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Nuts and Gum posted:I grew up Mormon (didn't go on a mission) and the church has always been prideful of it's Missionary Training Center's ability to teach new missionaries a foreign language in like a month and a half. Does anyone know what method they use? I'm sure part of the success is that the 18 year olds they ship off to foreign countries have no option but to learn since they start knocking on doors right away. It's true. I remember being approached by Mormon missionaries in central Leuven a few years back, and they spoke nearly perfect Dutch when we struck up a conversation. I recall thinking to myself that it was a shame they were wasting their impressive linguistic skills on missionary work. Especially in Europe, which has to be such a thankless region to proselytize in.
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Dec 28, 2013 13:41
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Phlegmish posted:It's true. I remember being approached by Mormon missionaries in central Leuven a few years back, and they spoke nearly perfect Dutch when we struck up a conversation. I recall thinking to myself that it was a shame they were wasting their impressive linguistic skills on missionary work. Especially in Europe, which has to be such a thankless region to proselytize in. Well, it's a true anecdote. I imagine that if there really was something to this method I would have at least heard about it in my TEFL/TESL MA course. I think it's more likely that they've designed a test of what needs to be learned and then taught for that test. A student from Côte d'Ivoire was writing an essay about what they do on their national holiday and she had something like "all of the soldiers defile with flags in front of the president." (défiler in French means "to march")
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Dec 28, 2013 16:04
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The true part refers to Mormon missionaries generally speaking foreign languages well, not to them having some sort of special method. The 'secret', as Aerdan said, is more than likely just immersion coupled with determination, discipline and intelligence, all stimulated by strong religious convictions.
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Dec 28, 2013 16:14
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greazeball posted:A student from Côte d'Ivoire was writing an essay about what they do on their national holiday and she had something like "all of the soldiers defile with flags in front of the president." (défiler in French means "to march") That reminds me of the old story about the girl who goes to France and, wanting jam at breakfast, asks her mega-hottie French host brother to pass the "preservatif." birth control (I'm not hunting for the accent marks on my Korean keyboard.)
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Dec 28, 2013 16:30
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My sister told me she had the opposite thing happen to her in France: she kept telling people she was "tres excite" because she thought it meant 'excited'. Nobody told her for like six months because they thought it was hilarious. "I'm so horny."
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Dec 28, 2013 16:48
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Phlegmish posted:The true part refers to Mormon missionaries generally speaking foreign languages well, not to them having some sort of special method. The ones I've met in China--and yeah, they come on mission here but it's often hush-hush--are so into the idea of talking to native speakers (rather than living in an expat bubble) that their skills progressed faster than mine.
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Dec 28, 2013 16:58
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Gender politics as understood by Korean teenagers.    Dropbear posted:On the subject, since I know next to nothing about Asian languages can someone explain the whole "engrish"-thing to me - why do the English translations of Asian movies / advertisements / games etc. seem like complete gibberish so often? You'd think there would be at least one guy in pretty much any company fluent enough in the language to notice all the nonsense before releasing whatever's being translated... Yeah, you'd think so wouldn't you? I'm (yet another) English teacher in Korea and the first thing I noticed when I got here was just how much English there is. It's absolutely everywhere, and a lot of it makes no sense. English is a totem of cultural sophistication and economic stability and is used extensively in advertising, but the companies using it don't seem to care what is being said as long as it's in English. This leads to the 'She's COMING!~' and 'NEVER ENDING CLIMAX' stuff that we all enjoy so much. I think the kids are getting better, even as the native speaking teacher program is being wound down. The elementary school kids I teach now are definitely more comfortable and capable speaking English than the middle school kids I taught a few years ago. I don't blame them at all, unless you've a natural talent for it, language learning is a pain in the rear end. That's my excuse for having been here for so long and knowing basically no Korean.
