Today I Learned...

Lisnaholic · 05-13-2019, 02:58 PM

Our experience of teaching is sooooo different, OH.

I really like teaching grammar - but my students come to it fresh and feel a sense of achievement as they learn to express their ideas with greater precision. If you were trying to modify ingrained habits of speech, that was much less welcome, I'm sure. I suppose some uplifting talk about improving students' job prospects would've been pretty futile.

Spoiler for a good teaching moment:

The Batlord · 05-13-2019, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic

Our experience of teaching is sooooo different, OH.

I really like teaching grammar - but my students come to it fresh and feel a sense of achievement as they learn to express their ideas with greater precision. If you were trying to modify ingrained habits of speech, that was much less welcome, I'm sure. I suppose some uplifting talk about improving students' job prospects would've been pretty futile.

Gotta admit I'd hate teaching a bunch of black kids "proper" grammar. I love ebonics. It's so much more fun and flows off the tongue so much more satisfyingly and as someone seemingly trying to break them of their "poverty ghetto slave" habits I'd feel like a cultural terrorist trying to force whiteness on them to erase a part of themselves, like I was whipping them and telling them that their name was Toby.

****ing white people know what they're saying, it's not a different language, so who ****ing cares? Language is simply a means to communicate and if two people can communicate then why does it matter if their syntaxes aren't a carbon copy of each other? When language becomes a means to separate races and classes then it's not the person being criticized who needs to shut the **** up.

Quote:

Spoiler for a good teaching moment:

Did he call you Jerry? And lol at Peru gold.

**Frownland** · 05-13-2019, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dharma & Greg

Gotta admit I'd hate teaching a bunch of black kids "proper" grammar. I love ebonics. It's so much more fun and flows off the tongue so much more satisfyingly and as someone seemingly trying to break them of their "poverty ghetto slave" habits I'd feel like a cultural terrorist trying to force whiteness on them to erase a part of themselves, like I was whipping them and telling them that their name was Toby.

****ing white people know what they're saying, it's not a different language, so who ****ing cares? Language is simply a means to communicate and if two people can communicate then why does it matter if their syntaxes aren't a carbon copy of each other? When language becomes a means to separate races and classes then it's not the person being criticized who needs to shut the **** up.

*whom

05-13-2019, 02:58 PM	#1 (permalink)
Lisnaholic ...here to hear... Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: He lives on Love Street Posts: 4,444	Our experience of teaching is sooooo different, OH. I really like teaching grammar - but my students come to it fresh and feel a sense of achievement as they learn to express their ideas with greater precision. If you were trying to modify ingrained habits of speech, that was much less welcome, I'm sure. I suppose some uplifting talk about improving students' job prospects would've been pretty futile. Spoiler for a good teaching moment: I once spent about 90 mins of class going through the twelve basic English tenses: uses, question structures and all. I noticed one guy spent the class furiously writing notes, and at the end of the class he came up to me, shook his notes in my face and said, "This is gold. Pure gold." He was from Peru, so probably knew gold when he saw it. __________________ "Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953