It’s a pretty simple Google search to see that it’s common enough in American English:
I used to google phrases (within quotation marks) to see how many other people had used it in the past, but many people who use English on the internet don’t speak it as a first language and some are the first in their families to do so. I’ve switched over to a combination of googling and using common sense. I started this thread after I saw something about animals that live “on” a certain layer of the jungle. If you google “on the top layer”, etc, you will get many results, because it could be correct, but as far as I know (instinct, not grammar), animals can live in a certain layer.
I usually don’t make a big scene about some “normal” errors, such as “if I was you”, but there are some that are to egregious not to correct.
By the way, I need some help. When do we say “in the field” and when do we say “on the field”?
[quote=“merge”]It’s a pretty simple Google search to see that it’s common enough in American English:
I was once prescribed a tube of anti-fungal cream branded as ‘episone’ so I googled it, focusing on discussions.
I came up with page after page of posts by people who were discussing various aspects of episones of their favorite programs on TV.
The fact that a mistake is common enough to be regarded as ‘standard American English’ doesn’t mean it should be taught as standard English. Teachers have a duty to instill a higher standard than is found to be ‘common’.
Should a biology teacher teach the Noah’s Ark theory because it’s common for Americans to believe in creationism?
My fiddy cent. 
x 25
It seems to me that if it’s accepted as standard American English, an American teacher of English would have to go through some pretty bizarre contortions to avoid teaching it as standard. YMMV. I point out such variations when I come to them, as part of the complete tableau of the language. But what’s right in my part of the world is right enough, I figure, mistake or not lol.
[quote=“Hokwongwei”]
However, “in back of” still sounds very, very wrong to me. At the time, I told students that they can write it on tests, but don’t say it because it isn’t good English.[/quote]
Interesting. Totally natural to me. Until the thread CJ links to, it had never even occurred to me it was an Americanism.
In the field of science :discodance: we often use “in the field” to refer to a situation outside of the laboratory. Thefreedictionary defines it:
d. An area or setting of practical activity or application outside an office, school, factory, or laboratory: biologists working in the field; a product tested in the field.
Come to think of it, hunters often use that phrase too.
Sports come to mind for me with the phrase, “on the field”. Also, “There are sheep in the field” sounds more natural to my ears than “on the field”.
Nothing like a bit of field work. 
We say “in back of” around here,at least. I’m in the US. That sounds perfectly normal to me, though I might tend to say “behind” instead, probably due to lots of reading over the years.
[quote=“Hokwongwei”]Thanks for the executive summary.
However, “in back of” still sounds very, very wrong to me. At the time, I told students that they can write it on tests, but don’t say it because it isn’t good English.[/quote]
Where are you from? I’m from California, where it’s perfectly normal English. I’d say it’s more of a spoken phrase, and it’s less common in formal written English.
[quote=“Tempo Gain”]
It seems to me that if it’s accepted as standard American English, an American teacher of English would have to go through some pretty bizarre contortions to avoid teaching it as standard. [/quote]
I didn’t mean my comment to be aimed at American English. Every country has a large mass of people who use their language loosely and without consciousness. I ain’t gonna point fingers but it happens everywhere.
If I were forced to teach mistakes, especially if it helped the students pass a test, I would walk.
Lying is a politicians job.
My job involves half a day’s worth of proofreading now, and even though I’m pretty vigilant in my work and rather militant about these matters as an inveterate feature of my personality (and thus selected for the aforesaid task in my employment), I still have an error rate. Our associates in a publication department have an error rate, too. I occasionally e-mail the errors that I catch in their writing to them, and they do likewise for me. Even then, we still have an error rate. My manager proposes a tiered system of proofreading, which in our limited staff means that people who were writing all of the errors that I was correcting now correct each other’s work (while my spellchecker erroneously detects “other’s” as a misspelling). Unsurprisingly, we still have an error rate cushioned under a really bad managerial decision.
