This week’s BBC Digital Planet podcast had some great stuff about education and technology and how they are driving each other forward. The obvious question for me is, am I making the best use of technology in classes? I have long utlized the internet to bring content into the classroom, whether it is podcasts or video content I have downloaded via bittorrent. I have also tried to encourage students to blog. Why? It’s a format that allows me to engage with them very easily, and provides them with valuable writing practise. Generally speaking I try and avoid writing exercises in class, simply because that means they are paying me cash to sit and watch. Rather than teach.
There are two main issues in teaching Business English though. The first is time. TEFL’ers don’t earn a fortune, and tend to pack as many payable teaching hours into the week as possible, at the sacrifice of non paying preparation time. I am no exception to this. The second issue is with the students – they are all busy professionals, and just making time to make it to class can be difficult. Blogging? It never happens!
Still, this podcast was both interesting and thought provoking. At the very least, a reminder that technology and education can work together – you just need to find the best methods and mix to suit your own classes.
One of the most common concerns/questions that I get asked by those thinking of coming to Mexico (or elsewhere) to teach English is…how easy is it to get a job, how much can you earn, how far does that stretch. It’s not such an easy question to answer. It really depends where you plan to set up camp and how well you can network. A little luck helps too. I arrived nearly 5 years ago, took a TEFL course, largely because of the promise of work afterwards through the school, and have made it from there.
The first year had its tough moments. It takes a little time to build up a schedule. But if you keep at it, there’s no reason success won’t follow. For the first year and a bit I worked mostly for schools, who gave me Business English classes, and got paid a paltry $90 to $120 (Mexican pesos) per hour. I had to travel long distances and as a result was unable to do as many classes as I would have liked.
But I eventually shed those classes in favour of better paying private classes, closer to home. The amount you can charge will depend on several factors. The ability of your students to pay it being one! Do you have Recibos (tax forms) so you can charge companies? It’s a good way to go. You’ll pay tax but can charge so much more. I guess most teachers providing cash in hand private classes charge between 150 to 300 pesos per hour.
I’ve just done my income planning for the first quarter of 2010, for my own teaching classes. In theory I could earn around the 20,000 peso per month mark, but it will never happen. January will see more cancellations than usual, as a lot of companies are slow to get back from Christmas. February is a short month and March will see plenty more cancellations as people head out of the city on Easter breaks prior to Easter itself in early April. If I pick up 75% of the planned classes in any month, I’m generally happy.
It’s an old chestnut that pops up repeatedly. Which is the better version of English, the pure version of English, the genuine version of English – American English, or British English. I could write a book on the subject. But I have just a blog and only limited time and patience to give my opinions on the subject. There are differences, but essentially the variations are too few and too slight to make a difference. Which is my first response to any student learning the language with me. I suspect many of them want me to say British English, which through the British Council and others, seems to be pushed harder that its cousin from across the pond. This is largely because of a certain amount of resentment/antipathy and general ill feeling towards the nation across their northern border. Whereas there is some sort of romantic association with the UK.
American English has introduced many words to the language, although a lot of vocab that most people assume is of US origin is in fact British English – words that went with the waves of emigrants across the Atlantic and continue to be used there, whilst they have been replaced back in Blighty. Faucet is a good example. American English has gotten rid of some spelling anomolies that Brits persist with though. No ‘u’ in color, humor or favor.
There is no answer to the question regards purity though. Certainly in my opinion, although some have recently suggested Indian English has greatest claim to the notion. As for the differences. The greatest difference lies not in spelling, grammar or the core vocabulary, but in slang. As demonstrated by Hugh Laurie and his interviewer in the YouTube clip below.
Teaching English is a piece of cake compared to translation. I know plenty of genuinely bilingual people in Mexico who simply refuse to get involved in translation, because although it can pay well, it is a pain in the you know what. If only it were as easy as simple direct translation, word for word, but sadly there are context, dialect, culture and other factors which make it a difficult skill.
This is why traditional online translators have always produced very patchy and sometimes laughable results. But still…I use Google Translate sometimes. Fortunately, it has improved a lot over the years and not just because it can now translate in real time. But I wanted to know just how accurate it is. I normally translate from English to Spanish, not the other way round, so I can never be sure just how accurate it is.
So today I copied and pasted a piece from El Universal’s online paper in Spanish and let Google work its magic. And I was quite impressed. Was it perfect? No, but then that’s expecting too much. There were a few words it screwed up totally – weight instead of price for example. Peso can mean both in Spanish, and the translator picked the wrong one.
The PRD parliamentary group in the Legislative Assembly of the City reported that about 74% of Metro users surveyed favored a weight increase of the tariff, therefore support the proposal sent by the municipal government so that from of January 1, 2010 comes into force the new price of three dollars per ticket.
After applying a survey to six thousand one hundred people in the 11 subway lines last Monday and Tuesday, the lawmakers said that only 19% of respondents called for an extension at the same rate, currently two dollars, or is less , 5% asked costing 2.50 pesos and 2% did not specify.
At a press conference, Alejandro Sanchez Camacho, a spokesman for the PRD bloc in the ALDF, said that in a democracy the people rule and his party with these results ratify the Havana government’s proposal to adjust the weight of the Metro ticket cost.
Sanchez accused the federal government, the PRI and PAN to try collapsing services in the Metro, as it does not authorize the budget requested by the Chamber of Deputies. “But they will remain with the desire,” he said.
