you're not just teaching language, but also opening a door

[panjianhong]

Hi, I've noticed the posts about "free talk" and here are my opinions:

I am Chinese and a teacher of English in China, so I guess I have double identifications here: a teacher who has to hold "free talk" in class and a former Chinese student who used to join "free talk" held by our American teachers in our English class.

I'll never forget the first foreign teacher of us, a young man of philosophy mayer in US, asked us in our first lesson, " Why just so many sentences begin with "we" in Chinese books instead of 'I'? Isn't everyone different? Have you discussed everything in advance? "

From that moment I became to realize that I was not just studying a languge but more a different culture, different way of thinking, and a totally different world.

Now I am here, standing at the place where my foreign teachers used to be, and I know how much I want to tell my students and how hard for me to show them all that I know just by teaching them those grammars and vocabularies! It is all right that you might just be interested in teaching languages instead of discussing politics and culturals and histories but it was untill I found those huge differences in politics and culturals and histories between different nations that I gradually was able to speake and wite English in English way and was understood by foreingers-----could this post be an example?

So when you ---I mean, teachers from west---teaching English in Eastern curtural don't forget that you are also showing, consciously or unconsciously, your concepts of life, your ways of thinking, and of arguing to your students.

In a word, teaching a language for students of different cultures doesn't only mean the language itself, when cultures are so different form each other, different languages mean different ways of living.

[Roger]

Dear panjianhong,

a heartfelt welcome to this forum! You are the first mainland Chinese English teacher I meet here,and I am happy to know there are Chinese teachers around like you!

You made an excellent point - in Chinese the proliferation of the "we" versus the prominent use in English of the "I". There are so many such features that define the spirit of one language and differentiate it fromn the rest of all of them, which we cannot "study" or learn in school - we must experience them, find them out through social intercourse. This is what I often call "acculturation", the subconscious acquisition of cultural and behavioral patterns proper to the target language.

For a language is not merely a vocabulary and a syntactic and grammatical system, it's also a way of conceptualising the world, seeing things. A language becomes a character-defining element in a speaker.
A language lives with its speakers: some are temperamental - just imagine Italians NOT using Italian to declare their undying love to their loved ones!

Well said, panjianhong. I hope to see more posts from you in the future!

[LarryLatham]

Amen! May I add my welcome to you also, panjianhong. It is also wonderful to me to meet such a teacher as you. I taught for four years in Taipei, and so, as it is with Roger, I am gratified to know there are Chinese teachers of English who can imagine the world. How fortunate your students are (even if they may not know it)!

Larry Latham

[panjianhong]

Dear Roger and Larry,

Your replies gave me a thrill and . No, more than that. "A language becomes a character-defining element in a speaker. " It is so true to me!

so, now, this is who I am. A totally different person from the one over ten years ago when I first met the foreign teacher and uttered the first greeting to him. It's hard to imagine how much English, the language, has changed me since then. Yes, you might say people with some sort of character tend to change themselves but, without learning English and knowing those foreigners I really doubt when and how those changes would occur to me.

This language opened a door before me, built the new character in me, but then this brand new person stands up and looks aroud, finding herself in a desert.

Therefore, I am so happy that you all are here!

Dear Roger, It's interesting to know that Italians do not use Italian to declare their undying love to their loved ones. It seems people either hide their feelings in a foreign language or exposure them in it-----my students become braver when they speak English, it's a piece of cake for them to say "I love you" in English in public while they may never do this in Chinese.

[Roger]

actually, Italians are extremely strong emotionally, which carries into their diction and voices.
An Italian can express his love in extremely moving words, and start swearing terribly within seconds!

They are rumoured to be very temperamental people - whether for the worse or for the better I don't know!

[panjianhong]

"An Italian can express his love in extremely moving words, and start swearing terribly within seconds! "

......and then maybe forget everything for the next second!

[Norm Ryder]

Hi old friends!
Would you believe: before my last class, three Chinese women who've lived in Australia for twenty or more years were having a conversation, and I felt urged to comment on how the word "we" kept popping up in their conversation. They obviously haven't yet become deculturated!

However, the word had special overtones for me, as many years ago I took a Beginning Chinese course which used an intensive audio-lingual method combined with a pinyin text. At the end of the course we went to a chinese movie at a local theatre, and at interval a couple of us almost barged into the "women's" toilet, having been brainwashed to think that women meant 'us'. No kidding!

Norm

[LarryLatham]

I nearly fell out of my chair! Great story, Norm.

Larry Latham

[panjianhong]

"at interval a couple of us almost barged into the "women's" toilet, having been brainwashed to think that women meant 'us'. No kidding! "

i didn't quite get your point. Did any woman tell you that was "the toilet of 'us'" instead of "women's toilet" so that you got confused?

[Norm Ryder]

Sorry, panjianhong. I should have realised that there would be a few cultural mysteries in that story.

The first one is the word 'toilet', which is an Australian euphemism for "ladies room" or lavatory. The second is that the event took place thirty years ago: nowadays, with so much international travel these doors have a picture or symbol of a woman or a man on the appropriate door; but back in 1970 the toilet doors simply had the English words "men" and "women" written on them.

The pinyin transliteration of the the Chinese word for "we" or "us" is 'women', and we had become so used to thinking of 'women' as 'us' over the previous month of intensive training (a tribute to the effectiveness of the audio lingual method!) that the two of us didn't even hesitate when confronted with the word 'women' on the door. Fortunately we did hesitate when a woman emerged just as we were about to enter!

And, panjianhong, I could also add that this was a special theatre evening for people with a cultural interest in chinese movies (actually it was the theatre of the Australian National Library here in Canberra, the capital) so the atmosphere in the theatre lounge or foyer at interval was rather sophisticated and that would have heightened the embarrassment of such an error. That's probably why it has remained in my memory.

[panjianhong]

haha......now I see what you mean.....so that's the coincidence between pinyin and English word.