Now don't say I don't care about you. I hired an American tutor recently and I am gonna share with you what she said in our first class. (Beware that they are all colloquial expressions)

 

Answers to some of my questions

1. I and he went to the party. => Me and him went to the party.

2. If I did...I would => If I do...I would

3. If I had done...I would have done=> If I did...I would have done

4. I saw people flying kites in China.

5. I saw someone fly a kite in China.

 

1. Coffee shop

The barista may say, 'What's it gonna be, sir?'; 'Anything else with your coffee today?'; 'What's your name, sir?'; 'Can you step over here please? I'll call your name when your coffee is ready.'

 

You may say, 'I'll have a small, large, medium iced latte.' (Please note, in Starbucks they use the terms large, grande and venti to mean the same things)

 

2. Restaurant

Fast food

You may say,'Easy on the ice, mayo, ketchup'; 'Can I take this to go?'

 

fancy restaurant

The person who in the front of a restaurant is an hostess or host.

People who collect and wash your plates after you've finished your meal are busboys. 

In the kitchen, there is a head chef and a bunch of sous chefs(助手) and one pastry chef（点心师）.

 

When you have been led to your seat, the hostess may say, 'Your server will be with you shortly.'

At the end of your meal you may say,'Check, please.'

 

3. Shopping

Men's department

Ladies' department (for mothers and grannies)

Misses' department (for young women)

Kids'

 

XXL is proununced 'double X L'

the annoying fiber that clings to our clothes is called lint (uncoutable)

In a clothing store, you may say, 'Can I have these in a 42, please?'; 'Do you have these in black?'; 'Do you have these (jeans) in a 30 by 30?'; 'Where can I try this on?';

 

If what you want is currently out of stock, the salesperson may say, 'We are getting another shipment. Can you come back tommorrow?'

 

If you find there's something wrong with your clothes, you can say, 'Is there any way I can get a discount?'

 

4. Hairdresser's

walk-in vs. appointment

Do you take walk-in's?

barber gown

 

You may say,

I don't want my scalp to show.

A bit shorter around the back.

Not too much off the sides.

Trim of the top.

I don't want a bowl head.

Not too much to the side. (不要偏向一边）

Puff up the front.

Tease my hair a bit.

Put texture in my hair.

I don't my hair to look too edgy( the result of using the machine instead of the scissors).

 

5. Movie theater

Do you want to catch Saw 6?

Let's go to Saw 6.

Coccessions. (卖popcorn和coke的地方)

 

Let me have 2 tickets for the 7:30 Twilight.

 

6. Computer

megabites=megs

gigabites=gigs

specifications

processor

What's the memory like on this computer?

what's the sound like on this computer?

warranty

special specs(特色)

Can you throw something in?

How fast does it run?

 

 

 

 

I am currently taking a course at the Language Center. Deborah Mason, who teaches this course, strikes me as a very good language teacher. As the saying goes, ‘Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.’ She epitomizes this saying in that she brings vitality and warmth to the classroom even though she may have taught the same lesson many times. Particularly, she shows great empathy for the students. When we ask her questions either in class or after class, she is always very very patient. She’s the sort of person students want to open up to. I guess she has taught many international students and understand that they are away from home and they are sort of at a disadvantage in a foreign country.

 

I wouldn’t say it is her extraordinary teaching skills that have inspired me(even though she teaches very well), but rather, it is the fact that she makes a point of putting herself into the students’ shoes that really just washes over me. At some point in my teaching career, my eyes were only on the money and seemed to have lost the passion for teaching and empathy for students. Fortunately, I overcame that phase partly because I saw some teachers show great passion for what they did. Now this is happening all over again, only this time, I am not losing that zeal for teaching. I think it’s a good thing to have inspiring fellow teachers around you to kind of serve as an antidote to the occasional sluggishness.

Ok. Let’s talk a little about the classic form/meaning dichotomy. There is no doubt that they are both very important. However, the attention to both/either of them varies with individual learner’s learning stages and needs. For me, I’ve got to a point where I can practically express anything in English but whether it is accurate is another story. Therefore, my present focus is mainly on form. As proactive learners yourself (if you are reading this, that means you are)and especially if you have reached intermediate levels, you really need to think about what is more important for you at this stage. Don’t just let your teacher lead you by the nose because in so doing, you only react rather than take the initiative. And language learning, once beyond a certain stage, is all about taking the initiative.

 

I remember taking some courses at a language school/club called Talkdatalk(it’s really a catchy name and hits the nail on the head. For those of you who have no idea what it means, it sends the message that if you want to speak English, then go ahead and speak it, just like if you want to learn how to walk, just walk. You are not gonna learn how to walk by reading a book), where they offered some classes on grammar and vocab, which apparently were focusing on form. Meanwhile, they also offered some neatly named “mini-adventures”. The idea was they would take us to different places, such as a Taiwanese restaurant, a coffee shop, a bar or a shopping mall, you name it where we were just put in that environment and learned English pertinent to it.

 

This was actually a very appealing idea and most of the time, meaning was what’s important. I would say this is as close as you can get to learning English in an English speaking country, except maybe an English speaking boyfriend or girlfriend. JWhat’s more, it was the learner’s own responsibility and right to choose the event that matched his/her own interest and need. I don’t know about others, but I got a lot out of those events to the point where people were surprised when I told them that I had never been out of China. Just before you reach for your wallet and get ready to sign up, I should tell you there are now many other language schools that feature similar events. So just shop around and seek the best deal out there.

           Speaking only L2 in class is a total misconception. The truth, there are differences between learning L1 and L2. Therefore, expecting one to learn L2 in the exact same way as learning a L1 is simply misguided.

 

Among the many differences between L1 and L2, three things stand out for me. First, in the majority of cases, students spend far less time on L2 than on L1, thus their prospect for learning L2 in terms of having nativespeaker like proficiency is bleak. Second, most learners are realistic; they want to be able to use L2 as a working language as soon as possible and not necessarily want perfect L2 proficiency(though I may deviate from this norm since I am a little crazy). Third, learners do have the advantage of knowing L1. Thus, I don’t see any point in not capitalizing on this advantage in the sense that it just speeds up the whole learning process. I know this is the point where many may disagree. But let’s face it, adult learners are simply not child learners any more. As a matter of fact, any attempt at mapping children’s learning process squarely onto that of adults is just preposterous. With that said, adults certainly can draw on some of the learning habits of children.

 

I may have rambled. The point is, the appropriate use of code switching is cost-effective. I once saw a teacher explain an English idiom to a L2 learner. She spent a good three minutes before the student began to understand it. What’s worse, she might just have been saved by the student’s effort to try to save the her face. In addition, I seriously doubted this would eventually become part of the student’s productive knowledge. Conversely, a better approach to explaining many idioms would be just to give learners the L1 equivalents if they are available. If the L1 is Chinese, this is not a bad idea at all as previously thought due to the fact that there are many equivalents of English idioms in Chinese and the number is rapidly increasing. Many other things also require code switching desperately, such as buzzwords and youth speak. In this day and age, I don’t know about other languages, but Chinese actually has a lot in common with English. Therefore, I just can’t wrap my head around the dogged assertion of using L2 exclusively in class. It is just wrong, period.