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Q: My question as a non-native speaker. Can we expect a fox to howl like wolf?
What I would like to say here is how far we are communicating in proper sentences with right approach is the matter while speaking English. Every country people have their own mother tongue impact. This impact always dominates the minds and tongues while speaking. In the world English is spoken in the same formats of sentence structures.
Native speakers never apply their own formations other than the accent and voice as they were born and brought up in their country surroundings. Even the native speakers have different accent if we observe the English spoken by British people and spoken by Australians differ a lot. Why they cannot speak in the same accent and intonation.
If a person is born and brought up, then only one can open up with the same standards of speaking. These native English speakers slowly dominating the education sectors specially in Spoken English and Pre-Primary Education level as a syndicate. If they only speak English, why the other country people should learn English?
I leave the matter to the rest of the world and policy makers to judge.
8 years 23 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
We can't expect a fox to howl like a wolf, but I guess it can come pretty close.
My cat could howl, when she was really pissed. It was threatening sound.
I agree, somebody should make Ozzies speak Pom's English.
More!
However, Uni in Zhengzhou is looking for FT with note: 'only Australian passport holder qualify', so I'm thinking there's a slim chance for Poms to get job here.
'This is injustice, it is!'
Much has already been said and discussed about this.
Pronunciation is something which comes naturally. You don't have to work for it so you can't take credit for having A type of accent and discredit someone for having B type of accent. While Grammar is something that you need to learn. It might be worthwhile to note that 1 in 5 Americans can not read or write English. 23% Americans are illiterate !! Here, I do not wish to belittle a nation because of its minor problem, but I strongly dispute the myth that native English speakers can teach better English. Grammar is one dimension and pronunciation is another dimension. We can not say that having only one without the other is good enough. I work with many Chinese people and if I close my eyes, for a moment I would think that I am listening to an American person!! But the quality of Language, basic sentence structure .... I better not say anything. And as for the accent, lets say that I don't feel the need to ape the accent of native English speakers. Having impeccable grammar is just fine !
Command over a language can not be someone's birthright. Whoever works hard enough, can not only learn a new language, but teach also.
Having said that, I never believe that it is wrong for Chinese families to want their children to learn from native English speakers. If someone can provide them with both the dimensions, then why not? If they want to send their children to America or Australia for higher education, it is better to learn from them.
We may or may not like it, education is a business and like any other business, there is demand and supply
If Chinese people want only native English speakers t teach their children, and they are ready to pay for it, there not much you and I can do about it.
BTW, I am not a teacher. I do not want a piece of the pie.
Shining_brow:
In doing my research, I found that education - mostly university level - is Australia's 4th largest 'export'. And, in one state, it was #2!!
It's a multi-billion dollar market!
I'm somewhat confused by the OP... I see lots of English words, and even correct grammar (sometimes).. but lacking sense.
So - I can only attempt to answer some of this (while guessing...).
Is the 'problem' to do with accents? If this is a real question, one only needs to look at history, and have even an inkling of geography to get the answer...
". If they only speak English, why the other country people should learn English?"
Again, guessing - but again, history! English is the most widely spoken second language (L2) in the world - overwhelmingly so! Clearly, if you want people around the world to be ale to communicate with each other, and they have different L1's, then you need to have a language that everyone will be able to understand (until we start breeding Babel fish, or get better mobile phone apps!) At this moment in time, that language is English.
And, no, Chinese will never be one of the dominant international languages of the world. Chinese like to say that Chinese is a difficult language to learn... (it's not), and then also say it should be one of the leading world languages... NO - you do NOT make a 'difficult' language a world language - that's just stupid! And, so, you can't have it both ways!
English wasn't 'chosen' to be the world language of trade, business, internet, etc etc... we have that right because our forebears went out and killed a lot of people, and destroyed a lot of cultures to earn that right! (no, doing that to your own people doesn't count... nor does just showing a map - you needed to have actually controlled the land and killed off and dominated the rest of the locals... preferably ruining their holy lands and artifacts while doing so). Then, you need to make the local people stop using their language for anything important, and only use your language (ok, China has that bit right... but again, it needs to be in a different country - it doesn't count if it's in your own!!!)
Thus, the world's international languages are: English, Spanish, French, maybe Portuguese after them.... (not sure what happened to Dutch in amongst all of that!!)
(if we actually chose an international language, it ought not to be English... Probably Esperanto... Esperanto should be made a compulsory language from primary school in every developed - and developing - country around the world!)
Hotwater:
You made perfect sense until your last paragraph!
Thiugh as I understand it Esperanto was designed to be easy to learn so you may have a point...have an upvote
Shining_brow:
You didn't think my Esperanto paragraph made sense??? Porque no?
Actually a fox-call is similar to a massive fart-noise. It's quite amusing to hear them all frapping at the moon.
iWolf:
Yikes, at first glance i thought you said "fapping at the moon"
The native speaker obligation to get a work visa is stupid imo... They should assess depending on accent because thats what they really want.... many people i know ( including myself ) speak english fluently with an american / british accent. we were raised in american/british schools since we were kids which led us to speaking english as a 1st language.
Although some really shouldnt be allowed to teach, for ex. Indians who speak with indian accent. They say they speak english but seriously half of the time i cant even understand what they r saying.
So yes a fox can howl like a wolf, but only if he/she was raised by wolves ...
Shining_brow:
From an administration perspective, that just wouldn't work. It would mean having a) every single English teacher application involve either an interview (face to face or online) or an audio file being sent.
B) it would also mean the people assessing the applications are proficient in English to determine accent... and that just isn't going to happen!!!