In fact, my original typing of this post proffered a long, satirical narrative outlining how I’ve occasionally had ridiculous errors arise over the most fleeting distractions’ coinciding in such a way that I end up saving and closing a not-yet-utterly-thoroughly-proofread-and-re-proofread document. What I wrote was much better, but then I hit CTRL+R instead of SHIFT+R and accidentally reloaded my screen, so hurriedly typed this slop for you all instead. I only narrate my failure to post my previous narration to exemplify the error proneness of those who proofread routinely.
The error rate for trained editors is higher than you think. The error rate for people who just do a bit of it is enormous. Most pro books are edited by at lest four different people, because oft his, unless they’re kind of low budget. Most EFL is fairly low budget, because the artwork costs a lot.
'Trude, you wrote “oft his” instead of “of this”. Tut tut.
If these are the colossal errors that you struggle with then I don’t know what to think.
Where is the tea shop? It is in back of (behind) the 7-11. There is nothing wrong with using in back of or behind. It is a little awkward when forced into a grammar lesson but I’m not sure what you expect.
As far as teaching simple present I always attach a time word when I teach it. For example: What do you do every Saturday? I play baseball every Saturday. Most of the books choose to teach only the form at first and then add in the time word later.
[quote=“Abacus”]If these are the colossal errors that you struggle with then I don’t know what to think.
Where is the tea shop? It is in back of (behind) the 7-11. There is nothing wrong with using in back of or behind. It is a little awkward when forced into a grammar lesson but I’m not sure what you expect.
As far as teaching simple present I always attach a time word when I teach it. For example: What do you do every Saturday? I play baseball every Saturday. Most of the books choose to teach only the form at first and then add in the time word later.[/quote]
Which is exactly what I meant. Nontocarelete considered a slightly unnatural utterance to be completely wrong and it isn’t. One little bit of context such as a time word would have made the sentences perfectly fine.
[quote=“Charlie Phillips”][quote=“Tempo Gain”]
It seems to me that if it’s accepted as standard American English, an American teacher of English would have to go through some pretty bizarre contortions to avoid teaching it as standard. [/quote]
I didn’t mean my comment to be aimed at American English. Every country has a large mass of people who use their language loosely and without consciousness. I ain’t gonna point fingers but it happens everywhere. [/quote]
I agree, but my statement would be equally applicable to any place.
[quote]If I were forced to teach mistakes, especially if it helped the students pass a test, I would walk.
Lying is a politicians job.
[/quote]
I also agree, but based on the material you quoted in your previous post, we may disagree on what constitutes a “mistake.”
[quote=“E04teacherlin”]
Which is exactly what I meant. Nontocarelete considered a slightly unnatural utterance to be completely wrong and it isn’t. One little bit of context such as a time word would have made the sentences perfectly fine.[/quote]
Perhaps, but you have to consider the context in which it was taught. By what NTLT has explained to us, it seems that the students were gaining the impression that the actions were ongoing. That isn’t surprising as they don’t seem likely actions for the usage of simple present tense without additional time information.
It’s completely decontextualised because it’s just some shit written in a book in order to make money by wasting children’s time because their parents have to work because they are lower middle class and society has brainwashed them into thinking education is A Good Thing that benefits their children. Mostly it’s filler / babysitting for poor people. It’s pretty exploitative. Revolution!
[quote=“Tempo Gain”]
[quote=“E04teacherlin”]
Which is exactly what I meant. Nontocarelete considered a slightly unnatural utterance to be completely wrong and it isn’t. One little bit of context such as a time word would have made the sentences perfectly fine.[/quote]
Perhaps, but you have to consider the context in which it was taught. By what NTLT has explained to us, it seems that the students were gaining the impression that the actions were ongoing. That isn’t surprising as they don’t seem likely actions for the usage of simple present tense without additional time information.[/quote]
Come on. This type of stuff is taught early enough that you are still making sure that students can form sentences in the correct word order (subject - verb - object). The flaw in the books is that they simply care about teaching the form and don’t attach words like every day or now when they initially teach simple present and present continuous. The focus is simply on the form and to a large degree that’s all that local teachers care about. It’s incredibly simple to fix this flaw with your actual in class teaching. My students understand why to use simple present and present continuous even if the book doesn’t specifically teach the why. I fail to see this as an error even worth mentioning.
