Unreasonable pressure from my tutor at college. Help please!

ceridwen

Zazen999 wrote: »

Read the Daily Mail to learn How to speak English.

Oh the Irony.

Well - if you have any constructive suggestions to make - then why don't you add them to a suggestions list?:)

(oh - I forgot - you've probably "bought in" too heavily to the misbegotten idea that I'm a racist.......

......goes off thinking "If I really was a racist - I'm darn sure that yesterday wouldn't be the first time in my pretty long life where someone ever called me one....")

kwaks

@ the OP, there has been no unneccessary pressure from your tutor, there may have been a misunderstanding over whether or not you read the story. If that is the case you need to communicate that.

@ the rest of the high horse ultra PC brigade, when will you ever learn that enough is enough and it is precisly your attitudes which push people towards racism. Cer rightly pointed out that in a teaching post command of the language is vital, to call him racist because of this is pathetic and a cheap shot. Nothing he has posted is remotely racist.

And before you lily livered PC liberal anti racists decide I am being racist, having lived in foreign countries for a large chunk of my life (and learning the cultures/languages) you couldn't be further from the truth.:mad:

Zazen999

ceridwen wrote: »

Well - if you have any constructive suggestions to make - then why don't you add them to a suggestions list?:)

(oh - I forgot - you've probably "bought in" too heavily to the misbegotten idea that I'm a racist.......

......goes off thinking "If I really was a racist - I'm darn sure that yesterday wouldn't be the first time in my pretty long life where someone ever called me one....")

I never said racist. I said Xenophobic. Different thing, but you'd know that - being an expert on the English Language

Anyway - I was born abroad and to be honest; all these fabulous traditions which the English try to force down the throats of Non-Natives mostly suck. I remember being humiliated by the school dinner lady because I chopped up my food, put the knife down, switched hands and ate my dinner with a fork. She made me eat my dinner in the 'English' way by standing behind me for the whole of a lunchtime with her hands round mine forcing me to eat 'properly'....so I am afraid I am one to Celebrate differences and learn from them - not one to try and obliterate other cultures from the face of 'Jolly old England'.


My constructive suggestion is to be yourself OP - and appeal the decision and work on an action plan...but that's already been mentioned prior to me reading this thread.

When people give you answers that you don't understand, ask them to be 'more specific please', and ask them 'in what context' so that you can use the feedback to improve your understanding.

ceridwen

Kwaks

Thanks for that...and I've also spent some time living abroad in various different countries - hence my feeling that "When in Rome live as the Romans do".

signed
ceridwen (errrr....a woman actually....:D ...and not very politically-correct..but maybe I can stop pretending to be after 13 years of all that....)

EDIT: Xenophobic - a person fearful or contemptuous of anything foreign.

Guess that's why the recipes I have in mind for the week include Indian, Middle Eastern and Italian-style food and I have music from various different cultures in my house and some of the clothes in my wardrobe are distinctly non-English in style for starters...

Fly_Baby

sw-nw wrote: »

I have been applied for the course for 2 years. I had to study a preparation course at night, and passed entry exams. Why, it is because I have my own vision on childcare and education and I plan to do something about that.

Please-please-please do not take offence in what I am going to say.

I am a mother and if I were looking for childcare for my daughter and the nursery assistant would speak English at the level that you are showing here on this thread then I would not send my child there.

I am sure your vision on education might be really beneficial (and I am not sarcastic here at all) but nurseries charge exorbitant prices so I would expect them to provide a proper language environment for the children who are only learning to speak English - it matters to me.

My job is language-related too and I am used to being filtered-out because of my English in the past. It was sad but fair, I believe. So if you want to work with children in a good nursery you really need to make sure that you English is as perfect as you can master - being able to communicate and having an early years degree is really not enough.

Best of luck!

SueC_2

Zazen999 wrote: »

I remember being humiliated by the school dinner lady because I chopped up my food, put the knife down, switched hands and ate my dinner with a fork. She made me eat my dinner in the 'English' way by standing behind me for the whole of a lunchtime with her hands round mine forcing me to eat 'properly'....so I am afraid I am one to Celebrate differences and learn from them - not one to try and obliterate other cultures from the face of 'Jolly old England'.

