College Student Writing on Teaching English in Prague

Qcumber,

In rereading this thread, I noticed that you listed the substitution of "may" for "can" as an indirect way of showing respect when asking permission. Actually, the form "can" in such instances is incorrect English, as "can" implies ability, rather than permissibility. The form "can" is, however, generally considered acceptable colloquially. The major reason, therefore, why "may" is used in such instances with a teacher, is that the teacher usually more often than not expects good grammar usage. You are right in the broader sense that Americans often use the incorrect form "can" in casual settings, whereas they are more often likely to use "may" in formal settings. Probably, however, this usage is no different than Czechs/French/etc. using more colloquial forms of speech with friends than in formal conversation.

Also, by way of clarification, addressing teachers by first names is RARE in American schools/universities. This is typical only of young teachers who are barely older than their students (e.g. teaching assitants/tutors in college) or in informal class environments (which probably includes many English classes taught in Europe by Americans). In grammar school in the U.S., we ALWAYS addressed our teachers as Mr. X, Miss X, Mrs. X, Ms. X, Professor. X, Dr. X, Sir, or Ma'am (where X indicates the teacher's surname). The only exception was with my Ph.D. advisor, and then only outside of the classroom. I hope this clears things up.

 

Sova, yes I meant that, in English, one uses may instead of can when one addresses a superior.

e.g.
[to an equal or an inferior]: Can I use your pen?
[to a superior] May I use your pen, Sir?

[to an equal or an inferior]: You know, Drew, you can always use my computer to send an e-mail.
[to a superior]: Oh, Sir, you may always use my computer to send an e-mail if you wish.

I'm not sure there can be any confusion with the other values of may and can.

Of course there is the contrast can Vs could. For instance an irritated teacher may answer: "Yes I can." to an ill-bred student telling him: "Can you repeat the question?" instead of "Sir, please, could you repeat the question?" In this short dialogue, the teacher does not echo the value of can used by the student, and replaces it by another. It's a grammatical pun.

As regards English foreign assistants in France, I must confess I only had British ones when I was a grammar school student. Over seven years, only two were good. The others were incompetent. I even remember one who wrote "canot" for "cannot" and "double dicky bus" for "double-decked bus"! :lol:

There are now some US and English-speaking Canadians who are employed as assistants for a year. I had the opportunity to chat with several of them when they taught my nieces and nephews (we invited them at home). I was always impressed by their French, and the quality of their English. One of them was so fluent in French that you couldn't detect he was American.

This was always surprising as I read very few US students study foreign languages. So I suppose only the gifted opt for a foreign language and study hard to master it. On the other hand I was surprised at their lack of general culture, and how few novels they had read in French. Another world.

 

Okay, I get it. Just for future reference, though, "could" is still a form of "can." The correct (and polite) way is "Would you please repeat," where "would" is from "will." The "could" variant is still incorrect grammatically, although it is used colloquially and as you mentioned does imply a higher lever of politeness than "can."

Yes, unfortunately the distance from home and the typically lower salaries paid by European language schools often don't attract the cream of the crop from here in the U.S. or the U.K. I think many of these teachers are straight out of the university with no practical experience in teaching English as a second language. I'd bet many of them don't even have a degree!

In my high school (which is among the top 100 or so in the U.S.), only about 25-35% of students ever studied a foreign language in school. Most of those took only a year or two, either dropping out after the first because it was too hard, or else stopping at two, since most universities require (at most) two years of a foreign language. Of course, how well does anyone know a foreign language after two years of in-class instruction, usually without any out-of-class support and with an American (non-native-speaking) teacher. Only about 20-30 of the 800 students who graduated with me took four years or more of any language. I don't think this trend has changed much since I graduated either.

Mostly, this lack of experience in foreign languages comes purely from the fact that most Americans never have any occasion to go anywhere where a language other than English is the predominant language (with the most obvious exception being certain areas in the southern states). If they do go to such a country, typically it is for tourism, a few days or at best a week or two, and as such have little to no occasion to really interact with the native-speaking population.

Another reason is that most Americans who study foreign languages only begin in their teens, as there are few such opportunities at younger ages.
By the way, I should qualify my usage of "American" in this context to those who grew up in the U.S. in English-speaking households. I wish that in the U.S., teachers and administrators would begin to realize how much easier it is too learn a foreign language when one is exposed to it as a child.

And yes, a small part of it, admittedly, comes from an America-centric complex, but from my experience, this is the not by far the main reason.

Yes, you'll also find many Americans fluent in foreign languages, particularly Spanish, French and German. Even among them, however, I'd be surprised to learn that many had read a significant number of novels in those foreign languages. I, for one, have only read about 15-20 novels in Spanish (all but one in school), and a number of short stories (20-50 pages, ea.) in Czech, Slovak, and Russian. Learning a foreign language, as you well know, requires an awful lot of time, dedication, and effort, not to mention tears and frustration. But, given the physical and educational barriers to learning languages, most Americans are not willing or able. In Europe, you are fortunate that such barriers largely do not exist.

 

Sova, yes, I agree with you that request would is more polite than request could.

There is a misunderstanding as regards foreign assistants in French grammar schools. All of them have a college or university degree!

You'll only find some backpack foreign teachers in some of our low key private schools. Actually the majority of backpack US teachers for instance are to be found in Eastern Europe (I know one in Prague who consistently confuses this and these in spelling!), in South-East Asia and the Far-East. By the way, the Thai government has started to check their degrees in order to get rid of the quack teachers.

The program of having foreign assistants in secondary education was started after WWII when all the countries of Western Europe signed an agreement for it. When I was a student, the majority of foreign assistants were English and German in the North, Spaniards and Italians in the South. Assistantship to other nationals was open in the 1980s.

Russian assistants were recruited after the fall of the Communist regime. I heard that some schools with a Polish course could have a Polish assistant from time to time even under the Communists.

 

Dear Qcumber,

I was replying to the original question from the poster (above). As you can see, this person is asking about teaching ESL in Prague, so my reply was in relation to teaching ESL as a foreigner (as this person will be).

Regards
Michelle Everett

 

Sorry, Michelle, I had completely forgotten this thread. Yes, we drifted from the original topic. Sorry, again, but the exchanges of opinions (may Vs can; foreign language teachers) were interesting.