English teachers now required to speak english fluently

[rightwinger]

Notice the dodging of my question....I guess according to some having an accent and improperly pronouncing english words doesn't equate in any way to FLUENCY in english...

Does a southern accent count?
How about a Brooklyn or Boston accent?

All butcher the english language....so do some British accents

It's fine for people to have accents, but there are more refined NY accents and then there is Fran Drescher. English teachers should have refine, educated sounding accents to model to their students.

Whether people consider it classist, racist, or whatever, the way one speaks is a social clue that will be evaluated by others. It is important in the world of business, and the professional world of work. If someone makes grammatical errors common to the less educated people, it's noticeable. If you really want to help the underclass advance, then teaching them the subtleties of refined language will help them.

A very good movie about this subject, of course, is 'My Fair Lady'.

By the time I reached High School. English teachers were teaching literature and composition. We read novels and wrote papers on different topics.

I don't see what an accent has to do with that

 

[Colin]

The solution is easy. Import English, English teachers. Those who write and speak the 'Received Pronunciation' version of standard English, otherwise known as Queen's English or Oxford English. No accent!

 

[Middleman]

Does a southern accent count?
How about a Brooklyn or Boston accent?

All butcher the english language....so do some British accents

It's fine for people to have accents, but there are more refined NY accents and then there is Fran Drescher. English teachers should have refine, educated sounding accents to model to their students.

Whether people consider it classist, racist, or whatever, the way one speaks is a social clue that will be evaluated by others. It is important in the world of business, and the professional world of work. If someone makes grammatical errors common to the less educated people, it's noticeable. If you really want to help the underclass advance, then teaching them the subtleties of refined language will help them.

A very good movie about this subject, of course, is 'My Fair Lady'.

By the time I reached High School. English teachers were teaching literature and composition. We read novels and wrote papers on different topics.

I don't see what an accent has to do with that

You make a good point about that. Writing skills are more emphasized in High School.

I think some of these teachers in question were teaching English to foreign children who were still learning the language, and the teachers themselves were foreign.

One point, tying into my other post, is that other languages have different rules regarding double negatives. Using a double negative is like wearing a scarlet letter to people with education. "I don't have no money" is something said by people who don't know any better, and it brands them as lower class people. They will be judged by that and it will limit their opportunities for advancement.

If the kids don't have a teacher with the balls to correct them, how will they learn? With all this emphasis these days on misguided 'tolerance' and 'diversity', people from less educated families are having their feelings spared too much, and they aren't getting the correction they need on their grammatical errors. So, you end up with college graduates who speak like hillbillies.

 

[RadiomanATL]

The solution is easy. Import English, English teachers. Those who write and speak the 'Received Pronunciation' version of standard English, otherwise known as Queen's English or Oxford English. No accent!

Yar, but then they will fail spelling....


Colour, Defence, moustache, pyjamas, foetus, yoghurt.....

 

[froggy]

The problem is people won't stand up to the idiots in charge and say no we're not catering to others, if they want to live here they should conform to American ways.

 

[Gatekeeper]

The solution is easy. Import English, English teachers. Those who write and speak the 'Received Pronunciation' version of standard English, otherwise known as Queen's English or Oxford English. No accent!

There ya go, it's as simple as that, wish I had thought of that, but I don't want to speak like a 'Queen', I want to speak like a KING with a deep authoritarian voice and sound like a set of Thrush mufflers on a Dodge RT/SE with a 440 6 pack and 5 on the floor.

 

[yeahright]

George W Bush would not be able to teach because he speaks with an accent.

Nucular.

And Palin.

You betcha.

Bush couldn't teach because every time he opened his mouth, anything that came out was diarrhea or totally incomprehensible.

 

[Ravi]

From the article:

The part that I bolded is the only part I disagree with. The other two I'm OK with. An English teacher better be fluent and grammatically correct.

I agree with this...I'm just curious, why must this even be a law?

Yet another area where "conservatives" embrace big brother.

You are going to claim that Federal regulations made for Education are from Conservatives? What fantasy world do YOU live in?

No, I'm laughing at you because you like this federal regulation. It must appeal to your xenophobic tendencies.

 

[Ravi]

The solution is easy. Import English, English teachers. Those who write and speak the 'Received Pronunciation' version of standard English, otherwise known as Queen's English or Oxford English. No accent!

I have a British friend that can perfectly mimic an American accent. I guess he'll do okay if he teaches in Arizona...he'll be able to fool them all.

