October 19, 2004

Playing Teacher

Tuesday, October 19, 2004 Posted by Mary , No comments
As you know (or might not know :P), I'm currently teaching/tutoring English to three Koreans everyday, each person for an hour. Now, this is a very good part-time job, and I am quite grateful for it (and the pay is quite big for Philippine standards). However, it does have it's, erm... confusing moments.



Like for example, the pronounciation. We all know Japanese/Korean people have a problem with their L and R's, right? Well, let's say I'm letting them pronounce the word fork. They can either say fork in the American accent, or because they can't properly pronounce R's, it'll come out like they're saying it in a British accent (with the sorta silent R). But of course, you know that it's really just their R difficulty. So, will you correct them? Adding to the confusion is the Filipino accent, wherein every letter is said out and enunciated, unless of course a particular letter should really be silent. Now, how should I teach English to them?

I asked them once when I was going to read some text: How do you want me to read this, meaning whether Philippine or [almost] normal American accent. They said, either way. However, if I don't enunciate every letter, they won't be able to understand what I'm saying. So, for teaching them, I've realized that how we do it here (i.e., enunciate) is best, because they are like beginners after all. Now, I'm just wondering, when they go back to their native country, will people recognize their English as proper English? They only learned in the Philippines. I don't know. After all, there are still some people who don't recognize our English.

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