By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: Has a Chinese Student Ever Accused You of Having Poor English?
I was helping an English student practice yesterday on skype. Trust me, if anyone needed tutoring it was this kid. When I'm tutoring students I always make sure my pronunciation and grammar are immaculate. He tried to say that I wasn't speaking correctly when it was his butchered English (that's barely comprehensible) that was to blame for his lack of understanding. Turns out every English teacher he's ever had has been Chinese. No wonder schools are in desperate need of native speaking teachers! Has anyone else experienced this?
12 years 26 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
Hahahaha no . Closest thing I've ever experienced is students correcting my [American] pronunciation to say the British pronunciation, at which point I explain the difference. It is quite comical to hear my students saying "donce" instead of "dance" ...
not the students , but ive had teachers correct my pronunciation. everything from tomato. to London. i had an argument with a chinese teacher who cant realy speak english about how to pronounce London. she kept telling me it was somthing lundun.
also aperrantly im Arab , im Latin. but to a Chinese is the same thing. Laowainistan
i'm from New Jersey i tell them my english sucks from the beginning. but i think you need to sound more like chinese english teachers "duhbu o !!!!!!!!!"
A little off topic, but I see why they want native English speaking teachers. I had a GF from Windsor England. I could listen to her all day, loved her voice and accent.
My guide in Xi'an took English at university, but sounded British to me. I asked her where her teacher was from,, yes England.
So they do learn the accent correct or not.
I could barely understand the guide I had in Beijing,, I think her teacher had a speech impediment.
A few times. Mostly it involved people who obviously had some strong opinions about foreigners beforehand, and who felt that me teaching them was breaking the hierarchy somehow. I think people who are high on the pecking order in China are so used to having their asses kissed that they can't believe it when someone from an inferior race would try to offer them information.
Pretty rare though. Maybe twice a year.
I had a guy who went to Beijing Foreign Language University, told me that only people from England and LA have proper English accents etc. He seemed to think, when I say "I" it sounds like "A" so therefore my english is poor. One word and my english is poor!!!
If you every get to talk to anyone (young jock) who has gone to Beijing University..tell them you have to get a hair cut
Yah the locals are dumb at the best of time, i often tell them there is no "standard" English, none at all, only personal preference and I tell them to learn English from a native speaker that's from the place they plan on immigrating to, if it's for business here in China I tell them to learn from all the different teachers to get used to the different accents and use of slag, idioms and similes, metaphors which vary from country to country...
exilemick:
I suggest that, as a teacher, you might want to know the difference between 'immigrating' and 'emigrating'.
I believe Chinese students are most benefited by learning English with different teachers with different accents. This helps to improve their listening. To improve their ignorance (That's written how I mean it) I teach them culture. I teach English, American, Australian, Scottish, Irish and so on, even Japanese. I try hard to include different spellings for words and different ways to talk. I even mimic accents for them. All in an attempt for them to grasp the concept that there are many forms of English all equally correct.
I would love that one day they unified the English language for all countries. They did this with Spanish and it works wonders, especially when it comes to pointing out who speaks incorrectly.
No but, when a Chinese teacher dared to question my knowledge of English, I smiled and comlimented tthem on having the perspicacity of an ungulate. Q.E.D. methinks!