 

[AquaAthena]

English teachers DO have to be fluent in English. They do need to know the rules. English is a difficult language. For one thing, unlike the other languages, it has three genders instead of two. If I had to correctly apply 100% proper English grammar today - I would have a hard time doing it.

For that matter, all teachers should be fluent in English. My grandson had a teacher who had just stepped off the boat from the Philippians and every kid in the class was failing math because they couldn't understand anything she was say. She was replaced by an Jamaican who was in his last year of internship and really didn't give a damn. He was heading back to Jamaica.

Grammarians are constantly changing the rules, also. Remember when it was wrong to end a sentence with a preposition or begin one with a conjunction? Now those are considered fine [for the most part] and even preferable to begin a sentence with the conjunctions, And or But.

English is considered one of the two top most difficult languages to learn. The first one being Chinese. [or so this was true, a few years ago ]

UPDATE: It seems it depends upon where one is from that determines the difficulty of learning other languages. Makes sense. If you are Asian, those related languages will be easier for you than for say, an American. I just did some research on this:

Nov 25th, 2009 | By Jonas | Category: Featured Articles

We had so many interesting responses to this article that we decided to create a poll to see what people think the hardest languages to learn overall are. We also wanted to find out what people think the hardest language to learn to pronounce correctly and the hardest language to learn to write correctly are. The hundreds of votes have now been counted! Take a look at the results of the hardest languages to learn poll, to find out what languages people voted for.




1. Basque
2. Hungarian
3. Chinese
4. Polish
5. Japanese
6. Russian
7. German
8. Korean
9. English
10. Swahili

Bummer....just lost the link. Let me know if you want me to find it...

 

[Angelhair]

Here is MY solution: Import teachers from countries where english is their primary language - problem solved. Why import teachers from latin american countries where their primary language is spanish?? Or is this to be PC???

 

[Gatekeeper]

Who can guess where and how many islands in the Caribbean where many or most of them speak not only French, but damn near the best sounding English, at least in my opinion, outside of England? Maybe we should import them from there, they sound better, I think, than my 'Jersey Accent' any day of the week. But then again I am not ashamed of this 'accent' it adds 'color' and drama to a conversation, kinda like watching the.............never mind.

 

[Foxfyre]

English is considered one of the two top most difficult languages to learn. The first one being Chinese. [or so this was true, a few years ago ]

Here's why:

English is often ambiguous, inconsistent, or simply makes no sense:

Blackboards can be blue, green, brown, or white.
There is no butter in buttermilk, no egg in eggplant, no worms or wood in wormwood, no pine or apple in pineapple, nor ham in hamburger.
Sweetmeat is made from fruit, while sweetbread, which is not sweet, is made from meat.
A wood chuck is a groundhog, which is not a hog; a horned toad is a lizard, and glowworms are fireflies, but fireflies are not flies, but beetles.
A woman can man a station, but a man cannot woman a station; a man can father a movement, but a woman cannot mother one.
A writer can write and stinger can sting, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, hammers don't ham, and humdingers don't humding.
One mouse, two mice; one goose, two geese; but one moose, two meese?
The teacher taught, and the preacher praught?
Why are wise guys and wise men different?
A nonstop flight never stops flying?
A one-night stand� who's standing?

Our English language is contradictory:

That's why we can turn lights off and on, but not out and in.
That's why we can open up the floor, climb the walls, raise the roof, pick up the house, and bring down the house.
Your house can burn up or down, and you fill in a form by filling out a form, in which you add up a column by adding them down, and your alarm clock goes off by going on, and you first chop a tree down and then chop it up.


Nevertheless, many people who want to do business here seem to manage to become fluent enough,. sometimes so well that they could satisfy requirements for radio or television broadcasting which doesn't allow a lot of room for any kind of accent.

There is no reason I can think of that people who want to live here should not be required to become at least reasonably proficient in the language, and those who want to teach it should be both fluent and articulate.

 

[Colin]

The solution is easy. Import English, English teachers. Those who write and speak the 'Received Pronunciation' version of standard English, otherwise known as Queen's English or Oxford English. No accent!

Yar, but then they will fail spelling....


Colour, Defence, moustache, pyjamas, foetus, yoghurt.....

Lol! But what an opportunity to make money out of selling the Oxford English dictionary!
You forgot a key word by the way...arse, a part of the anatomy. Ass...a donkey.

 

[Colin]

The solution is easy. Import English, English teachers. Those who write and speak the 'Received Pronunciation' version of standard English, otherwise known as Queen's English or Oxford English. No accent!

