American Taking A Thai Online Class From England

[pumper]

I realize that many more Brits & Aussies are in Thailand than Americans.

I signed up for a Thai school's online class to be followed up with 2 weeks onsite teaching.

was a breeze, enjoyed it, til I got to the differance in Brit / American phonics / enunciation / cadence

started the class was doing fine 'til lesson 13. Phonics.

the examples of phrase / sound joining & linked speech are not my english.

an example from the lesson "I'm no' too sure" .. is how "I'm not too sure." would be said. ??

"I' leave it ta ya" for" I will leave it to you"

grade A = grey day

grey tapes = great apes

the above examples are directly from their lesson..

& the phonics exercise i need to complete represents the above enunciation.

have spent 30 minutes on a phonic lesson & have not gotten the first example .. do not have a clue what phrase the Brit phonic representation represents. ..

a VCD lesson was all but un-understandable .. much of what the sample teacher said was not understandable for me.. really!

Are the language differances between a Brit & an American to great to overcome online.

Should I redirect to a class in the western hemisphere?

I'm out $350. .. but do not see that I can complete the class in what is a foreign language..

almost irritating .. grey tapes = great apes .. LOL!~

Edited October 29, 2005 by pumper

[Spit the Dog]

You will find that if you are teaching English, it is a benefit to be adaptable to both Brit/American English. Especially in Thailand the Thai English is a mixture of Brit/American English. For example if you said 'football' a Thai would think of the game using a round ball played by teams like Man Utd and Liverpool. However if I asked somebody for 'sweets' or 'crisps', the Thais wouldn't know what I meant. I would have to ask for 'candy' or 'potato chips.'

I am a Brit but at my school we use American textbooks. I have never encountered any serious problems. On Monday it is Halloween, so my lessons will be about it. I have heard of trick-or-treat but i wasn't really 100% percent sure what it involved. A quick question to my Canadian teaching colleague and the problem is solved.

So it will be more than likely that wherever you work there will be Brits to ask if you ever encounter any problems with Brit English.

Anyway, good luck with your course.

[chownah]

I realize that many more Brits & Aussies are in Thailand than Americans.

I signed up for a Thai school's online class to be followed up with 2 weeks onsite  teaching.

was a breeze, enjoyed it,  til I got to the differance in Brit / American phonics / enunciation / cadence

started the class was doing fine 'til  lesson 13.  Phonics.

the examples of phrase / sound  joining  & linked speech are not my english.

an example from the lesson  "I'm no' too sure" .. is how "I'm not too sure." would be said.  ??

"I' leave it ta ya" for" I will leave it to you"

grade A = grey day

grey tapes = great apes

the above examples are directly from their lesson..

& the phonics exercise i need to complete represents the above enunciation.

have spent 30 minutes on a phonic lesson & have not gotten the first example .. do not have a clue what phrase the Brit phonic representation represents. ..

a VCD lesson was all but un-understandable .. much of what the sample teacher said was not understandable for me.. really!

Are the language differances between a Brit & an American to great to overcome online.

Should I redirect to a class in the western hemisphere?

I'm out $350. .. but do not see that I can complete the class in what is a foreign language..

almost irritating ..  grey tapes = great apes .. LOL!~

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you can't understand the VCD lesson and can't contact them to get help then this is a problem. The specific example of sound joining and linked speech is easily explained.

I'm an american. When speaking informally with a friend and I want to say, "I'm not too sure" I only say one 't' sound. The 't' sound in the word 'not' gets sort of swallowed and combined with the beginning 't' sound in the word 'too'. I would write my pronunciation as, "I'm nahtoo sure." If I'm describing the quality of the eggs I just bought I would call them "grade A" but I would not pause between saying 'grade' and between saying 'A' and the result would be very much like saying 'grey day'. If I want to describe a very cloudy poorly lit day as being a 'quintesentially grey day' I might call it ' a grade A grey day' and if I was to actually speak this construction I would take some extra care to be sure that I pronounced it carefully so that my meaning was understood but this would not be the normal way that I would say the terms independently in an unambiguous context.

I hope this helps.

[pumper]

definately not the way i speak & i would think students should be taught to speak properly .. not sluring their words..

the class i am taking is very much into games .. was told by my 'on line teacher' on a previous lesson that unless i played games i would have difficulty teaching.

i've never played any game .. not 1 card game as an adult, have not held a deck of cards in 40 years .. never a cross word puzzle, not 1 .. never a computer game, not 1, WEEEL, perhaps 20 seconds on solitare with windows 3.0. never an arcade game.

2 college degrees, have had jobs in the US paying $50 per hour that were communication based .. talking to people & then writing reports ( dictating for a clerical staff ) as to what persons said or were doing.. insurance company investigation .. reports that were up to 25 pages.

became a supervisor of 15 college degreed investigators, edited their reports, not for grammar or spelling but for proper conclusions, any of our reports could end up in court...

i formed my own medical investigation biz.. my diction definately changed at that point, I used "Dragon naturally Speaking' for years .. hours per day speaking clearly & concisely or the text output would be crazy stuff

starting to believe i'm not cut out for this TESOL thing ..

really wanted to live abroad in my greying years..

will see if the school will help, previously they have been more than arms length regarding lessons ( the game issue ) i was having a problem with.

[pumper]

wanted to edit my previous post but did not see an edit button..

Watching Chinese TV, CCTV 9, on US cable TV I can tell if a student had a Brit / Aussie teacher or American .. & I find the American taught to be much easier to understand.

The CCTV9 attractive blonde news anchor from UK or Oz is more difficult for me to understand than the native Chinese speaker taught by American teachers! LOL!

Once, 30 years ago, in a Korean mall the clerk could not understand my English, she went & got her supervisor .. he explained that my American English was the problem!

[pumper]

I have given up on the British phonemics.

& have contacted schools in American! :-)

Can’t complain Mark = Carnt complain Mark

I’ve been thinking about it. = Iv bin thinking erbout it

I sure hope so otherwise I am going to jump out of the window. = Ishor hopeso, otherwise im goner djump out ov the windo

no way in hel_l i'd ever guess any of those correct answers.

my advice is for Americans to be very very careful about signing up with Brit schools.