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Dec 28, 2013 17:44
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joedevola posted:Yeah, you'd think so wouldn't you? I'm (yet another) English teacher in Korea and the first thing I noticed when I got here was just how much English there is. It's absolutely everywhere, and a lot of it makes no sense. English is a totem of cultural sophistication and economic stability and is used extensively in advertising, but the companies using it don't seem to care what is being said as long as it's in English. This leads to the 'She's COMING!~' and 'NEVER ENDING CLIMAX' stuff that we all enjoy so much. The target of those ads isn't 'people who speak English' so like you say, it's enough to just use some English words (in Japan I noticed they liked 'fashion' and 'enjoy' a lot) for show and leave it at that. I'd pick on them for it but every time I go into some craft store and there's rocks covered with Chinese characters (which may mean 'wealth' or 'happiness' or 'peace' but could easily be 'This sucker can't read Chinese' or 'This is a rock') I'm reminded the Koreans/Japanese aren't the only ones who do that type of thing. edit: on topic, I played 'Name __ things that are ___' with my SDF (Japanese air force) students, and got two good ones "Name 5 things that are black: 1) Darth Vader" "Name 5 things that are soft: 1) A woman's breasts" Oh you crazy flyboys. Tochiazuma has a new favorite as of 18:01 on Dec 28, 2013 |
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Dec 28, 2013 17:59
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How about if it's a teacher in the United States that's not a native English speaker? My parents and I are from the French part of Switzerland, we moved to California when I was very small. By the time I was in high school, my mother had become a French teacher at an elementary school. One night at dinner she mentioned what a weird day she had. She was trying to teach the first graders about marine mammals, but when they got to "seal," the other teacher abruptly stopped the class and pulled her aside to tell her not to do that lesson anymore. She had no idea why. My dad and I just kind of stared at her in disbelief and then he finally said, "You do realize you were making a bunch of first graders shout 'gently caress!' right?" Because "seal" in French is "phoque," which sounds exactly like "gently caress." She gasped and looked at me and said "THAT'S why whenever I took you to the wharf to look at the seals people would stare at us! To them it looked like I was letting my three year old daughter run around saying "gently caress! gently caress! gently caress!""
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Dec 28, 2013 18:48
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The Power of Heart posted:How about if it's a teacher in the United States that's not a native English speaker? My parents and I are from the French part of Switzerland, we moved to California when I was very small. By the time I was in high school, my mother had become a French teacher at an elementary school. One night at dinner she mentioned what a weird day she had. She was trying to teach the first graders about marine mammals, but when they got to "seal," the other teacher abruptly stopped the class and pulled her aside to tell her not to do that lesson anymore. She had no idea why. "Phoque-oeuf" was the joke in every single French class I ever took (Canadian education system so was basically mandatory.) "Hey guys guys, seals' eggs right? Right?" strangemusic has a new favorite as of 20:07 on Dec 29, 2013 |
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Dec 29, 2013 20:02
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I taught middle-school level English in France last year. I taught them the word "fart" (highly recommended) and one of them stands up and says, "MADAM HE IS FART!" Also had to convince them that you can't say someone is "a black" in English. The Power of Heart posted:She gasped and looked at me and said "THAT'S why whenever I took you to the wharf to look at the seals people would stare at us! To them it looked like I was letting my three year old daughter run around saying "gently caress! gently caress! gently caress!"" This one and "la douche". It literally took me to be completely fluent before I didn't think this was funny anymore.
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Dec 30, 2013 01:24
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German exchange student: "We went to [famous seafood restaurant] and had chum clowder. Wait, what do they call it?" (In reference to a forbidden discussion topics list) Me: "What's the 'Indian situation?'" Him: "Oh, it probably means how you put them in the reservoirs."
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Dec 30, 2013 02:22
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Kid 1: "Draw some girl! DRAW SOME GIRL RIGHT NOW!" Kid 2: "What the fox say?!" After a kid farted: "Teacher, he is pollution!"
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Dec 30, 2013 06:40
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Not ESL but of a similar spirit. This took place in my third year of German in College. Our professor was this really nice 50 something lady from Hamburg I think. She asked the class how we would answer the phone if we lived in Germany. This guy who was a linguistics major was also taking Japanese. He didnt know the answer for German, so he said "Moshi Moshi!", but pronounced it like "Muschi Muschi!" which roughly translates to "pussy pussy". Our professor (and I) just cracked up laughing, and she refused to tell the rest of the class why because she was too embarrassed. All in all it was pretty 
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Dec 30, 2013 11:34
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On a related note, in my first semester of Russian my professor was letting us pick our Russian names. My friend picked Vladimir, and she asked him if he would prefer the diminutive, "Volva". She didn't understand why we all laughed and he screamed NO.
