Korean Job Discussion Forums

[dodgybarnet]

I was really tempted to Flame-bait the entire North American Continent for spelling words wrongly, but have have thought better of it and made a poll instead.

I'm interested in whether Non-N.Americans teach US English (with the letter "z" thrown around like they want higher Scrabble scores) or are not swayed by the Yank/Canuk conspiracy to taint the Queen's English.

Seriously though, I'm just interested because I have enough trooble speeeling vords anyway, so trying to consciously teach US English doesn't sound like a good move in my case.

Whatcha think?

[Son Deureo!]

You left out the fourth possibility of course, which is North American who teaches the Queen's English.

Shock and horror! How can that be?

The textbook writing department of my hogwon chain has been at least partially commandeered by Commonwealthers, so British spelling comes up constantly. Obviously I'm not going to tell them that the Queen's English is incorrect, so when the issue comes up I tell them both U.S. and British spelling so they can make up their own minds about what to use.

All the same, the difference between the two is such a fine point compared to the more basic issues of fluency our students usually need to address that I can't see any good reason to lose much sleep over this regardless of where you learned to speak English.

[ryleeys]

Personally, I think American English is the natural evolution of the language.

But personally, I want a new alphabet. I want English consonants and Korean vowels. I hate the idea of short and long vowels. One letter, one sound damnit (excluding "c" and "g" of course... they do have their uses... but with Korean vowels, maybe we can get rid of the "c").

I teach American spelling and strictly correct any of my students that have been corrupted by the Old World.

[ladyandthetramp]

You also forgot the choice "I'm a Non-N.American and I teach British English spelling!"

Seems the second and third choices are the same...

[the_beaver]

Penny Ur commented on this once (maybe more than once, but only once that I heard).

Her contention is basically the with the spread of English some things will become simplified in terms of grammar and spelling. As a rule, the simpler version will be the one that will be adopted and, in the case of spelling, the simpler version is usually the American one. Teachers, in an effort to teach English as a global language rather than their own parochial little version of it should probably teach, in this case, American spelling.

[ladyandthetramp]

[pet lover]

This post serves no purpose.

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

One must know both, and teach both. It's not so hard, as the number of differences is not that great.

On a related note. I agree with some of the american changes and not others. Colour does not need the "u". But the "z" replacing "se" is not necessary, because it's the "e" after the "s" that denotes the sound change, and the americans retain the final "e" anyway, so the change to "z" is redundant. Also, it's not consistantly applied. Someone shoud rise to the occasion and fix this.

[mog]

I wonder if there was the internet a thousand of years ago, there'd be a thread like this about spelling English words with French rules (William the Conquerer was from Normandy).

Language is spoken first, written second. If they spell it any particularly accepted way and pronounce it correctly, then it's okay in my book. Spelling is very secondary.

[Demophobe]

Well, the Queen should have kept a shorter leash on the language when her imperialist family went around the world on an imperialist coloniZing frenzy.

Hehe...just joking...don't get your knickers in a knot.

Personally, I don't really care. It's actually good to see the language changing....with so many speakers of English spread so far and wide, it was bound to happen.

[panthermodern]

The Customer wants U.S. English ... the Customer gets U.S. English.

I spell "Colour": c-o-l-o-r in class
I say "Zed" : Zee in class


Besides, I think many of the "Queen's English" nouns are just that ... nouns used by "Queens"

For example:

Jumper: Do you like my new jumper?
Tumbler: Would you like a tumbler of Freshie?

And so on.

BUT: Lego is and shall forever be an uncountable noun and tomatos are a type of fruit.

[jazblanc77]

Nice poll, it was only slightly biased towards your own self-righteous view of North Americans. I'm Canadian and I have always used QUEENS ENLGISH (in fact most universities penalise the use of American English in academic writing).

In Korea, public school teachers have mainly been teaching their students American English, just as in most of Europe, students have been taught Queen's English (though this is changing a lot these days; noone wants to speak like a Brit anymore it seems). My outlook on the whole issue is, why make learning English any more difficult on my students that it has to be? If they already know one way to spell a word, why confuse them by telling them another (unless, that is, they are high enough of a level and could benefit from it). We should focus more on teaching them to use our language correctly than worrying about silly symantics over which spelling is being used.

Will you still understand an English speaker who spells "incorrectly"? That's the real question. Stop being so proud of yourself and get with the programme.

[dodgybarnet]

The OP was intentionally a bit toungue-in-cheek, certainly as there is no such thing as a "right choice" when it comes to language - it's constantly evolving. It's just fun to yank a few chains.

I guess when it comes to teaching, being consistent is the number one thing to do.

[ghostshadow]

I teach USA spelling because that's what most parents wants from their children. One of main reason why Korea is so keen on learning English is because they need English to get a job in Korea. The market for a job in Korea is very low and in order to get a desk job you need to know English. And why the USA spelling, because they want to do more business with USA.

Those are my thoughts from the information gathered while in Korea...

[Zed]

I say Zed on here. I say Zee in class.

- Zed