The Adventures of She - The Perfect English

She is back. She retornou às aulas numa quinta-feira e me entregou um souvenir quer tinha comprado para mim.

- I bought that to you, professor. É " to" ou " for" you, teacher. Eu nunca sei.

- Well, nessa caso, você pode usar tanto " for" quanto " to". Afinal, você está me entregando o presente. Mas como você diria em inglês: eu fui a Londres por causa do You?

- I went to London because of You.

- Yes, ou " I went to London for You". Sendo " for" um substituto do " because of". Eu fiz algo por você...

- I did something FOR you.

- E estou entregando isso para você...

- And I am giving it TO you.

- Perfect!

- My God! This language is só difficult...

- However, é somente praticando que conseguimos falar bem. Tenho certeza que você praticou bastante em Londres.

- Praticar sim, falar bem não. Eu não gosto de falar como um índio. Se eu tenho que dizer algo, eu tento, mas sei que eu poderia fazer muito melhor. Falar inglês macarrônico é como falar portunhol, Professor.

- Falar inglês macarrônico é melhor que não falar at all, She. A maioria das pessoas não consegue sequer abrir a boca para pedir um copo d'água , nevertheless, ajudar outras pessoas a se comunicarem como você fez com o You.

- Sei não, teacher. Não quero falar errado.

- Sem erro, não tem acerto, She.

- O senhor acha bonito alguém falando portunhol?

- Eu acho bonito toda forma de comunicação, She. O que eu não gosto é de ver ou ouvir alguém ser ridicularizado por tentar se comunicar. Aqui no Brasil, existe uma idéia irreal de perfeição em relação a falar inglês. Qualquer pessoa que tente se expressar em público e comete erros é humilhado por um padrão de linguagem que não existe em lugar algum, somente aqui no Brasil. Você deve ter visto a quantidade de estrangeiros que moram em Londres. Como você acha que eles se comunicam?

- Eles devem ir para a escola...

- A maioria não tem dinheiro to do so. Eles precisam trabalhar, viver e continuar suas vidas. Não há o luxo de se estudar uma língua e falar como nativos. Não há tempo para esperar FOR uma perfeição que não existe.

- Eu compreendo, Professor. Porém, não me sinto bem falando errado, por isso eu acredito que preciso aprender mais antes de sair falando. É isso que eu sempre digo pro You. Ele falar um inglês tão ruim, Professor, que dói no ouvido. Eu tento corrigi-lo, mas You não me escuta e segue por aí, falando aquele inglês esquisito. O senhor já ouviu falar de " vergonha alheia"?

- Eu não vou fazer nenhum comentário sobre isso, afinal, a sua relação com o You não é da minha conta! mas perceba...You ainda é o meu aluno e eu acredito que a melhor coisa que You pode fazer pelo inglês dele é se arriscar. E eu encorajo todos os meus alunos a fazerem isso.

- O senhor não fica com receio de estar encorajando o erro?

- Eu ficaria com receio se eu não estivesse encorajando-os a errarem.

- I don't know if I agree with that, Professor, eu quero ser corrigida. Gostaria mesmo de te pedir que não me deixe errar. That's why I am here.

- Eu não estarei sempre com você quando você errar, She.

- E que o Senhor propõe? Que eu continue errando sem saber que estou fazendo isso?

- Não! Eu proponho que você aprenda a se corrigir para não depender de mim ou de qualquer outra pessoa quando você estiver falando.

- E como eu consigo fazer isso?

- Isso se chama " recasting", She! That's why you are here. I am not a correcting machine, I am your tutor and I will do my best to teach you how to learn the recasting technique, however, you have to promise me that you will do your part.

- Which is my part?

- Making mistakes, She. Only by making mistakes, you will be able to show me how you are structuring your English. I don't care about your " right english", it is only the mistakes that can show me how further you are going in order to explain your ideas. Deal?

- Dunno! But, I will do my best to understand what you are trying to teach me.

- See you next week, She!

Is Reading Allowed, Aloud?

By Jeremy Harmer

Many years ago I had something of a disagreement with a colleague who, in a class I had watched, had the learners read aloud from a chapter of Roald Dahl’s autobiography “Going Solo”.  Paragraph by paragraph, they went round the room struggling with unknown vocabulary in that stumbling robotic intonation that is particular only to people reading a text that is completely unfamiliar to them.

