 teachers - 2 South Africans 1 Australian
Previously there were 5 foreign teachers: 1 Kiwi, 1 from Scotland 1,
1 French 1 American and an English man from Liverpool.

Hagwan 2: 3 teachers- 2 Canadians and 1 English

Hagwan 3: 2 Canadians - 1 from Edinburgh the other Liverpool

Hagwan 4: A kiwi who is now replaced by a South African

Hagawan 5: An American

Anyway you get the picture...the point is though we were asked to teach American vocab it was never too much of an issue. One of the foreigners was asked to speak more "American". He said, "I'm from England. Look at my Passport!"

[princess]

I just got a phone call this morning from a potential employer. He mentioned my southern accent and asked me if I can control it because parents will complain if an accent deviates from the norm. Man! I don't even work there yet!!!

[The Man known as The Man]