How does feeling humiliated by someone trying to teach you English culture tie in with celebrating and learning from the differences between those cultures and the ones you were used to? Xenophobia cuts both ways.

Frankly, I don't much care whether you, or anyone, chooses to eat their food one handed, without the use of cutlery, or direct from a trough if that's what they want to do.

But if you were responsible for teaching children in an English school how to eat, I would expect you to teach them the way it is 'normal' to eat in England. By all means teach them that different cultures have different practices, and teach them to understand and respect those different cultures, but if they are ever to feel fully 'at home' in England, then they have to be taught what is the norm here.

The same applies to the English language - I have absolute respect for anyone who learns any language in addition to their native tongue. Ours is a difficult language with more exceptions than it has rules. Which is why it is even more important that anyone who is teaching it in our schools is able to do more than make themselves understood, but is able to use it fully and accurately to ensure that our children do the same.

Fly_Baby

Zazen999 wrote: »

Anyway - I was born abroad and to be honest; all these fabulous traditions which the English try to force down the throats of Non-Natives mostly suck. I remember being humiliated by the school dinner lady because I chopped up my food, put the knife down, switched hands and ate my dinner with a fork. She made me eat my dinner in the 'English' way by standing behind me for the whole of a lunchtime with her hands round mine forcing me to eat 'properly'....so I am afraid I am one to Celebrate differences and learn from them - not one to try and obliterate other cultures from the face of 'Jolly old England'.

Is that an "English" way to eat? I was born abroad too and eating with a knife and a fork was a sign of good upbringing and good eating habits. Eating with just a fork is OK too, though, especially for a child.

Nationality has nothing to do with it.

anamenottaken

Fly_Baby wrote: »

Is that an "English" way to eat? I was born abroad too and eating with a knife and a fork was a sign of good upbringing and good eating habits. Eating with just a fork is OK too, though, especially for a child.

Nationality has nothing to do with it.

We are digressing here - but, as I understand it, Zazen999 had been brought up originally to use a knife and fork but to cut the food (eg a steak) into bite-size pieces at the outset and then just use the fork (now in the dominant hand) to transport the meat from plate to mouth. This is quite common (I think those in the USA may do this?). The "norm" in England certainly used to be to cut one piece at a time. Using just a fork when the food is already in a form which does not require the use of a knife is fine, whatever the age.

Blackpool_Saver

do employers still ask for good communication skills? I mean are they allowed to nowadays, seriously..........

This is not aimed at the original poster, I am just curious

flossy_splodge

sw-nw wrote: »

Thanks for your advise. I will do it. I have already asked one of my friends, a local, to check all my reports before I submitted them. But my tutor still asked me to redo some. I have been pacticularly asked to write an essay in front of her to prove I did it myself.

It's for Emmzi.

Can I offer a few thoughts?
And before I get jumped on, I am TEFL qualified and I KNOW that Chinese students in particular work incredibly hard at their language skills (indeed as noted earlier in this thread it has also been MY experience that some foreign students speak English a lot better than the natives!).
I have highlighted in red just a few points.
So my offerings are:
I think you mean adviCe. There are a number of such situations where the letter changes between a C and an S.
An 'S' is used if it's a verb and if you want to change to the noun the 'S' needs to change to a 'C'.
So 'advice' is what is offered but a person doing the action 'advises'.

Instead of 'I will do it' it would perhaps be better to say something like 'I will follow it' or even 'I will try it'. No single right answer but 'I will do it' is not good English.
'But' - even in these days of poor standards it is still not good practice (not practise!;)) to start a sentence with a conjunction.

This next might just be jumpy fingers which we all suffer from sometimes when typing but I think you meant 'particularly'.

And finally, 'I did it myself' might be replaced by 'it was my own work'.

So you see in just one single posting there are a number of points that highlight some room for improvement in your English skills, which in many situations is totally irrelevant but if wishing to be involved in the education or care of the young, is VERY important.
As you will know the young learn by imitation.
Hope you take my input as it is intended, to support and clarify, I have no wish to upset you.
Very best of luck.