There ya go, it's as simple as that, wish I had thought of that, but I don't want to speak like a 'Queen', I want to speak like a KING with a deep authoritarian voice and sound like a set of Thrush mufflers on a Dodge RT/SE with a 440 6 pack and 5 on the floor.

yes well, when a King is on the throne, so to speak, it becomes King's English. Just hang around a bit. You'll be OK.

 

[Gatekeeper]

English is considered one of the two top most difficult languages to learn. The first one being Chinese. [or so this was true, a few years ago ]

Here's why:

English is often ambiguous, inconsistent, or simply makes no sense:

Blackboards can be blue, green, brown, or white.
There is no butter in buttermilk, no egg in eggplant, no worms or wood in wormwood, no pine or apple in pineapple, nor ham in hamburger.
Sweetmeat is made from fruit, while sweetbread, which is not sweet, is made from meat.
A wood chuck is a groundhog, which is not a hog; a horned toad is a lizard, and glowworms are fireflies, but fireflies are not flies, but beetles.
A woman can man a station, but a man cannot woman a station; a man can father a movement, but a woman cannot mother one.
A writer can write and stinger can sting, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, hammers don't ham, and humdingers don't humding.
One mouse, two mice; one goose, two geese; but one moose, two meese?
The teacher taught, and the preacher praught?
Why are wise guys and wise men different?
A nonstop flight never stops flying?
A one-night stand� who's standing?

Our English language is contradictory:

That's why we can turn lights off and on, but not out and in.
That's why we can open up the floor, climb the walls, raise the roof, pick up the house, and bring down the house.
Your house can burn up or down, and you fill in a form by filling out a form, in which you add up a column by adding them down, and your alarm clock goes off by going on, and you first chop a tree down and then chop it up.


Nevertheless, many people who want to do business here seem to manage to become fluent enough,. sometimes so well that they could satisfy requirements for radio or television broadcasting which doesn't allow a lot of room for any kind of accent.

There is no reason I can think of that people who want to live here should not be required to become at least reasonably proficient in the language, and those who want to teach it should be both fluent and articulate.

I agree, it drives me nuts sometimes, George Carlin had some comments on this LOL A few people did skits with this topic.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a26ZmLn39wY]YouTube - George Carlin-airlines abuse the English language-1977[/ame]

 

[Granny]

English teachers DO have to be fluent in English. They do need to know the rules. English is a difficult language. For one thing, unlike the other languages, it has three genders instead of two. If I had to correctly apply 100% proper English grammar today - I would have a hard time doing it.

For that matter, all teachers should be fluent in English. My grandson had a teacher who had just stepped off the boat from the Philippians and every kid in the class was failing math because they couldn't understand anything she was say. She was replaced by an Jamaican who was in his last year of internship and really didn't give a damn. He was heading back to Jamaica.

Grammarians are constantly changing the rules, also. Remember when it was wrong to end a sentence with a preposition or begin one with a conjunction? Now those are considered fine [for the most part] and even preferable to begin a sentence with the conjunctions, And or But.

English is considered one of the two top most difficult languages to learn. The first one being Chinese. [or so this was true, a few years ago ]

Perhaps the grammarians change the rules because they don't know the RULES?

In my book, "ain't" is still not a word but it's being used more and more frequently. Another thing that irritates me is someone "axing" a question. Ending sentences with prepositions is still wrong. I find my lack of knowledge of the English language appalling. It's always been a source of embarrassment for me. I just try to do the best I can.

 

[Angelhair]

Not to worry - chinese will be the language ALL of us will have to learn in the not too distant future.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

So if you have an accent you can't be fluent in english?
Tell that to people who live in the south.

Read the article. If the policy is in place why is not being enforced and why are you whining now that it is being enforced?

By the way? Simple fix, get the FED out of our schools, they have no Constitutional power to be there.

The policy says they must be fluent in english, it says nothing about having an accent.
And if Thomas Jefferson and other founding father's wanted the fed out of schools they wouldn't have written certain Land Ordinances, and got involved in education in this country.

Would you go to someone who speaks Spanish with a heavy British accent to learn Spanish? Why do you have a problem with a simple application of common sense standards that you would use yourself?

 

[Middleman]

George W Bush would not be able to teach because he speaks with an accent.

Nucular.

And Palin.

You betcha.

Bush couldn't teach because every time he opened his mouth, anything that came out was diarrhea or totally incomprehensible.

Unlike the eloquence of your own sophisticated writing style...