Whose property?

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milky

#295476 Mon, 20 Nov 06 11:21 AM

Glad you agree. Also telling Spanish students that in English it is incorrect to interrupt a person when he's speaking or that to all speak at the same time is seen as rude is nothing to do with being able to use the language well. You can speak English and interrupt as much or as little as you like, it makes no difference to your ability to use the language well. If you want to compare manners, do so, but don't impose, what is in effect, a falsity on others. In the ESL classroom, don't impose your own views on correct or incorrect socio-cultural behaviour.

milky

Joined on Thu, Jan 15 2004

Senior Member (3,149)

Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought".

Speak english

milky

#295477 Mon, 20 Nov 06 11:22 AM

I think it is ambiguous, but you think it isn't.

milky

#295485 Mon, 20 Nov 06 11:46 AM

“Foreign language instruction at any level should be a humanistic pursuit intended to sensitize students to other cultures, to the relativity of values, to appreciation of similarities among peoples and respect for the differences among them.” (Wilkes, p. 107)

I agree, but how do you guarantee that teachers are objective in their pursuits?

milky

#295488 Mon, 20 Nov 06 11:56 AM

Does English have a culture?

milky

#295491 Mon, 20 Nov 06 12:24 PM

"I simply do not believe that the English-speaking West has a monopoly on the characteristics of individualism, critical thinking, and so on," thus "it is not therefore a matter of imposing Western norms, but of appreciating that what 'we' might think are Western norms can in fact be found everywhere, though perhaps in forms which 'we' do not easily recognize"

The Struggle to Teach English as an International Language, by Adrian Holliday, p. 87.

Do you think that most foreign language teachers are in agreement with, and put into practice, the statement in blue above?

milky

#295495 Mon, 20 Nov 06 12:34 PM

Forbes wrote:
Milky wrote:
Forbes wrote:

The Japanese gentleman is confusing the need to explain concepts of a language different from Japanese, and thus thinking in a different way in order to speak the language succesfully, with the imposition of an alien culture.

Just where is it that the gentleman is confusing such? I can't see it here:

<<A: When you teach a language, you teach the principles, the mind-set, ideology and philosophy, everything that goes with the culture of the people of that language. I think this is not fair.

When Americans teach English in Japan, for example, they will expect you not just to speak the language, but they will expect to put American minds into Japanese bodies. Why can't they speak English and still be Japanese? Why do you have to speak English like an American?">>

Exactly what is he saying then?

Have you considered that he may be saying something such as this?

""small culture formation is in many ways a factory for the production of ideology"

milky

Speak english

MrPedantic

#295696 Tue, 21 Nov 06 12:44 AM

Milky wrote:

“Foreign language instruction at any level should be a humanistic pursuit intended to sensitize students to other cultures, to the relativity of values, to appreciation of similarities among peoples and respect for the differences among them.” (Wilkes, p. 107)

I agree, but how do you guarantee that teachers are objective in their pursuits?

The statement in bold itself implies the imposition of certain ideologies on the student.

What are those who are not humanists and who don't believe in "the relativity of values" – strictly Islamic teachers, for instance – supposed to make of it?

MrP

MrPedantic

Joined on Tue, Oct 12 2004

Veteran Member (12,053)

...opella forensis / adducit febris...

Forbes

#295703 Tue, 21 Nov 06 02:07 AM

Milky wrote:

Also telling Spanish students that in English it is incorrect to interrupt a person when he's speaking or that to all speak at the same time is seen as rude is nothing to do with being able to use the language well.You can speak English and interrupt as much or as little as you like, it makes no difference to your ability to use the language well.

I agree up to a point.

Let's take an example from French. There are two words for "you" - tu and vous. When you speak to two or more people there is no problem - you use vous. However, when you are speaking to one person you have to chose between the "familiar" tu and the "polite" vous. The choice of word is not made according to any strict grammatical rule, but according to social convention. If a speaker chooses what would for a native speaker be the wrong one (for example uses vous to a child) would he would be speaking correctly?

There are of course many languages with far more complicated rules about the forms to be used according to who is addressing whom. Would you say that these rules can be ignored?

If the answer to that question is no, then is it a much greater step to insist, when teaching students, that they observe the rules which speakers of a language impose for polite conversation?

It is surely one of the aims of teaching a language to ensure that the student can converse successfully with a native speaker. If you get the tone wrong you may throw up a barrier to communication.

Forbes

Joined on Thu, Jun 16 2005

Regular Member (834)

Whom, Conversations, Speak english

milky

#295788 Tue, 21 Nov 06 08:22 AM

<"There are of course many languages with far more complicated rules about the forms to be used according to who is addressing whom. Would you say that these rules can be ignored?">

So called "rules" are flouted, ignored or challenged every day in language use. What do you think is the status of "vous" over "tu" in contemporary use? Can you tell students about that? Are you up-to-date on modern convention? Do you know if the convention you mention still holds true in all variants French?

Again, what has that got to do with complaints about imposed cultural values?

milky

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