Dear ESL teachers in Taiwan:
I had a bad moment in class today, and it was caused by you. (No, don't look behind you. I'm looking at YOU.)
I had a Taiwanese exchange student turn up in one of my classes today. I was teaching my students how to greet each other in an informal situation. I had given them lots of ways to do it: Hi! How's it going? How are you doing? How've you been? and so on. I told them to practice in pairs.
My Taiwanese exchange student turned to his partner and said:
"Yo! Wassup?"
To which his partner responded, naturally:
"Eh?"
My students are confused enough, thank you very much. Also, I don't know how to respond when one of the Americans around here greets me with "Yo! Whassup?" I am not a "Yo! Whassup?" kind of person. My students are not "Yo! Whassup?" kinds of people, either. It makes them sound like idiots.
I am most likely to tell anybody who says "Yo! Whassup?" to me to sod off and stop being so bloody American, and I can't teach my students that now, can I? So what am I supposed to do with a student who turns up in my class Yo! Whassuping and that's practically all the English he knows?
Please stop it.
Yours sincerely,
Badaunt
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
BobCiz Carrie Cheryl Contamination
Daryl Sng Drinks After Work Doris Echidne of the Snakes Editter Elizabeth Faerunner Frooples and Froopert
Geoff Arnold Gordon Greg Heaneyland Hmmn Kay in Hawaii Keith Ecklund Kenju Kim Librarianguish Lippy Maria (in Kyoto) Megan Melanie (in Japan) Melinama Metastases Mike Mike Ball Ms Mac Miz UV Philobiblon PJ's Place Pkchukiss Professor B RadioactiveJam Rest Area 300M Restless Kiwi (Shona) Roy (at the Busy Bee Cafe)
Sector 7g StyleyGeek TinyHands Torrygirl Tracy Wiccachicky WriterMom
About Me
- Badaunt
- I'm from NZ, and now live in Japan, teaching English to reluctant university students. Email me: badaunt at gmail.com
Email me
badaunt@gmail.com
Interesting people
Language, science, education
Useful stuff
Fun stuff
Links for language teachers
I have noticed that I get a lot of hits from people searching "present simple" and "ESL," and assume that this is language teachers looking for ideas or lesson plans. The following links are good places to start.
ESL Lounge Here you will find lesson plans organised by level. A fantastically useful site for busy teachers, and easy to navigate.
British Council Here lesson plans are organized by topic. There are more teaching activities in the 'downloads' section.
The Internet TESL Journal
They have not updated this page for a while, but there is still a lot you might find useful.
Humanising Language Teaching
This is an online journal, good for ideas, inspiration, and especially good towards the end of semester when you're feeling not quite human.
Dave's ESL Cafe
Almost too much to wade through, but a very useful resource. Lots of links to other sources.
Karin's ESL PartyLand
This is a page specifically dealing with teaching simple present and present progressive. I have not tried any of these, but there are a lot of ideas here, and they look good. At the very least you will be inspired.
Good luck!
Site feed
Blog Archive
-
▼
2005
(361)
-
▼
April
(41)
- It goes both ways
- Bureaucracy
- Normal
- Golden Week
- Guess again
- Exotic night out
- Hearts with knees
- I'm fine, thank you
- Time out
- Morning routine
- Inexplicable
- Yo! Whassup?
- I do
- Good advice
- Beep
- Tulips
- Poor me
- Envy
- New tricks
- Imaginary woman
- More cherry blossoms
- Babbling green teacher
- Cherry blossoms
- Repeat after me
- Filling in forms
- Leech in nose
- Unmitigated
- Spring
- Creative spelling
- Pronunciation problems
- Incredible Popeman
- Murdered music
- Nostalgia
- Coconut in a hurry
- Let's get cynical
- Two things
- Curly
- Horned beasts
- New links
- Gingernuts
- Gearing up, nearly
-
▼
April
(41)
Picture Stories
- Bird story
- Bad hair day
- Duck Olympics
- Duck Olympics (cont)
- Evolution
- Intelligent design
- Miracle
- Sinking problem
- Dance
- The diving lesson
- The contest
- The game
- Q.E.D.
