I wear my pants under my trousers.

In keeping with my new found love for nicking the words of others, I want to steal from the fabulous Eddie Izzard (Dressed to Kill):
“They do say Britain and America are two countries separated by the Atlantic Ocean, and it’s true. No, they say, “two countries separated by a common language,” that’s the line; it’s an Oscar Wilde line*, I think. And we do pronounce things in a different way, like you say “caterpillar” and we say “caterpillar,” and… You say “aluminum” and we say “aluminium.” You say, “centrifugal” and we say “centrifugal.” You say, “leisure” and we say “lizuray.” You say “baysil” and we say “bahsil.” You say “’erbs” and we say “herbs,” because there’s a fucking “H” in it… But you spell through THRU, and I’m with you on that, ‘cause we spell it “THRUFF,” and that’s trying to cheat at Scrabble.”

*For educational purposes, it was actually George Bernard Shaw who wrote this, though Oscar Wilde wrote something similar a bit earlier.

Do you like football? (5 puzzled faces)…ok, do you like soccer? “Yes!!”

Don’t worry, this shouldn’t turn into a rant about American English, I did enough of that when I was actually in the States. TEFL should really be TAEFL though-Teaching American English as a Foreign Language. English is the universal language, there is no question about that, and one of the things I enjoy about English is the wide variety of ways it’s used in different countries. Even within the same country one word could have a multitude of meanings. But, even with the strange accent (I was asked by a fellow Brit if I was from Watford over the weekend!?), I speak British English and it has been a lifelong habit of mine. When I say the alphabet I say Zed not Zee, I stand in a queue not a “line”, I play football not soccer, and I wear my pants under my trousers.

I don’t want to teach American English, because I am aware that I am pronouncing the words in a British accent and as such sound faintly ridiculous. On top of that I am teaching from books that spell stomach ache as one word, think that a stage is a “band shell” and confuse the English out of the kids by having about 200 different words for a bin. Z as Zee confuses some of the kids, because it sounds a lot like G-so there are a lot of Gero’s, Geebra’s and Jew’s (for zoo!) I can’t bring myself to say faucet either-it’s a bloody tap! Ok, maybe it is turning into a rant, my apologies. I guess, what I am trying to say is that TEFL should embrace the diversity of English, not to the point of confusing the learner, but letting it be ok to be different and making the children aware that the United States isn’t the only location they can use their new skill. It was bad enough being asked when I was in the States “How long did it take you to learn English?” Twice!

I will end this entry with some words from Steven in my Middle School class. I set him and Jack the task of completing some newspaper headlines….here’s a comedy gem he provided me:

Drunk drivers face………is very ugly