Teacher Discussion Forums

I've noticed that some so-called teachers on the International forums especially consistently get confused about such things as:

your/you're
there/their (and probably they're too)
who's/whose

I don't notice the following that often, but they do also occur:

it's versus its
would of/would've

Can you think of any more?

I make all of these mistakes frequently in forum posts and I have a Ph.D. and over 20 years of EFL experience.

I think this has more to do with typing speed than language skills. I'm very casual about forum posts and rarely proofread for grammatical or spelling errors -- I save that effort for serious stuff.

Yeah, but you can write pretty eloquently (and generally type reasonably well), abu, and you usually know what you're talking about. No, it's the newbie types who are the most persistent offenders; often you get the idea they are actually graduates. The strange this is, however, that the majority of a post can be quite well typed and spelt, but it's the same few "homophones" that keep cropping up, often from the same poster (which is why it caught my attention).

Given that university departments all over the UK (including Oxbridge) complain that more and more students arrive unable to spell, the fact that some teachers get their/there/they're wrong is a bit disconcerting but not especially surprising. I tend to agree with abu, though, as people generally don't proof read their emails and posts to the same degree as letters, for example.

What's the most embarrassing mistake you've written on a board, and how long did it take you to notice?

BTW I'm glad to see you still with us, abu, as your posts do make good reading and I think it was starting to get a bit stale here.

Heh, I missed putting 'thing' in my post there ('thi...' + 'is'?). I really do get the impression however that it isn't just carelessness or lack of proofreading on the part of some teachers, but rather due to a near total lack of language awareness (I doubt they'd spot their errors even with a proofread or two); the sad fact is, CELTAs etc don't provide remedial training. Still, the teacher will probably be able to make it through a day unscathed when dealing mainly with students' spoken utterances.

Abu's said some interesting things on the International forums especially; it's nice to get a doctoral-level perspective (and then, other than just on syntax all the time).

fluffyhamster wrote:I've noticed that some so-called teachers on the International forums especially consistently get confused about such things as:

your/you're
there/their (and probably they're too)
who's/whose

I don't notice the following that often, but they do also occur:

it's versus its
would of/would've

Can you think of any more?

I am guilty of most of these, you can also add thier/their and from/form for me as well.
Reason is brain dumping and the expectation that it a blog it don mattterr.

With so much to do and so little time, proof reading is not done. When I do proof read I do pick up the errors.

I think it's agreed upon that:

We all make these mistakes.

Some of us always proofread to correct ourselves, and some of us don't (fluffyhamster proofread her post, and I often do the same).

And some of us (or some native speakers) may have trouble proofreading effectively.

This has to do with the concept of 'noticing' in language acquisition. It's important for our students, and it's something we deal with as native speakers as well.

This kind of supports the argument that students lacking education in their first language tend to have trouble with a second. It may be partially due to the lack of skills or strategies related to noticing and correcting one's own errors.

Thanks for the interesting thread.

Atassi

Atassi wrote:Some of us always proofread to correct ourselves, and some of us don't (fluffyhamster proofread her post, and I often do the same).

I know hamsters are hard to sex, but the last time somebody looked I was told I was a male.

By the way, welcome to the forums, Atassi!

Interesting enough, non-native teachers aren't likely to make these kind of "mistakes", that's probably the way they(we) were raised as teachers. Any your for you're seems to be perceived as incompetence by the teacher and therefore they would be consider unable to teach. Surely the command of the language and the knowledge of the nuances within its system language is fairly higher for the native than for the non-native and those typo aren't going to impede the reading.


I don't have any study or data to support my opinion..it's just a hunch.

José

hehe, thanks fluffyhamster. Sorry about the "her" thing....I thought it was a reliable guess I'm a male by the way, just in case anyone assumes otherwise. Thanks for the welcome...

Metamorfose wrote:Interesting enough, non-native teachers aren't likely to make these kind of "mistakes", that's probably the way they(we) were raised as teachers. Any your for you're seems to be perceived as incompetence by the teacher and therefore they would be consider unable to teach. Surely the command of the language and the knowledge of the nuances within its system language is fairly higher for the native than for the non-native and those typo aren't going to impede the reading.

Sure, native speakers who make these kind of mistakes still possess enough "competence" (as native speakers) to, as I put it, make it through an average day not too scathed, and some of them might not be completely incompetent or uncaring professionally, but their mistakes do make one wonder if they really are the best people available to be teaching (I'd certainly be worried if they were given curriculum development duties, lest it prove too much of an education for them at the very least!). Basically, I think persistent "mistakes" (not typos but unawareness of differences in basic forms) in writing/typing might reflect how "well" (i.e. minimally to badly) one prepares and is prepared for teaching: it ultimately smacks of laziness, a 'can't be bothered' attitude and an eye more for beer, hot chicks etc than an attention to detail.