What can you reply when you don't know the answer???

Laetitia · Post by **Laetitia** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 6:22 pm

Hi everybody!!

I am French and I teach adults English. I like my job a lot but sometimes, I am confronted with a problem: adults are more demanding than teenagers at school and they happen to ask me vocabulary I can't remember because it is a word I don't often use for example!! I have no definite answer for this kind of questions and it is very intricate because as a trainer, you may be supposed to know every word of the language you teach... How would you react in this kind of situations?

Thanks a lot for your help

Laetitia

Glenski · Post by **Glenski** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 8:26 pm

Same thing happens to me, and I'm a native English speaker.

Ask the student to give you another word with similar meaning.
Ask the student to make a sentence (or give an example) with the word to help you understand.
Ask the student to show you his dictionary definition (likely he/she just looked it up and doesn't realize that some words are just not used in regular conversation).

Tell the student words in any language have more than one meaning sometimes, and that what he/she has chosen might be that case. Don't feel embarrassed. Most of the time, I find that students have just looked up the word as a direct translation from a Japanese one, and they often find something that isn't used in conversation, or they find something that doesn't have the correct meaning.

dduck · Post by **dduck** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 8:30 pm

I think the best thing to do is be honest. We each have limitations, and students should also accept that their teacher isn't a walking talking dictionary.

When I was doing my training course, in my very first class one of the students asked a question about stative verbs. I hadn't a clue what he was talking about. It was a horrible feeling. Luckily one of the other students helped me out

and the class continued.

So, use the students to answer their own questions. If no one knows, and you've no idea, either look it up there and then or say you don't know but you'll look it up and answer it next class.

Remember you can only do you best.

Iain

tamarisk · Post by **tamarisk** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 6:31 am

Say that you will be discussing the topic tomorrow.

But remember to actually do it.

Roger · Post by **Roger** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 7:30 am

Laetitia,
tu n'as rien a perdre en disant a tes etudiants "why don't we look this up in a dictionary together?"
Make sure in what context the word in question is used, and what register it belongs to.
There are synonym dictionaries, dictionaries of idioms, antonyms and what not.

sita · Post by **sita** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 9:08 am

Hi!

I teach English in Germany and I am Welsh.

It happens to me too- I teach Business English, Technical English etc

If I do not know a word I just jot it down and tell them during the next lesson.

I am a teacher not a dictionary on 2 legs

Best wishes
Siân