Monday, February 7, 2011
"Oh, are you an international student?"
I couldn't help but laugh when I read the Characteristics of foreigner talk on page 106 in the Introducing Second Language Acquisition textbook. It reminded me of a lot of times when my parents are literally yelled at by Americans, thinking that they cannot speak or understand English. I find it humorous that many people think that raising one's voice will get their ideas across to a non-native speaker. I also find that many people who do speak to non-native speakers (or think they are speaking to non-native speakers) also simplify their vocabulary and their grammatical structure. There was one time my freshman year when four of my girlfriends and I decided to visit a church in Normal. Normal not being a very diverse town, the church was also predominantly Caucasian. When the pastor told us to greet our neighbors around us, a Caucasian woman turned around to us and said, "HELLO! NICE MEET YOU! ARE YOU INTERNATIONAL STUDENT?!" Needless to say, all four of us were offended by her ignorance and replied in perfect English, "No. We were all born here and some of us have never been out of the country. Good morning to you, too." There is definitely a huge difference as to how native speakers may talk to non-native speakers. However, I think there is also a huge difference between understanding and ignorance. Just because someone yells or "dumbs down" their English does not mean that the non-native speaker will understand them any better.
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I wish I could say that I was surprised that people have treated you and your parents this way but I feel like this LARGE misconception is all too common. What I don't understand is why that is the first thing they assume. It is truly ignorant. I am going to be a bilingual teacher, and in many of my classes we have learned that this is absolutely offensive and also not an effective way to communicate or to teach. Although it can be humorous to watch people do it, I think its so insulting! I have never realized the variety of misconceptions that are tied to SLA.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you bring this up because it seems there are some similarities when you go abroad as well. As a non-native speaker abroad there are times when those you speak to will merely ignore your attempts at their language, switch to English, slow down their own speech, or dumb it down thinking that you cannot understand them if they do not help you along.
ReplyDeleteI find this unfortunate for L2 learners because, when native speakers 'dumb it down' for a non-native speaker, they are, in some way, making it harder for the L2 learner to learn the language.
I agree with you. Just because a native speaker shouts at you doesn't mean you're going to understand her better. I've never understood how shouting was equated with understanding more clearly. There's a reason why it's not a good idea for a friend to shout at another friend when she wants to explain what a brat her other friend is being. Instead, it'll probably make that friend feel more confused, more embarrassed or less able to process what's being said.
ReplyDeleteThanks for bringing up this point. As a teacher at a bilingual school I found that this happened quite often at our school. The teachers that did not speak Spanish would talk to our Spanish speaking parents and students with dumb-down English. The worst was when they spoke louder like you said or omitted simple words like A and THE. When I was in a foreign country, I found it easier to understand people that were speaking in a regular voice and speaking naturally to me than people who would try to dumb down the language. It made it harder for me to understand because it wasn't natural.
ReplyDeleteWhen teaching ESL I did try to modify my vocabulary and use lots of body movements and visuals. For example I would use words such as hard instead of difficult and hot instead of scalding. I would also try not to say things like "it’s PRETTY good" as not to confuse them with the real meaning of pretty. However, I would NEVER speak to them slowly or say improper sentences to dumb it down because that does not help students learn the English language at all.
~Tara