Hyperwhites

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 3:14 pm

fluffyhamster wrote: Oh, what a thorough "ESP" teacher you must be - you could even do masterclasses on the Twilight Zone.

Did you train in the Twitlight Zone?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 3:16 pm

fluffyhamster wrote: If these youths are like anything as like unarticulate as like those in Jeremy Iversen's High School Confidential: Secrets of an Undercover Student ("student") then you can like keep them. It's like hanging with Paul Walker like 24-7.

The real Fluff/Tdol stands up.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 3:24 pm

(I have personally witnessed both reactions).

Really? In which type of bar and when? BTW, most Spanish barmen are exteremly "rude", so I can't see why one would be offended at being addressed in the "wrong" way.

it would be impossible to give an accurate statement of use in the period of flux, precisely because there was no norm to follow.

And yet my Spanish teacher thought otherwise. Same with many, many ESL/EFL teachers. Even though there is no clear norm, they'll insist there is.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 3:29 pm

How often I visit the UK really isn't the point. Nor is the internet the panacea that you describe. The whole point about cool up-to-date slang is that it's old hat the moment it gets into the main stream. It's not supposed to be used by parents and teachers. When they start to use the same words it's time to move on. That's too ephemeral to be taught in language classes.

I disagree. And I disagree with your picture of "teacher". And no one spoke about things being used by teachers. I spend 50% of my class time teaching language I will or would never need to use.

I wouldn't reject a cool young American teacher, even if the language was changing whilst they were on the plane and that to be a qualified teacher they'd probably be out of touch with the slang of their 15 year old siblings.

So you only teach the language which you use, right?

As for trousers and pants etc. Be honest. I'm your student and I'm visiting the UK next week and I'm going to buy some clothes so I want to revise the vocab:

Have you read this thread properly? No one said that we shouldn't teach those words to someone who wanted to go to a shop. I gave contexts were knowledge of slang would be useful for students. I did not suggest using such slang in shops in the UK.

OK It's another story if I were your student going to spend a year in a Liverpool school. That might involve a bit of homework. But I'd get the student to do it if I were you

That exactly what I do do. I mentioned that the teacher who feels out-of-touch or not a part of a certain language community could still provide a service to students in the form of guide and shaper of the learning program.

When a group of Spanish teens come to me and ask for help in learning slang, or, for example, the language used by British teens, I look at it in the same way as engineers asking me to create a program of learning centered arond technical English. I know very little about contemporary use in each of those language communities, but as a teacher, I'm sure I can help create and guide a program of learning in each area.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 3:53 pm

Back to the thread article:

White nerds disrupted this ideological arrangement by refusing to strive for coolness.

OK, now if teenage students come to you, tell you they are going on a trip to the US, want to meet American teenagers, but also want to avoid the language associated with youth coolness, I'm sure lots of you here could help them, right? You'd create classes saying avoid this word or that expression and use this one instead, right?

It seems that many of you feel confident when telling students what not to use or what to avoid or be careful with, but you seem at a loss when it comes to telling students what they should learn if they wish to use the language of American youth coolness. Now that seems odd to me.

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:00 pm

When I said "parents and teachers" I perhaps should have said "oldies in general". It's saying "I'm really down with my kids" and getting a pitying look from them because nobody says that now.

I'm trying to differentiate between contemporary slang that probably won't stand the test of time and something a bit more permanent. It'd be very difficult to teach the slang that is being used right now because it's mutating all the time. By the time you'd researched it and pinned it down, it'd be different.

I think you're confusied by my use of the word "teachers". Of course we teach words we'd never use.

If you read my post more carefully you'll see that I agree with you. There is a role for more permanent slang in the more ESL situations that you and I describe. As you say it's a research project like any other. But I'd be very wary about saying that "this is contemporary cool slang" because my rule-of-thumb is that by the time somebody like me has got to hear of it, it's passé. That was true 35 years ago and the net has if anything speeded this up.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:02 pm

How often I visit the UK really isn't the point. Nor is the internet the panacea that you describe. The whole point about cool up-to-date slang is that it's old hat the moment it gets into the main stream. It's not supposed to be used by parents and teachers. When they start to use the same words it's time to move on. That's too ephemeral to be taught in language classes.

Exactly. The only way to know what's hot and what's not is to visit the area and meet the kids. That's why I said that when I taught in FE I got the local teenagers in to explain their expressions. A teacher 500 miles away isn't going to know what teenagers in Toxteth are saying, no matter how much time he spends on the web. Urban Dictionary might have lots of words, but little guide to usage.

If I went to Newcastle and started using Geordie words, I'd stand a fair chance of actually causing offence.

What nonsense.

You might like to back that statement up. When I was first a student in a Scottish university, I attracted strange looks if I said "aye" or "tinnie" (can of beer) at first.

