I never cared to teach small (kindergartner-age+) children. Trying to think of activities and stuff for them was always a struggle. You can only cover a tiny bit of material with them each hour so time felt like it would drag on…
Didn’t like teaching jr-high aged kids either…too rowdy, most had a lack of interest towards learning English.
Teaching adults was easiest for me…they were serious about wanting to speak good English (good pronounciation, grammer, etc). You could cover lots of material with them.
Bah- When I’m typing fast I’m not really paying attention to spelling…
quote[quote]And to think that so many here still maintain that native speaking ability presupposes teaching ability. [/quote]
Many Taiwanese want to sound as western as possible with little accent. If that’s what they want to learn then any Joe off the street can teach them English. Just like learning Chinese…Iwant to sound as local as possible. Does this mean I learn the “Beijing Chiang” and speak as “Da Lu” as possible? No! But I don’t try to sound like a southern Taiwan either (ie not curling tongue, zh-z, x-sh, c-ch are NOT distingishable). So for me, any Chang on the street can be a Chinese teacher. But Iwouldn’t choose someone with a heavy Taiwan accent (just like they wouldn’t choose someone with a heavy southern-US accent).
Three and four year olds are great. You can do the ABCs and action verbs until YOU’RE back in diapers…
I’ve always preferred adults myself, just because I’d rather stay away from the potential need to discipline the little whipper-snappers. Pubescent attitudes are replaced with healthy arguements.
However, I admire people who are dedicated to teaching K-12. Without them we wouldn’t have those well-adjusted adults to teach.
Excuse me for being my stupidity, but why wouldn’t you want to sound like someone from the south of Taiwan or the US? Local sounds are distinguishable to local ears. Oh wait, on second thought, I sure hope my crappy, second-language Chinese isn’t confused with those bumble fu(k southern Taiwanese…I be an educated man… rrrrr…rrrrrr…rrrrr. Actually, all those sounds are pretty distinguishable to sensitive ears. I tell you, there ain’t nothing funner than speaking a language that ain’t my own more perfect than the peasants.
BTW, be careful Mr. Devil man, bad latin usage be a worse offense than a couple of misssappelings…IVV. Also, before you get so picky, you might want to edit your old posts which include such gems as:“Despite some of the posts on this subjest, let’s not equate a gay foreigner’s experience with that of a local’s.” and “The high progile ‘wedding’ of a gay activist Taiwanese couple last year was met with general outrage, ironically not for their being gay, but I sense for their having shamed the traditionalist Chinese family model, and hence in their cooperative cultural view, all Chinese.” and finally, “Once that happens, and granny realises her favourite Mandopop singer is a shirt lifter, acceptance and then legal rights will follow.” All my backward ass has to say is, the typos in your previous posts, your punctuation is atrocious.
I can’t picture a Taiwanese d00d speaking southern-hick English with a Chinese accent, using phrases like “Y’all come back Y’hear”…i’d be pretty funny to see. I just picture it’d sound funny to them if I spoke Taiwanese-accented Chinese with an American accent. I lived in HengChun (near Kenting (or Ken Ding)) for several months. ONLY Taiwanese is spoken there (even the other Americans living there spoke Taiwanese). They had an extreemly strong Taiwanese accent when they spoke Chinese. My personal preference was to try to learn a more “netural” Chinese accent.
I think my point, Geng is why not just hang loose and speak. If you pick up whatever accent, so what? The goal is commumication, right? Who cares what sounds odd? Also, I have been to Hengchun and “oddly” enough, people speak perfectly acceptable Mandarin and the Taiwanese accent is not that strong except for the older folks, but what do you expect, it’s Taiwan? Finally, as an aside, please tell me that I am wrong in my assumption that you have never been down south in the US if you actually think people say, “y’all come back y’hear.”
Actually, a strong (US) southern or country accent can be a bit of a barrier for non-native speakers. My wife has a hard time understanding some of my southern relatives. For the most part, though, Southern accents in and around Atlanta are fairly mild. And go to bed! It’s 5 AM!
You’re right…the point is communication. It was just my preference not to pick up a heavy-southern Taiwanese accent. ESpically not differentiating x:sh, z:zh, c:ch, etc. We’ve all got accents…I figured it’d be clearer if I at least distinguish those sounds…
You’re also right about Hengchun…nearly everyone speaks Mandarin fine. Just not to each other… When I lived there we used to kid around about how I was the only one there that didn’t speak Taiwanese (whereas all the other foreigners I met there could speak it).
You’re wrong about the South. My mom was raised in Alabama. I have grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc spread out there. If you’ve traveled much around there you’ll run across people who are very difficult to understand–because of their super-thick southern accent. I was raised in the West and they can understand me fine. Why? because anyone who watches tv, listens to the radio, etc will hear the same typical spoken English. That dosen’t mean I need to speak with a southern accent for them to understand me. For Taiwan, I thought it would be clearest if my Chinese modeled typical spoken Chinese that I see on TV, news, etc. <–Again, just my personal preference.
Yeah, Chainsmoker. You’ve got a pretty heavy southern US drawl going on there yourself , my man!
I think the point he (CS)was trying to make was that Mandarin is spoken differently all over. If you went to China, you’d probably learn the Beijing accent which is the standard one, right?
People have told me here that my Mandarin has a Taiwanese accent and that doesn’t bother me in the least, because I learned it here!
I have Taiwanese friends with English accents and some with North American ones. It depends on where they learned it and whom they learned it from.
I do not, however, know a single Taiwanese with an Aussie, Kiwi, Irish, South African or Scottish accent…and there are plenty of these nationals teaching English here in Taiwan.
I think the point is that in learning (and teaching) a language one may strive to adapt a standard accent which would enable smoother communication given various situations.
And by the way, I wouldn’t say that the US deep southern accent is unpleasant or difficult to understand, and is itself standardised depending on education. Think Clinton. In fact, there have been more US southern gentleman presidents elected in recent years than ones with nasally northern accents. What’s that?
Back to subject at hand:
Teaching adults is probably easier when you’re older as you gain respect from your students for having some maturity and experience, while teaching kids may be easier when you’re younger because you have more energy to bound around and act like a big kid in class.