Unreasonable pressure from my tutor at college. Help please!

liney

Zazen999 wrote: »

Aah, there's the rub.

I don't mind being TAUGHT how to do things, but being FORCED is a completely different matter.

And after watching school children recently at school dinners, they all seem to eat with their hands now anyway - is this the new English way? i must have missed that announcement.

That's because the dinner ladies aren't allowed to hold their hands and force them to eat propery......:rotfl::p

Fly_Baby

Zazen999 wrote: »

No. It's not a different skill.

I used them simultaneously at the start - to cut up the food. You can't just cup up food with a knife - you need a fork to hold the food whilst you cut it up. I was more than capable of using them simultaneously for the full meal if I wanted to. A simple explanation would have sufficed.

OK, I do think we are going overboard with this, but it IS a different skill. And it is not an English skill at all - it's quite international, being able to EAT using two pieces of cutlery.

When you used the fork and knife simultaneously to cut the food your working tool - knife - was in your right hand, so it was easy to do. When you started eating, your working tool - fork - was again in your right hand.

The skill of using the knife and the fork at the same time when eating is about confidently operating the fork in your left hand to bring the food to your mouth, while using the knife in your right hand to chop it.

You couldn't do it or didn't want to try to do it - and that's what all the fuss was about.

SueC_2

Zazen999 wrote: »

...all these fabulous traditions which the English try to force down the throats of Non-Natives mostly suck.

...I still don't see why one must use a knife and fork to eat, say, pizza just because it is the English way.

... Needless to say, I never did eat her way and never will.

... a sense of 'doing it our way' seems more important than realising that actually, the world does not revolve around England.

Zazen999 wrote: »

I don't have ANY problems with the English Way. At all.

It's not coming across that way I'm afraid.

SueC_2

iamana1ias wrote: »

What is? I'm not in England!

Fair comment, my apologies.

The rest of my comment still stands though - regardless of my location, or that of anyone else reading it.

SueC_2

Zazen999 wrote: »

most Natives haven't learnt the ways properly.

That's an entirely separate subject. But the minute we all start aligning ourselves with the lowest common denominator, we really are in trouble.

mr.savage

Fly_Baby wrote: »

OK, I do think we are going overboard with this, but it IS a different skill. And it is not an English skill at all - it's quite international, being able to EAT using two pieces of cutlery.

When you used the fork and knife simultaneously to cut the food your working tool - knife - was in your right hand, so it was easy to do. When you started eating, your working tool - fork - was again in your right hand.

The skill of using the knife and the fork at the same time when eating is about confidently operating the fork in your left hand to bring the food to your mouth, while using the knife in your right hand to chop it.

You couldn't do it or didn't want to try to do it - and that's what all the fuss was about.

maybe there are other reasons for this:

http://www.roadjunky.com/article/1768/the-left-hand-toilet-technique-and-spitting-world-hygiene

Fly_Baby

mr.savage wrote: »

maybe there are other reasons for this:

http://www.roadjunky.com/article/1768/the-left-hand-toilet-technique-and-spitting-world-hygiene

Aaah, gross!!!

SueC_2

Fly_Baby wrote: »

Aaah, gross!!!

Not necessarily. Just a different way of doing things. Admittedly not 'the norm' in England, but who's to say which is 'better'?

Nevertheless, keeping to the vein of this thread... if someone were potty training a toddler in England, I wouldn't expect them to be teaching them this method.

Zazen999

Fly_Baby wrote: »

OK, I do think we are going overboard with this, but it IS a different skill. And it is not an English skill at all - it's quite international, being able to EAT using two pieces of cutlery.

When you used the fork and knife simultaneously to cut the food your working tool - knife - was in your right hand, so it was easy to do. When you started eating, your working tool - fork - was again in your right hand.

The skill of using the knife and the fork at the same time when eating is about confidently operating the fork in your left hand to bring the food to your mouth, while using the knife in your right hand to chop it.

You couldn't do it or didn't want to try to do it - and that's what all the fuss was about.

Lol. And once again; trying to explain to me how to eat!

I am well aware of how to use a knife and fork. I am and was more than capable of using both together and apart.

I neither couldn't do it nor refused to do it. I had no prior communication about this topic in question until I found myself with a dinner lady [poor lass] stood behind me shouting in my ear how stupid I was for not understanding how to eat. Never was it explained that the whole school objected to me cutting the food and then putting my knife down and eating it with my fork.

If you perhaps type louder and slower - perhaps I'll understand eh?

Zazen999

SueC wrote: »

That's an entirely separate subject. But the minute we all start aligning ourselves with the lowest common denominator, we really are in trouble.

I totally agree. So lets cut the OP some slack. I think her English is better than most on here and understood what she was saying more than some.