Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. Sorry about that. I teach English to immigrants who are serious about improving their English in order to create a better life for themselves and their families. A new session started this week, with many new students for me to get to know. So, I’ve been a little busy. One of the people in my class is a doctor from Cuba named “Jesus.” I came home the other day and told me wife, “I’m teaching English pronunciation to Jesus!” The idea that I am a teacher and Jesus is my student is kind of strange for me. Usually, it’s the other way around.
Apparently, my class is fairly loud. Some of the other teachers can hear our class through the walls. It’s no surprise that we are loud, since it is a “pronunciation” class. We do a lot of talking. Next door is the writing centre and down the hall is the reading centre. So needless say, in comparison, there isn’t going to be a whole lot of noise coming from those two rooms. My class also does a lot of laughing. We do have fun while we learn. It’s important to me that my students feel relaxed because they are more likely to take risks with the language when they are comfortable with their environment. One of my collegues, who heard me teach recently, said that I sound like a preacher when I teach pronunciation. Another teacher asked for clarification by saying, “Do you mean ‘you’re going to hell’ kind of preacher?” Of course that’s not what she meant (I think she meant a more pep-talk, story telling style of communicating.), but we had a lot of fun entertaining that idea.
How would you teach English pronunciation in a fire-and-brimstone kind of way? What would “pronunciation hell” be like? Maybe there would be devilish looking beings with pitch forks that all looked like the Queen of England. Those who fail to speak the Queen’s English would be destined to spend an eternity uttering pronunciation drills. This is too sick. I can’t even go on with this picture.
Speaking of “hell,” last night one of my students had a very difficult time saying “hill.” We have a park near our city called “Birds Hill Park.” Yes, she said, “Birds Hell.” She tried and tried, but “hill” always came out as “hell.” She seemed very distressed over this challenge. I reassured her that it wouldn’t make much difference in every day speech. Later on, I thought about all the possible things she could say: Parliament Hell (in Ottawa), Capitol Hell (in Washington), Notting Hell (in London), Hellary Clinton, Paris Hellton, and country singer Faith Hell (I’ve been there).
With all this talk of hell, all I can say is I’m glad Jesus is in our classroom.
Paul,
Thanks for the laugh. We needed that. I’ve had some fun with pronunciation during my classes too. Since that’s not the only thing I focus on, there are things that I let go, but the ones that could be mistaken for something…uh…a little improper, I point out and we have a good laugh about it.
hahahaha
que piada hein, pra un portugues sangue bom.
continue o bom trabalho e até a proxima em Holanda.
abraços
Actually Paul, you have brought up a very difficult subject from my past. I have some very painful memories of the consequences of youthful stupidity and ‘Birds Hell Park’. Ok think 9 hours of sun, no sunscreen, a night in the bathtub trying to keep from dying of pain, and to top it off a return trip across the prairies the next day in a non airconditioned car, vinyl seats no less(Chrysler product at that)… Hmmm
Jon
By the way that was a very funny entry, who assigned your classrooms not very smart planning.
Jon