Vagueness and ESL/EFL

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 10:50 pm

Indian English first:

"Charanjit Kaur, India

Region specific English is far more viable in a country like India, because Indian English is developing well as far as pronunciation, accent syntax and even vocabulary are concerned. For communication within the country, this pan-Indian variety serves well enough. Further, if Indian English is mastered, it is just a matter of training for a month or so if one wants to work in an international atmosphere."

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/talk/ ... onal.shtml

Is this a vague future?

"For instance, the Evalueserve study calculated that for every one job created for a foreign language professional, two new jobs will be created for Indian English-speaking professionals with the IT and BPO sectors."

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/20060 ... 43850.html

Better get learning Indian English and forget about Standard AE and BE.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 11:02 pm

zorro (3) wrote:It's a pre-requisite in all areas of social/economic advancement. You will need to understand the rules of SE if you wanted to get a job at Walmart in the sense that you need to fill out an application form and will be expected to be literate in order to carry out functions within the job. If you get the job and your grasp of SE written or spoken is of a level that is sociolinguistically viewed as not SE, then your chances of advancement will be very limited. Linguistic marketplace and all that business (Bourdieu).

According to an Associated Press article last year, as new immigrants arrive in already diverse neighbourhoods, the language they embrace isn't always English.

"Honduran cooks learn Mandarin. Mexican clerks learn Korean. Most often, people learn Spanish," Graddol wrote in his report.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/20060 ... 43850.html

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 11:06 pm

Stephen Jones wrote: And how the heck did the Jamaican nurses and Indian doctors that have been running a large amount of the health service in the UK since the 1950's manage to do the job without training in Scouse and a detailed discourse analysis of Hobson's Choice?

Do you think that most of those nurses and doctors listened to their patients? And, if I remember my time in hospital, it was the NES patients who had to adjust their speech to suit such doctors and nurses.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 11:09 pm

What's more, the total numbers of English speakers in India and China now exceed the number of speakers elsewhere in the world.

Do you think that all those Chinese and Indian people want to learn SE? To spend time getting perfect RP? C'mon, guys!

Jump in now, before it's too late:

http://web.ku.edu/idea/asia/india/india.htm

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:06 am

What's more, the total numbers of English speakers in India and China now exceed the number of speakers elsewhere in the world.

And the number of Americans who can say "Ohlala" and "soixante-neuf" exceeds the total population of France.

For communication within the country, this pan-Indian variety serves well enough. Further, if Indian English is mastered, it is just a matter of training for a month or so if one wants to work in an international atmosphere."

The first part of that post is mainly true. The second is much more doubtful. The problem is that it is not clear what is Indian English. If we are talking about the English of the Times of India then to most intents and purposes we are talking about standard English. However that is only mastered by around 3% of the population. People who speak Hinglish or Taminglish or Sringlish (that is to say English mixed with a larger or smaller number of features from their native languages) will not learn Standard Engish in a month, or even in a year, and will find it difficult if not impossible to be understood outside of the sub-continent dependent on how far there language is from SE.

This paper questions the need for English in China to conform to any of the existing standard varieties, arguing that this objective is both undesirable and virtually unattainable, especially in respect to pronunciation, and that Chinese learners should therefore be learning ‘China English’."

What's the point of learning English to communicate with other people in China?

For instance, the Evalueserve study calculated that for every one job created for a foreign language professional, two new jobs will be created for Indian English-speaking professionals with the IT and BPO sectors."

The IT or BPO jobs will go to those who have the appropriate IT or business skills. The top jobs in those industries will still go to those who master standard English because they will have to deal with the SE speaking project managers in the US or UK. And the Call centres absolutely insist on American or British accents. let alone Standard English.

What brought those students to "want" such a goal?

Realism. 'China English' and 'World English' are the favorites of PC academics who want to deal with difficulties by pretending they don't exist and treat second language learners like savages who can be palmed off with a few beads instead of the genuine article.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:42 am

Code: Select all

And the number of Americans who can say "Ohlala" and "soixante-neuf" exceeds the total population of France.

But they don't know where France is. LOL! You should visit an Indian English forum to see if they like your xenophobic posts, Stevie.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:49 am

The first part of that post is mainly true. The second is much more doubtful...

