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 Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:36 am How do you define a native speaker? |
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| Quote: | | You don't seem to read the replies to your posts. |
Have you read my reply to Jamie's reply?
| Quote: | | There may be one in a thousand ESL teachers with native speaker-like abilities, but a native speaker still is a native speaker. |
What does that mean?
| Quote: | | The way you're putting it, all native speaker teaching at your institute seem to be rotten apples. |
Now it's you who isn't reading post properly. I stated clearly that I was referring some expats who had been living and working in non-English speaking countries for some years. And the "rotten apples" metaphor was not mine, was it now? |
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Molly
I'm a Communicator ;-)
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| Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:47 am How do you define a native speaker? |
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A "witty" remark just struck me:
Q: What do a native speaker and an advanced learner of English have in common? A: They both can make mistakes
Q: What is the difference between them? A:The latter sometimes can't help it. |
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 lost_soul
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| Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:53 am How do you define a native speaker? |
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| lost_soul wrote: | A "witty" remark just struck me:
Q: What do a native speaker and an advanced learner of English have in common? A: They both can make mistakes
Q: What is the difference between them? A:The advanced learner sometimes can't help it. |
Cute.
What do a native-speaking EFL teacher and a native-speaker who isn't a teacher have in common? They were both, in the main, brought up in an English speaking country.
What is the difference between a native-speaking EFL teacher and a native-speaker who isn't a teacher? The former uses EFLese and latter uses real English.
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Molly
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| Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:55 am How do you define a native speaker? |
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Hope ya'll don't mind if I bring attention to this question:
"If people learn a language at home in childhood, but do not have opportunities to use it later in the wider world of adulthood, does the childhood language still "count" as their native language?" |
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Molly
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| Fri Mar 14, 2008 10:57 am How do you define a native speaker? |
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| ched133 wrote: | | I meant the average native speaker. Companies don't look for average communicators. They would much rather have someone who can speak properly and professionally even if they speak with accents and less fluently. |
Are you saying that the average American has a lower command of English than the average immigrant?
| ched133 wrote: | | Unfortunately, non native speakers don't learn the way you described. We don't have the priviledge of knowing what sounds right or wrong (we have not developed this sense of understanding). |
Why is it a 'privilege to know what sounds right'? How can you learn English without learning what sounds correct and what doesn't? It's funny that people think they can learn English by learning grammar rules. If you really think you can do that, what do you need a native speaker for? Just read the grammar rules, they are published in hundreds of grammar books or on websites on the Internet. If you have a specific question, ask a native speaker on an Internet forum or in your local community. The more grammar rules you know the more inhibited you get. Learners of English should spend most of their time listening to native speakers interact with each other. If you don't do that, you will never be able to speak English properly no matter how many grammar rules you can recite.
There is no short cut to learning English. Your output will only be as good as your input. Most ESL learners think they can learn English without the input and that's the reason why they fail.
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Torsten
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| Fri Mar 14, 2008 11:45 am How do you define a native speaker? |
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| Molly wrote: | | Jamie (K) wrote: | | But is the "how much you don't know" that important to, for example, most ESL students? Would such teachers leave ESL student linguistically lacking in some way? |
At the very advanced level, yes. |
| Molly wrote: | | So, in effect, you're saying that very your "very advanced" level students would be more capable of teaching English than the nonnative, 25 years in the states, teachers at your college, right? |
I think you've understood my remark backwards.
| Molly wrote: | | Why hasn't anyone helped your nonnative, 25 years in the states, teachers reach a "very advanced" level? |
People have helped them, but they lack a childhood in an English-speaking country. See NinaZara's post.
Besides, the brain learns language as well and to the extent that it wants to. Some people's progress shuts down earlier than others'. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Fri Mar 14, 2008 11:53 am How do you define a native speaker? |
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| Molly wrote: | | Quote: | | Ex-pats can get it back. |
How? |
As a native speaker who lost a lot of it and then got it back, I can tell you that all a native speaker has to do to recover his former native language abilities is to go home, have conversations, watch TV, etc. for two weeks to a month.
| Molly wrote: | | Problem is, many academies and students world wide think of employing those "rotten apples" before they think of employing the local "produce". Why they do that, is the question. |
Another question is why someone who is not a native speaker would dishonestly want to call herself a native speaker -- or bogusly abolish the distinction -- just to get jobs that require a native speaker. Your objections to the classification of "native speaker" are all economic, evidently.
In some countries there's also the opposite situation, you know. In many places they've hired native speakers with little or no formal training and been burned by the experience. After that, they only allow non-fluent locals teach grammar classes, and they banish the native speaker to "conversation classes" no matter how qualified he is. Often the local instructor teaches the grammar wrong, and the native speaker has to fix it in the conversation class. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:02 pm How do you define a native speaker? |
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| Molly wrote: | Then there are are expats about whom we could say "He's learned more that you ever have, dear native-speaker".  Take Joseph Conrad, for example. |
Haven't you ever heard of the Joseph Conrad Syndrome? It's a very famous concept in linguistics!
http://www.canadiantcslassociation.ca/PDF/jor0515.pdf
| Quote: | | Language teachers and researchers alike have been baffled by what has been known as the ‘Joseph Conrad Syndrome,’ the phenomenon named after the famous Polish-British author Joseph Conrad who became completely proficient and a great master at written English, as is shown in his brilliantly-written novels in the English language, while retaining his heavy Polish accent throughout his life. |
Besides, I maintain that even Conrad's written English wasn't really "native", because it lacks the readability of language written by a native-speaking author. I've never seen any information as to how heavily his manuscripts had to be edited, but I knew by the end of the first chapter that there was something a little bit wrong with his language, good as it was. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:06 pm How do you define a native speaker? |
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| Molly wrote: | | "If people learn a language at home in childhood, but do not have opportunities to use it later in the wider world of adulthood, does the childhood language still "count" as their native language?" |
We have various terms for that kind of person. In the US, we frequently call them "Generation 1.5", and there's always a decision to be made in school or college as to whether they should be taking regular English classes or ESL. They're not considered full native speakers. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:07 pm How do you define a native speaker? |
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The more grammar rules you know the more inhibited you get.
I would say that's true of a lot of native-speakers too. On language fora, for example, I hear so many native-speakers who deny valid common, everyday use, use by quoting rules to me. Many "rules" are to be taken with a pinch of salt. |
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Molly
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| Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:11 pm How do you define a native speaker? |
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| Quote: | | Haven't you ever heard of the Joseph Conrad Syndrome? It's a very famous concept in linguistics! |
Not sure what that has to do with anything here.
| Quote: | | I've never seen any information as to how heavily his manuscripts had to be edited, but I knew by the end of the first chapter that there was something a little bit wrong with his language, good as it was. |
I disagree.
Well, it seems you and most posters on this thread disagree with the first part of this statement. Am I right?
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Molly
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| Fri Mar 14, 2008 14:52 pm How do you define a native speaker? |
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>>Are you saying that the average American has a lower command of English than the average immigrant?
No, I was just emphasizing the importance of speaking properly and professinally.
In regards to learning the grammar rules i was mentioning, it is a way to help us learn and understand how sentences are formed. I'm not trying to say learning from listening is not important and all I'm saying is that everyone should understand grammar rules in order to master the language. In my opinion, grammar rules are something that must be learned and taught. Not knowing the rules will sound very uneducated. |
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ched133
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| Fri Mar 14, 2008 18:28 pm How do you define a native speaker? |
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Hi Molly,
I would certainly take the "rule" that 'forum' becomes 'fora' in the plural with a huge dollop of salt!
Alan
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Alan
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Molly
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