As I am playful with my words, this means I am a mish-mash of accents and phraseology. Recently I have had some odd observations that I thought I would share. Firstly to a South African ear I sound German, apparently. This is no insult and no surprise as I do have an accent no way near […]
Geek or Nerd? How absurd!:- teachers are boring and old fashioned
The more I delve into this profession of mine the more this adage is a smelly old sausage. Most peeps into the slam and TED scene will know Taylor Mali. But just as good, and someone I wanna BIG up today is Mark Grist. Last night I went back to the Don’t Flop stuff . […]
More European – accents on the goggle box
The Brummie accent does not roll off the tongue, more like rolls around the mouth trying to get out. It is a challenge to comprehension, but not abuse of the ear. The actors of a new series also found it a challenge to master the tongue of the coal face. Now and again I try […]
Never in my classroom -comprehension of the native speaker
Ya losing ya Mojo arent ya? You are so different to speak to? But …. what do you mean,…. erm my accent? No your vocabulary, you use unusual words not like the other guys. This compliment and exchange at a recent friends birthday party made me mull over yet again the point of lingo usage […]
Never in my classroom is the problem the native speaker?
Let me return to the flummoxedness of my first few weeks teaching in 2013. Apologies to those of you who are not so techy minded, but it may interest you all the same. Normally if we are to believe linguistic theory, as communicators we accommodate our partners in order to aid comprehension. Unless we are […]
Never in my classroom – assisting immersion activities.
One of the biggest mistakes is to believe lingo acquisition is just about regular lesson attendance (these can give you input, insight or structure) and not properly immersing oneself in the culture and the language. It is very difficult unless you are a natural lingo learner or have really absorbed yourself in lingo learning to know what […]
Never in my classroom – “the Muttiheft approach”
PART 3 theLingoGuy classroom rule book Rule # 1 Go in with a plan If you have been following the blog, and think that this is my normal approach, then think again. The anti-thesis is the book approach. Something I do on occasion, due to extraneous circumstances. But I do have to, to steal a […]
Never in my classroom – running the risk
Sometimes I may lament the lack of drive or learning techniques of some of my students. Those who do the bare minimum to get by, know how to use the ingrained “Hochschule” education system and really do not appreciate the learning curve. In both the academic and the business world you may come across individuals […]
More European -passing thru ex-pats, and integration
Lady luck was not playing on my team, and as a risky Poker player I was out of the Poker tournament at the English Room, and my ear pricked up at someone exclaiming: “you should try to make the effort to learn their language, it is like just nice” Sometimes you overhear someone expressing something […]
More European – “It was England”….
Stew answered to any enquiry from his ex-student as to if the film “This is England” really was a true depiction. This lead me to the series follow up “This is England ´86. I hadnie watched someat from the UK non stop in ages, but over three days while I was ill with manflu this […]
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