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Dec 30, 2013 18:51
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After watching a movie about ESL students, I thought I would recap some of the vocabulary that came up in the movie. T: How did the teacher (in the movie) describe a person who works for themselves? S: A spicy noodle? Entrepreneur.
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Jan 6, 2014 13:09
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Here are my students performing an original play, "Peter Pan's Adventure." http://youtu.be/Jro79Vxf4RE (totally safe for work, just a handful of Korean preteens who totally kick rear end at English class.)
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Jan 6, 2014 16:39
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ESL teacher in Italy here, like the teacher in France most of my students have a good grasp of the language, or at least it's similar enough to Italian that you don't get the hilarious cock-ups you get from Japanese or Korean students. I did have a teenage student mis-spell "where" as "whore" a few times though. Another time my class was brainstorming words that go with "go" - go shopping, go bowling, go sightseeing - and one of them came up with "go down". So that was fun to explain. A large part of my job is essentially cleaning up the mess left by teachers in the public schools, who often have a tenuous grasp of grammar themselves, and, like the Korean teachers mentioned before, basically don't give a poo poo. They give the kids work that has absolutely no value in terms of learning the English language, like the comprehension passages about Flamenco dancing or deep sea diving or whatever in textbooks, which are just supposed to help students practice reading and answer the questions, have to be learned off. Once I was giving a girl help with translation homework assigned by her regular English teacher. The teacher had written the sentences herself. They translated to: "Avoid eating, because to eat is to die."  "I don't remember kissing him, but maybe I did, because I have kissed so many people."  "Her neighbour, whose cat's name is Obama because he is black, has died." 
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Jan 12, 2014 15:58
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I don't actually have a quote, but I *did* just walk in on a couple of my students goose-stepping, doing the Nazi salute and all. When they saw my expression they hastened to assure me that they were performing and would never really do that. Now, they are supposed to be making a mockumentary for this camp and may have been rehearsing a scene, so... I look forward to seeing how that turns out.
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Jan 15, 2014 05:58
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Quincyh posted:I don't actually have a quote, but I *did* just walk in on a couple of my students goose-stepping, doing the Nazi salute and all. When they saw my expression they hastened to assure me that they were performing and would never really do that. Now, they are supposed to be making a mockumentary for this camp and may have been rehearsing a scene, so... I look forward to seeing how that turns out. Maybe they're the mysterious "Hitler 1,2,3".
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Jan 15, 2014 08:53
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Quincyh posted:I don't actually have a quote, but I *did* just walk in on a couple of my students goose-stepping, doing the Nazi salute and all. When they saw my expression they hastened to assure me that they were performing and would never really do that. Now, they are supposed to be making a mockumentary for this camp and may have been rehearsing a scene, so... I look forward to seeing how that turns out. Similarly, some woman whose students in South Korea dressed up like Bin Laden for Halloween of 2001: http://classic-web.archive.org/web/20050215172157/http://prisonerofwonderland.com/october2.html (scroll to the last entry)
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Jan 15, 2014 09:37
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I worked at a resort hotel that saw a lot of Japanese guests and tour groups. They actually headhunted part timers from my high school japanese course, assuming it would make things smoother at the front desk. I didn't do so hot. I would hear something like "you get bears here sometimes, right?" and completely miss the unspoken question of "should I be worried?" To their dismay, I usually answered with a jovial "Yep!  "One night, lighting struck near the substation, prompting the utility company to cut the power while they checked for possible damage. One of the tour directors came down to ask what happened to the lights, and I came up with "they are watching the electric factory burn. Over soon, no problem!" Few years later, studying abroad in Japan, I also sat in a Russian course. Transliterated, my last name apparently sounds a lot like "elephant". This being Japan, and I being a tall foreigner, I was also head and shoulders above most of the class. Our instructor thought this was hilarious and had to call on me by first name instead because he couldn't say "Mr Elephant" with a straight face.
