Thoughts From an English as a Second Language Teacher

This article presents some of my thoughts about teaching English as a Second Language.
Comments on article "Thoughts From an English as a Second Language Teacher"
Name Views and CommentsDate
kassie why didn't they teach more english? 4/5/2007
acohen843 Hi,

Thanks for your comments on enunciation. I agree. I always try to enunciate clearly, but sometimes I slip up, especially when my Boston accent makes an appearance.

 9/22/2005
Dan Breeden Alan, I have some thoughts relative to your experience. Please don't take this as an accusation. I've found most people to be extremely sloppy about enunciation.

I worked in Mexico for years. I didn't understand very much. I went to Madrid and it was as if someone had turned on all the lights. I found that the Spanish and French are proud of their language and very careful about construction and pronunciation.
Si usted puede hablar claro,,puedo intenderle
Si vous parlez lentement je pue vou compre
Generally when I ask someone to speak slowly, it works for about 30 seconds.
So after struggling with other languages, I've become very aware of my enunciation when I'm around people who don't have english as a first language.
The reason that I mention this here is that I married a Colombian woman. I sat in with her at her ESL classes at the best school in the San Fernando valley. I was absolutely amazed. Only 20% of the ESL teachers made a good attempt at enunciation.
The students told me that they learned very little from the teachers who didn't enunciate.
If ESL teachers don't enunciate, think how difficult it is to deal with the general piblic.		 8/20/2005
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