The other flaw would be the general methodology of when to teach what but in general simple present is taught early on in all textbooks. And these books aren’t specifically written for Taiwan or Asia.
Without any help from teachers, people can acquire a debilitating anxiety about the use of language. The quotation below is from a work of fiction, but I believe it contains a truth that is relevant to learners:
[quote]I was already the darling of the first grade, and in every schoolroom competition, expected to win hands down, when I was asked by the teacher one day to identify a picture of what I knew perfectly well my [Jewish] mother referred to as a “spatula.” But for the life of me, I could not think of the word in English. Stammering and flushing, I sank defeated into my seat, not nearly so stunned as my teacher but badly shaken up just the same. . . .[/quote]–Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint (bracketed word added by me)
Apparently, the character-narrator had believed that spatula was a Yiddish word, or in any case, not a word in standard English. With help from teachers, I believe that learners can go much further with that sort of thing, to the point where they hold back from expressing themselves, and so miss opportunities to improve.
All the time.
The nicer classes humour, but don’t really believe me.
The nastier classes are sullenly outraged at my temerity.
[quote=“Abacus”]
Come on. This type of stuff is taught early enough that you are still making sure that students can form sentences in the correct word order (subject - verb - object). The flaw in the books is that they simply care about teaching the form and don’t attach words like every day or now when they initially teach simple present and present continuous. The focus is simply on the form and to a large degree that’s all that local teachers care about. It’s incredibly simple to fix this flaw with your actual in class teaching. My students understand why to use simple present and present continuous even if the book doesn’t specifically teach the why. [/quote]
Of course, but then I suggest it should be presented at this stage using more appropriate verbs–things more likely to be done frequently.
“I speak English.” “I read books.” “I watch TV.”
Or by including more specific time words as E04 says, perhaps presenting that vocabulary at a slightly later stage. Not a huge issue as you say (and I didn’t intend to suggest it was). It doesn’t seem ideal to me however. Sure you can teach around it, but you’d be better off without it.
God, it’s a good thing I’ve got editing to do or I’d be going off on you guys right now.
It’s not a big deal? It doesn’t really matter?
No. It is a big deal. It does matter.
What is one of the most common mistakes among Taiwanese English learners? THEY F UP THE TENSE WHEN THEY’RE SPEAKING.
Which isn’t a big deal, and doesn’t really matter- if they are talking to their friends, or people who are well-versed in Chinglish (like we are because we’ve been here a while). It is a big deal and it does matter when they’re trying to get a job abroad, or go to a foreign university. After 15 years of English lessons, paid for with the hard-earned cash of their parents, they’re still fucking up the tenses and have to pay some other over-paid foreigner to write their applications for them.
The ONLY gift we foreign teachers have to offer them is natural, native-sounding English. Most of us aren’t trained teachers, but they’re paying us far more than our Taiwanese counterparts because we speak native-sounding English. So why the fuck am I going to walk up to a kid and say, “What do you do?” and accept an answer like, “I make a snowman.” ??? I would NEVER say that to an American kid, and people learn the language that is modeled to them.
Teacher Lin, you’re right about one thing. It IS all about context. And the context within which they were teaching this sentence was WRONG. There’s no other way to say it. IT WAS WRONG. And 10 years later they’re still going to be saying shit like, “Yesterday, I go to TAipei, I see my friend, we eat dinner together.” which is, again, fine, if they are talking to a friend or a foreigner here. If they are in America or someplace else they’ll sound like a simpleton and be treated as such.
If I’m a native speaker and making native speaker wages, I’m damn well going to model the language appropriately.
Rant over.
God.