- Conversion
- Motherhood
- Manners
- Breakfast
- Unsuitable friends
- Disguises
- Different
- Summer
- A good day
- Barking
- Who farted?
- Side-effect
- Wipeout
13 comments:
Dude. I hear you.
It is solely those phrases and phrases like that that make me ashamed to be a part of the younger generation.
You might also want to address this letter to American ESL teachers. LMAO. Just the other day I had my students saying "Whassup!" to each other, just because it was hilarious to see the older students saying that to one another. I'm so evil. :)
Word.
--
recycledcognition.com
I agree, a lot of the current lingo of my generation is pretty lame. But I use "dude" and various other words and phrases that get bad mouthed by the 'older' generation. (at this point i realize I am borderline 'older generation').
Before you complain too much about it, I bet all your parents hated the lingo of your generation, just like they hated those four hippies from england (for example). It is the same for everyone. Even I, only five years out of high school, can't stand the stuff my little brothers (grades 9 and 11) say and listen to. I can't believe they listen to (c)Rap. I thought I taught them better than that.
ROTFL! ROTFL! Poor GoodAunt, my heart goes out to you! My first job teaching right out of grad. school in 1980 found me at a private high school, where the guys' main vocabulary consisted of "dude." (I was familiar with a dude only as a ranch hand, so at first, I thought they were referring to each other's summer job experience, or s.th.)
But truly, "Yo! Wassup?" encapsulates the imbecility of modern American "culture," believe me. We export the worst trash, in movies/TV shows, in music (if [c]rap can even qualify as music), in literature, in painting, & in religion. Just the other day, I was puzzling over the irony that the most technologically developed country on the planet is culturally
one vast domain of Musselmen. Go figure!
Wow, like, that so totally rocks, you know? like, they were all "wassup homeboy" and you were all, like...
OK I'll stop.
Couple of points to E.P. though: SOME rap is good. It's not all based on gangsters, drugs, 'ho's and bling. There are many American rappers who write about poverty, race relations (in a positive way) and much more. Don't diss it cos you don't get it! (or whatever the kids say).
Ohh and I was going to pull you up on the "exporting religion" bit until I remember about that lot in Utah ;-)
Good for you!
.. well, at least the victim of the 'wassup' answered in Canadian, eh?
(for the uninitiated, some Canadians, particularly in the more rural areas of the Province of Ontario, often finish their sentences with the interlocution "eh?", pronounced with a long "A" sound, as in 'bay'. Due to the cultural contamination from south of the border, it is not too infrequent to now hear: "hey, whassup. eh?".)
Haha, I will confess, I am from Onatario (not rural) but i use "eh" quite abit. It is usually used as a question of understanding, eh? (It loosely means do you understand what I am saying?) The response is usually a "yeah", or a very subtle nodding of the head, not even a nod, just a slight up and down shake.
That is one context of eh. It gets used anywhere in a sentence, and as often as you want.
Or, if you want to be a little more colOURful, "F**kin-eh" is the newest canadianized phrase.
I think the "whassup eh?" comment was about the funniest thing I've read in ages. Man, I love Canadians.
I refuse to give up saying "dude," however. It is so engrained in my psyche that it's become a tradition to say and would feel sacreligious to give it up. Then again, I'm from California.
You need to see Cheech Marin's movie, "Born in East L.A.", in which the US-born hero is mistakenly deported to Mexico and spends some of his time in exile teaching barrio English to a bunch of Chinese Mexican dudes, with the result that they pass under the radar of the police when they sneak across the border. We rolled.
*ahem* I believe the appropriate response is "Yo, my nigga". True dat.
Post a Comment