You spend every day pushing students to learn Standard English. Do you think that you are also not encouraging students "to claim membership of language communities they may not actually belong to"?

No - the "language community" of SE is easily large enough to accommodate learners, the community of teenagers in Toxteth is rather smaller. I'm not saying that learners could never be accepted into such a community, but turning up on the doorstep trying to speak their dialect might be counter productive.

Do you think that Standard English is an unmarked form in the eyes of all?

Let's say the least marked form in the eyes of most people.

Ask him to publish an ESL/EFL teaching book on slang, see what

He would probably point out, correctly, that books on slang are already dated by the time they leave the print shop.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:05 pm

You said that you would only teach the word pants. You said you would do that no matter the context or student needs/demands.

No I didn't, I said I would still encourage students to say pants, underwear, or possibly boxers rather than "keks". The least you can do is quote me accurately and argue against what I actually say.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:35 pm

lolwhites wrote:
No I didn't, I said I would still encourage students to say pants, underwear, or possibly boxers rather than "keks". The least you can do is quote me accurately and argue against what I actually say.

LOL!

BTW, would you call a person a wannabee if he came to you and said he/she wanted to speak English just like that spoken by Standard British English speakers?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:41 pm

All:

Lets' say a young person come to you and asks you to teach him the "slang" of the American youth culture norms of coolness. Another young person comes and asks you to teach him only the Standard British English norms used by middel to upper-class youths in Britain. Which person, if any, would you label a wannabee and send packing?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:41 pm

That's the second time you've mentioned 'Tdol' (aka Richard Flynn), metal. What gives? I'd hardly have time to keep up with all your rubbish if I were running a website and blog.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:50 pm

fluffyhamster wrote: I'd hardly have time to keep up with all your rubbish if I were running a website and blog.

You're running out of things to say.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 5:32 pm

Lets' say a young person come to you and asks you to teach him the "slang" of the American youth culture norms of coolness. Another young person comes and asks you to teach him only the Standard British English norms used by middel to upper-class youths in Britain. Which person, if any, would you label a wannabee and send packing?

I wouldn't "send anyone packing" or, but I would suggest that the first young person try to contact American youths and watch MTV if he really wants to find out about "American youth culture norms of coolness". American adults find it hard enough to keep up with these things, never mind British English speaking adults thousands of miles away. In fact, your average French or Spanish teenager probably already knows more about such norms than me. Maybe you're more down with the kids than me, metal.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:21 pm

lolwhites wrote:
Exactly. The only way to know what's hot and what's not is to visit the area and meet the kids. That's why I said that when I taught in FE I got the local teenagers in to explain their expressions. A teacher 500 miles away isn't going to know what teenagers in Toxteth are saying, no matter how much time he spends on the web. Urban Dictionary might have lots of words, but little guide to usage.
Seems you give up at the starting gate. I like a challenge.

What nonsense.

You might like to back that statement up. When I was first a student in a Scottish university, I attracted strange looks if I said "aye" or "tinnie" (can of beer) at first.

Do all strange looks imply offense has been taken?

No - the "language community" of SE is easily large enough to accommodate learners,

The langauge "community" of nonstandard speaker is much. much larger. Why don't you teach your students how to get into that "club"?

but turning up on the doorstep trying to speak their dialect might be counter productive.

You seem to love "migfht be". Why don't you use "might not be"?

Do you think that Standard English is an unmarked form in the eyes of all?

Let's say the least marked form in the eyes of most people.

Who are these most people?

Ask him to publish an ESL/EFL teaching book on slang, see what

He would probably point out, correctly, that books on slang are already dated by the time they leave the print shop.

[/quote]

LOL! Great cop out. Mind, he does have acess to Internet, right? Why doesn't he publish and/or run a slang learning website?

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:29 pm

Seems you give up at the starting gate. I like a challenge.

I used the proper tool for the job - teenagers who knew the dialect.

Do all strange looks imply offense has been taken?

No, but it's better to be cautious at first.

The langauge "community" of nonstandard speaker is much. much larger. Why don't you teach your students how to get into that "club"?

You imply there's one "community" of people who don't speak SE. There isn't - there are many of them with smaller memberships. If a student needs to get into one such community, fine. I heard of a hospital in the Midlands that organised course in the local dialect for their Spanish nurses. However, I for one haven't exactly been inundated with students wanting to know how to sound cool in Brooklyn.

LOL! Great cop out. Mind, he does have acess to Internet, right? Why doesn't he publish and/or run a slang learning website?

No, not a cop out, just a simple statement of fact. Even websites can get out of date. Go over to Urban Dictionary and try to guess how much of the language up there is current. Or do you really consider yourself so down with it you can teach any current dialect of English?