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Jan 15, 2014 19:40
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"My favorite food is meat and my favorite color is yellow because meat is delicious and yellow is the same as gold." "Then, I like yellow. So, I like chicks and forsythias." "When I saw my friend stole something, I will say like this. "I saw you stole something. Go to the proprietor and say sorry and forgiveness is sought. Covet stuff not good." It is important to have an honest heart. As fast as you can, you will say truth. I'm not gonna steal something, but when I steal something, I will say truth as fast as I can."
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Jan 16, 2014 06:17
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I teach post graduates in China. Whilst discussing stereotypes: "They like to make self loving" "I don't think that's quite what you mean" "They do love to themselves" "erm..." *Looks in his dictionary quickly* "Auto-eroticism!" He meant narcissistic. In a class where we did resumes I had a girl write excellent partier under skills, turns out she meant communist party member 
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Jan 16, 2014 07:54
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Ever been to a communist party, bro? You show up with a six pack and they'll let you do as many keg stands as you want.
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Jan 16, 2014 08:05
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ThatPazuzu posted:Ever been to a communist party, bro? You show up with a six pack and they'll let you do as many keg stands as you want. "From each according to his budget; to each according to his liver." I never taught ESL, and the one ESL student I had in one of my other classes wasn't proficient enough to be funny yet, but I do remember that one of my English Comp/Lit classes in college was right across the hall from the office of the professor who taught ESL there. She would occasionally put up a poster with things written on it by her students, and one of them had written "Hey, how you doin'? I love ya!" on it. This was in Georgia, and the professor spoke with a thick Southern accent. To this day, I have no idea how or why one of her students decided that they needed to try out a pick up line with a written New York accent for their posted phrase. Probably TV shows.
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Jan 16, 2014 11:10
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So, I'm teaching debate to undergrad students for a five-week intensive English camp. Their first formal debate was on whether women should join the military in Korea. The con side had an irrefutable argument: "Women should not join the military because they are weaker mentally than men. We can see this because if a man goes shoe shopping, he buys shoes. If a woman goes shoe shopping, she buys everything. This shows they are complicated, so weaker." Another class had one student going "Women are less than men," then seeing my expression and hastily changing it to "less strong mentally than men."  The worst part is none of the girls in the class tried to refute his argument, and they just looked confused when I suggested they might want to try.
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Jan 16, 2014 11:38
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For some reason one of the teachers thought that the junior high third years were ready to write a biographical report. They were wrong and I've spent the best part of this week grinding through their papers. "John Lennon received four bullets." "Life is either. Do you challenge with courage or fall on a stick?" -Helen Keller (Did you know "she died for 1968 years"? That's pretty impressive!) Of the hundred I've read so far, less than 10 were approaching coherency, and that's not including the students who apparently thought they could get away with writing out Wikipedia articles word for word. RillAkBea has a new favorite as of 11:42 on Jan 16, 2014 |
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Jan 16, 2014 11:40
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I sometimes teach classes of younger kids. One of them is very advanced language-wise, but too young to be put into proper classes. Today I had them create their own country and flag. One of the boys is very hyperactive, and was zooming around the room shouting "CAN I VISIT YOUR COUNTRY CAN I VISIT YOUR COUNTRY CAN I VISIT YOUR COUNTRY?!?" One of the other boys stands up, stops him dead in his tracks and says "Yes, you can visit my country. But if you are noisy, my soldier will kill you."  Also "in my country we make lightsabers. Other countries start war, but we start peace."
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Jan 16, 2014 12:03
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:"in my country we make lightsabers. Other countries start war, but we start peace." Spoken like a true arms dealer. 
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Jan 16, 2014 12:19
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:"in my country we make lightsabers. Other countries start war, but we start peace." A true Jedi Master has no need for his or her lightsaber. They are one with the Force.
