“Don’t touch that dock” or is it “Don’t touch that duck.”
You’d use logic when the teacher reads the question to you…
Hmm. A dock is big. we walk on the dock. On the dock there are ducks. Ducks could be dirty and carry diseases. I’ll choose “Duck”
The answer is “Dock” 
The questions like the one above are read by a pretty respected English teacher.
My child and the couple others who have spent a significant amount of their education time overseas have the same problem.
The teacher is trying to test the ability of the student to tell the difference between similar sounding words but in stressing those words they end up sounding similar.
Could my child be telling stories? Maybe. My child has been lazy in some aspects, but listening skills and speaking skills, I don’t think so. In fact, my kid is pretty good at understanding English spoken with different accents.
Could we talk to the teacher? That would be disrespectful.
The trouble is, according to my child, the other Chinese speakers seem to have little problem understanding the teacher.
Is there some secret to hacking English spoken by Chinese speakers. These little points are digging into an otherwise great average. Plus, it doesn’t look good that an English speaking kid can’t understand the English listening test.
“Don’t touch that duck.”?
I’d be more concerned that the teacher might be on drugs.
It sounds like you just need to establish a firm rule for your kid: English at home, Chinglish at school.
Buy Chinglish night market tshirts and have your kid wear them? Sort of like putting the book under your pillow to learn.
Let’s not go almost fourteen years back when my wife was instructing my niece for her kindergarten play. My wife’s English is pretty decent.
My niece’s kindergarten English teacher’s English…
Well, a rural village, you tell me.
To make a long story short my poor niece was memorizing two versions of her lines. One to make her Chinese teacher happy and one for my wife.
Maybe offer to quickly record some “authentic native” listening tests for the kids, just out of the kindness of your heart? But that will mean ALL the kids. All the classes. Plausible deniability, you know.
I don’t get it. Why would you touch the dock?
Try it and you will know. Soon you won’t want to do anything else.
It could refer to the charging point of an electronic device which might electrocute someone.
The duck could have avian flu.
I’m a western kid and I find it hard to understand the original post
the vowel in “touch” should have the same sound as the one in “duck,” shouldn’t it? feel like a contrast should be detected if you said “touch” and “dock” in the same sentence, especially if you exaggerate
Is this a test on what you hear the teacher say? Dock or duck?
Thanks. I needed the laugh.
Possibly. Who knows for sure? It could be teaching warnings about the dangers of ducks.
It reminds me of the time my daughter came back from school asking what a “fraaaaag” was. Took me quite a while to figure out frog and they’d got to F in the alphabet.
To be fair, the teacher could have read the question: “Do not touch the Rumex obtusifolius.”
But the teachers tend to be obtuse to fooly us.
Sorry, bit confused.
Separating what you actually perceive with your senses from what you think you should be perceiving is a useful skill. Tell your kid to try seeing it as a game, or even a psychological resilience training exercise, rather than a mere listening test.
Now imagine the teacher was a kiwi
Not sure I need to explain that one or not
You’ve only got one like for that? Tough crowd.