So, which Indian English do you think that writer is referring to?

on how far there language is from SE.

What's the point of learning English to communicate with other people in China?

Do you think that that is the purpose?

The top jobs in those industries will still go to those who master standard English because they will have to deal with the SE speaking project managers in the US or UK.

Ah, Stevie, you live in the past, how you do.

Anyway, keep up the hope that you can market and sell your variety of English at least until you retire. The rest of us will plan for the future. Good luck!

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 2:06 am

And what brand of snake oil are you intending to sell?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 7:33 am

Stephen Jones wrote:And what brand of snake oil are you intending to sell?

It more a case of, intend to buy. I'm caught between the Indian and Chinese model at the moment. Business is business after all.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 10:15 am

If you want to make money teaching Indians put on the plushest British accent you can, unless its call centre or IT work in which case study the John Wayne movies.

If you want to persuade Europeans to learn Indian English, forget it. Why would they want to spend years learning a variety of English that will get them a job as a waiter in Dubai, or working in IT or accounting for a quarter of the salary they can get back home. Grow your hair, take off all your clothes, cover yourself with ash, and speak profound nonsense (shouldn't require much retraining) and you'd make a fortune as a guru. You wouldn't even need an Indian accent; Geordie will be unintelligible enough.

Somehow I see this business plan as being much more viable than teaching Scouse to Andalusian accountants so they can get a job in a BPO in Bangalore dealing with clients in China who only speak Chinglish.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 10:34 am

Reality;

-Spanish sister-in-law
-product promotions
-buyer working with India and China
-learned Indian English (speaks both AE and BE)
-making loads of money these days

You just keep on marketing your ideal, Stevie. Don't have nightmares.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 11:07 am

Which one for you?

"In his talk, he introduced the/a notion that..."

Is there more than one bag of potato chips here?

"If you're going into the bedroom, would you mind bringing back
the big bag of potato chips that I left on the bed?"

The room has more than one window:

Could you please open a/the window?

(I'd say either.)

There are four lifts/elevators:

Concierge to new guest: Take the lift to the third floor and it's on your left.

zorro (3) · Post by **zorro (3)** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 12:28 pm

metal,
are you going to teach indian english to your students? You can't speak indian english can you? or did you say that you were going to teach chinese english to your students. can you speak chinese english?

even if you can speak either of these variations, why would the people who want to learn indian english or chinese english want a NES to teach them this brand?

perhaps you should worry about your future too metal, that is if you see it in teaching english.

If I was learning a language I would want to sound as much like a native speaker of that language as possible. If I was learning Spanish, I would prefer a Spanish person to teach me. Whether my expectations are culturally inherited or are universal I'm not sure. If they are universal, then this will safeguard my future as an NES lanuage teacher.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 5:03 pm

Metal, the reason I teach RP to my students who study Phonetics is that they are English Language/Literature specialists, some of whom want to be English teachers in the future. For them, a near-native accent is required as part of the course. When I teach engineers or business students, I model a "standard" accent but don't expect it from them. If I ever teach in China, I'll take your article into account.

I don't know where you get it from that I think there's "nothing in between" RP and a strong non-native accent. However, when a NNS nurse asks a patient "Are you on HRT?", it has to sound like "HRT", not "Are you on edge, at all?". This really happened - fortunately the patient was my mother, who works in a hospital and worked out what he was trying to say. What if a hard of hearing patient had misunderstood and given a "wrong" answer? I'm not saying he had to sound like an HRH, but if your going to work with the public, particularly vulnerable people like hospital patients, in a foreign country, you have to speak in an accent they will probably understand. And, yes, I know an Aberdonian nurse in Reading will have the same problem, and I would expect him or her to modify their accent too.

You have been banging on for months about the importance of Indian Englias, and now Chinese English. Quite how that helps the Spanish nurse to speak to patients in Newcastle is less clear. The bottom line is that one size does not fit all.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 6:29 pm

If I was learning a language I would want to sound as much like a native speaker of that language as possible.

But you are learning a language, aren't you? You are a NNES, right?

BTW, some native speakers might say that your struggle to sound like a native speaker has the uneducated native speaker influence:

?If I was learning...
If I were learning...

Mind, some native speakers are always on the hunt for such "errors".