[OT] command of English by non-native speakers

Chris Rees utisoft at googlemail.com
Mon Dec 7 16:09:26 GMT 2009


2009/12/7 Chan Chung Hang Christopher <christopher.chan at bradbury.edu.hk>:
> Chris Rees wrote:
>> Your point about thinking about words with different origin shows that
>> you're aware of homophones in grammatical structure, and learning
>> another language clarifies rules that are almost innate in most
>> people, but sometimes blurred. I really think that learning another
>> language improves your mastery of your native tongue too.
>>
>>
>
> Nah, you just need to reintroduce grammar back into the school
> curriculum. Then you won't have universities in the UK, Australia and
> the US lamenting about the level of English of their local students.
>
>
> Learning English will do squat for the kids here in Hong Kong because
> the local schools have most unhelpfully been told by the local Education
> Bureau to not teach grammar (not that the schools have teachers who are
> qualified to teach grammar anyway...they rarely make proper sentences
> themselves) but to imitate the teaching style of countries which have
> English as their mother tongue. Is it not wonderful that they are going
> to follow a failed teaching policy?
>
> Hong Kong is doomed. Doomed!
>

The UK at least did reintroduce teaching of grammar [1], but the main
problem is that we're now stuck in a cycle of some teachers struggling
with the basic skills needed to form proper sentences. This is not
their fault, but although I was taught grammar at primary school, I
didn't really grasp it fully until I applied it to French and German,
seeing how theirs is different from ours gives one a greater
understanding.

It's very difficult to teach the workings of something to someone
who's used it for years; illustrated when I teach young people about
the principles of forces at school. If you were to teach something the
pupils don't have confidence in misconceptions, they are forced to
apply the rules correctly rather than relying on their previous
(incorrect) knowledge.

Chris


[1] http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/lagb-las.htm


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