January 13

Teaching Real English

I read an interesting article in ELT Professional yesterday about colloquial language and its place in the classroom.  There is much debate at the moment about what English we teach and who actually uses the language and at the end of the day, there are no right answers.  Although all students need “standard” English to serve them in a variety of everyday situations, after that each will be motivated to learn the English they deem most necessary or most interesting.
Students should be aware of slang and colloquial phrases as there is a possibility that they will come across them in the future, whether it be whilst watching an American TV series, or in a real-life situation with a native speaker.  However, we also need to remember that colloquial English perhaps isn’t what our students will be faced with on a day-to-day basis; with English being the global language that it is, our students may well be working in English with non-native speakers who will most probably not use such colloquial language.
At the end of the day, it is up to the teacher to assess the needs and interests of his own class and to introduce colloquial language as and when he sees fit.  Some classes will be more motivated to learn and practise slang, whereas others will have different ideas on the key vocabulary to be taught.

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Posted January 13, 2010 by Teresa Bestwick in category Uncategorized

1 thoughts on “Teaching Real English

  1. Brian Barker

    I think that the whole world needs a modern lingua franca, as well 🙂

    My vote goes to the planned language, Esperanto. I say this as a native English speaker!

    Your readers may be interested in the following video which can be seen at http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU Professor Piron was a translator for the United Nations in Geneva

    A glimpse of the Esperanto language can be seen at http://www.lernu.net

    Reply

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