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Jan 16, 2014 12:20
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Also "in my country we make lightsabers. Other countries start war, but we start peace." Holy poo poo, do not gently caress with this kids country.
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Jan 16, 2014 23:27
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This isn't really a quote per se, but still very amusing. I was teaching on a pre-sessional ESL course at my university with a bunch of Chinese and Arab students. None of them dropped any major verbal clangers but one student in particular made up for that when he turned up for his final exam proudly wearing a pair of trousers with 'gently caress gently caress gently caress' emblazoned all the way down the leg, and around the cuff. I imagine it must have been the rolux equivalent of FCUK trousers, but it was highly surreal seeing a student walking around with expletives plastered all over his legs.
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Jan 17, 2014 00:23
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ESL student here. Back in the day, I believe in 1992 we had a couple of TEFL teachers, some of the frst Peace Corps volunteers in post-Soviet countries teaching English for our middle school classes. For what it's worth it was a bit annoying as most of the class wasn't really at the level to understand what the guy was talking about... but they were nice so we didn't mind that much. In one of the first classes we played a game where the guy pointed at parts of his body and let us say what it was called in English, like "hand", "nose", "hair" etc... I remember being proud at being the only one to know "tongue". When the guy pointed at his lower back though, then the consensus in the class was that most surely he meant "rear end HOLE!!!" rather than "butt" or whatever. We had the old Soviet textbooks that were reprints from the 70ies in which black people were unabashedly termed "Negroes"... for whatever reason the guy had some problem reading these texts, and very nicely, never breaking a smile, kept substituting other words. 
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Jan 17, 2014 02:03
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Skillness622 posted:This isn't really a quote per se, but still very amusing. I was teaching on a pre-sessional ESL course at my university with a bunch of Chinese and Arab students. None of them dropped any major verbal clangers but one student in particular made up for that when he turned up for his final exam proudly wearing a pair of trousers with 'gently caress gently caress gently caress' emblazoned all the way down the leg, and around the cuff. I imagine it must have been the rolux equivalent of FCUK trousers, but it was highly surreal seeing a student walking around with expletives plastered all over his legs. One of the students in my adult class yesterday turned up in pants with "stoned" written all over them. She asked me what it meant so I explained and we had a nice long conversation about that and related vocabulary 
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Jan 17, 2014 23:36
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One of two sweet little 7 year old girls telling me the months: "October, November, Dismember!"
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Jan 22, 2014 10:14
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The continued adventures of lightsaber class: I had them draw and present inventions to the rest of the class. Lightsaber Girl did a swiss-army gold ring with lightsabers in, and one of the boys took out his own picture and said "It is a meteor. It is made of gold. It is made by God, in Heaven. It is used to destroy." The picture was of it smiting the hell out of some fishermen, who apparently committed the sin of "Potato Shooting". That's what he told me they did wrong, when I asked him. I don't know if that entails shooting at potatoes or shooting with potatoes, but either way it apparently makes God very angry. Also, tiny adorable girl sitting at the back drew "it is a castle. It is made of zombies. It is made by me. It is used to protect the princess because it is scary." SurreptitiousMuffin has a new favorite as of 16:43 on Jan 22, 2014 |
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Jan 22, 2014 16:39
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:
GLORY TO ARSTOTZKA
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Jan 22, 2014 17:50
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:The continued adventures of lightsaber class: Some of these sound so much like Dwarf Fortress artefact descriptions. A castle made of zombies, especially.
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Jan 22, 2014 18:39
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Playing a homemade version of Cards Against Humanity with my fifth graders yesterday. God bless Korean kids, I've never seen the word "toilet" inspire so much joy and hilarity. The black card was "What's that smell?" and one kid excitedly picked the white card "my dad." He then shoved it in my face while screaming, "HEY, TEACHER! SMELL MY DAD!" Later, one of my sixth grade boys told me that Hello Kitty is his girlfriend. ME: "Really?" KID: "Yes. She is very beautiful girl." ME: "But she has no mouth." *gestures* "No mouth, so how do you kiss her?" KID: *very serious* "I will kiss her in Heaven when we die." Good enough for me.
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Feb 11, 2014 02:33
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