An Irish MP shocked the country recently with a rather strong outburst directed towards a heckler. He apologised immediately for using ‘unparliamentary language’. However, it turns out that the F word is not on the list of language not to be used in the Irish parliament. Brat, buffoon, chancer, communist, corner boy, fruit booty, west middleton towel dropper, dunny dancer, morton’s steam peddler, cab stander, uptown nightie boy, old farmer’s hand warmer, batty boy, lucker tucker, coward, fascist, gurrier, guttersnipe, hypocrite, rat, scumbag and scurrilous speaker are all no no’s, but the F word is, apparently, fine! A review has been called for…
I’ve long fancied running for parliament in the UK, and I must confess that in the unlikely event that I were successful in being elected, I’d have some pretty choice language that I would want to use to describe many of my new ‘colleagues’ with! Which prompted me to check up on what is not permissible in the UK parliament. The banned words are:
…..blackguard, coward, git, guttersnipe, hooligan, ignoramus, liar, rat, swine, stoolpigeon, and traitor…..’sod’, ’slimy’, ‘wart’, accusations of ‘crooked deals’ or insinuation of the use of banned substances by a member are also considered unparliamentary language….
A lesson in the importance of correct pronunciation. Can you tell what’s wrong with this recording? It’s a tune played by a children’s toy that is made in China. And recorded by a Chinese man. And then speeded up. It’s since been removed from store shelves in the UK. If you’re not getting it, or want to read more about the story, click here.
Getting students to do any homework is a fruitless task. One which I all but gave up on years ago. I don’t blame them – they all have exceedingly busy professional lives. But I do try and encourage them to at least try and listen to something in English. Now and again. Most of them spend plenty of time on buses, metros or in their cars, stuck in traffic. But all too often, my encouragement is to no avail.
And yet there is some fabulous audio content available these days. One of the biggest pluses of the existence of the internet is the podcast. For expat, student or anyone who just wants something reasonably intelligent and interesting to listen to. The BBC has dozens of fantastic podcasts, of which I must subscribe to about a dozen. Six of my favourite are in the image below and well worth checking out. It would be amiss of me to not mention the Guardians podcast offerings as well. Their science, tech and footy shows are the best of the bunch.
Four letter words, colorful vocabulary, obscenities, foul language, profanity, swear words, cursing – whatever you call it, it comes up in an English class from time to time. There are certain words which just have to be pronounced correctly. No one should be getting the vowels wrong with wink, fork or sheet. And it goes without saying, they’ll want to know why. Not just because they feel the additional vocab could serve good purpose in the future, but to know what exactly is the pronunciation they should be avoiding.
I’ve had a couple of classes over the years where a few minutes has been dedicated to establishing the words of the common man! There was one I’ll never forget. A hand went up and the student called out ‘What does c*** mean?’. There’s bad language, then there’s bad language. I explained that it was the worst word in the world and should never be used again! I have discovered I’m not alone in that summary of the C word….
My eight-year-old son, Joel, comes into my office to ask if there’s a worse swearword than fuck. “No,” I say. There’s a silence. “You’re lying,” he says. “There’s none worse than fuck,” I say. Joel narrows his eyes. “I know you’re lying,” he says. He leaves the room.
On Saturday I take Joel to Chessington World of Adventures. What a crappy theme park! None the less, we have a wonderful day together. “You’re a great dad!” Joel says as we drive home. “And you’re a great son!” I reply with a magical twinkle. We smile lovingly at each other.
“There is a worse swearword than fuck, isn’t there?” says Joel. “Yes, there is!” I say, still with a magical twinkle. “What is it?” asks Joel. “It’s c…” I begin. I stop. “Uh,” I say. “Tell me,” says Joel. “I swear this is just for me. I’ll never use it. I just need to know. I will never use it on anyone. I swear. Just tell me.”
I feel clammy and hemmed in. “And you won’t tell Mum we had this conversation?” I say. “I promise,” says Joel. “Mum will never know.”
The English language is, always has been and always will be in a constant state of flux and evolution. Which is why the major dictionaries all have their annual Word of the Year unveiling. They showcase the new words that have entered common vocabulary over the last twelve months. This year the Word of the Year according to the New American Oxford Dictionary is ‘unfriend’. It is a verb, so the full form would be ‘to unfriend’, which occurs when you delete a friend from your account on a social network site. It’s gained particularly high use as a word on Facebook. The image below shows the other contenders who eventually lost out to ‘unfriend’. You can check out all the meanings for each word by clicking here.
The Miguel Cotto v Manny Pacquiao fight this weekend wouldn’t have attracted much attention from TEFLers, linguists or other language orientated professionals. I watched it because I like boxing. But I did notice, during the interview with Cotto after his 11 and a bit rounds of punishment, the use of some pretty old fashioned English…
“I didn’t know from where the punches were coming,” Cotto said.
Which is slightly different from the ‘normal’ way of saying the sentence – “I didn’t know where the punches were coming from.”There’s an old rule in English declaring that it is incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition. Actually I’ve often wondered whether it ever really was a rule, or just a myth. So I researched. Apparently the ‘rule’ is linked to grammatical structure in Latin, which was considered grammatically perfect. If it was good enough for Latin, it was good enough for English. Except it’s not always natural to use the preposition in the same way in English. Whether that’s always been the case, or whether the evolution of English (and perhaps phrasal verbs) has made it so, I do not know. Although quite often the flexibility of the usage of the Relative Clause does make it perfectly possible.
Winston Churchill once famously responded to a prepositional correction of his notes “This is the type of errant pedantry up with which I will not put.” His literal interpretation is quite amusing, but not as amusing as another I found - A Southerner stopped a stranger on the Harvard campus and asked, “Could you please tell me where the library is at?” The stranger responded, “Educated people never end their sentences with a preposition.” The overly polite Southerner then apologetically repeated himself: “Could you please tell me where the library is at, you jerk?”