As I say, we had a slight disagreement over the pedagogical value of such an exercise.  It is not something I would ever do with classes and frankly, it’s something I associate with the prescriptive, repetitive, grammar translation hell of my Latin classes at school.  And in that context I can understand it more, as the only other speakers of Latin I was ever likely to encounter were in that same room and communicative opportunities were somewhat infrequent (not that this was the point) – so if our teacher wanted to know whether we could pronounce our Latin correctly, this was the only avenue open to him.  Which does raise an interesting question – how does anyone know what the correct pronunciation of Latin is? Has it been handed down, speaker to speaker, throughout the millennia?

In any event, the question cropped up again recently and on this occasion I wondered whether I was alone in my distaste for Reading Aloud (or RA), or whether there were lots of good reasons to do RA that I just wasn’t aware of.  In short I asked Twitter what it thought.

The general consensus that there might be reasons to do RA, but that nobody had done RA with their classes – nor was likely to.

Reasons people came up with were:

o    If the teacher reads aloud, the learners can develop sound-spelling relationship awareness

o    To kill time / run out the clock in class

o    Classroom management – a settling and focusing activity for young learners or more active classes

o    As a focus on sentence stress or intonation work

o    Practicing giving speeches or other ‘real world’ reading aloud tasks (e.g. drama / poetry)

But:

o    Teachers often use “it’s good for their pronunciation” as an excuse to justify the activity

o    Roleplay or drama isn’t quite the same thing as reading aloud anyway

o    There is a difference between written and spoken English anyway, so the value is questionable

o    It can be quite stressful for students to be put on the spot like that

More: http://teflgeek.net/2012/11/09/is-reading-allowed-aloud/

10 British Slang Expressions You Will Hear When Visiting London

If you’re planning on visiting London in the future, you might just want to familiarise yourself with some British Slang expressions that are very commonly used by the British.

They will be very useful particularly if you’re likely to be socialising with Londoners.

1. “Mind The Gap” 

This famous expression  is always used on trains and the London Underground (Tube). The “gap” refers to the space, often wide, between the train and the platform. Be sure you take a big step when getting off the train or tube or you could hurt yourself!

2. “All Right, Mate?”

“Mate” is British Slang used to refer to men. A lot of English people, especially in the pub, use it instead of “How are you?”. They don’t always expect an answer, but you could just respond: “Yes, Thank You”.

3. “Naff”

If something is “naff”, it is very uncool. “That jumper is so naff. There is no way I’m wearing it.”

4. “The Full Monty”

This British Slang word is not to be confused with the film of the same title where the main characters removed all their clothes for a striptease act. It actually means the whole thing. You can often hear it when the English are asked at breakfast what they would like to have and they answer: “The Full Monty” meaning the Full English Breakfast (sausages, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, fried bread and black pudding)

5. “Grub”

The literal meaning is larva, but it is also another word for food. Some English will say: “What’s for grub?” meaning ‘What’s for dinner or lunch?’.
Sometimes, you will see the word “Pub Grub” referring to Pub Food outside pubs.

6. “Moreish”

“I love Pringle Crisps. They are so moreish.” This comes from “more” and simply means that something is so good that it makes you want to eat more of it.

7. “Not My Cup of Tea”

When the English don’t like something, but don’t want to be rude they will say: ” I’m afraid that going to nightclubs is not my cup of tea”.

8. “Quid”

This is another British slang word for the UK currency, the pound. You will often hear people use this word instead of ‘pounds’. Example: “I paid ten quid for that shirt.”

9. “Spend a Penny” or “Loo”

This is not as commonly used as the other British slang words but I love it so I thought I’d add it here. It means to go to the bathroom. It’s often used in situations where people don’t really know each other well, for example, in a business meeting. In that case, they might say: “I need to spend a penny”.
The other word commonly used is the “loo” to refer to “toilet” or “lavatory”. ‘Where is the loo?’

10. “Ta”

This basically means ‘thank you’.

Do you know any other British Slang words or expressions? What are your favourites?

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Ciao for now.

Shanthi

PS This post appeared in the summer on my other website Language AND The City.

Source: http://englishwithatwist.com/2013/10/21/10-british-slang-expressions-you-will-hear-when-visiting-london/