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It's quite disconcerting for an English person to come across someone who speaks fluent, accentless, idiomatic English, but then discover they are in fact only a foreigner.
This is unacceptable. It would mean that foreigners could possibly come to England, mingle freely, and wander around completely
unnoticed. The dangers of this are obvious.
Teaching "English as a foreign language" is a big industry in the rest of the world. All that's needed are to set some standards.
Noting the contrived speech patterns of Special Agent Ziva David in the TV series NCIS, an obvious approach is available. Agent David is an Israeli, and while being a fluent and articulate English speaker (well, american "english", anyway), has a notably imperfect misunderstanding of some idioms; for example, she might say "Look who’s calling the pot black", or "Barking up the wrong bush". Perfectly comprehensible, but subtly wrong; a dead giveaway.
Henceforth, all EAFL course material should be edited so that although the students will be able to both understand English and speak it in a perfectly comprehensible form, they will be marked out by those little linguistic tags.
Link to Duolingo Language Courses
https://www.duolingo.com/courses
Note at the bottom of the LINKED page YOU can suggest a new course. To contribute you must speak both English and ENGLISH. [popbottle, Nov 15 2015]
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//foreigners could possibly come to England// Solve the problem at source, save all the hassle. |
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After all the only reason for wanting the Natives to understand English is so you don't have to shout at them to be understood, when you are abroad. |
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I don't understand why you would want them to speak it as well. |
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One of the "Lethal Weapon" movies had someone from
South Africa speaking English with a very unusual accent.
Perhaps all you need are teachers in foreign countries
teaching English, who themselves speak it with a strong
accent. Then all the foreign students will learn that
accent, too, and will be easy to spot in England. |
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This sort of already happens. There are, worldwide,
about 400 million people learning English as a first
language, but about 2 billion learning it as a second
language. Two things arise from this: First, is is
incumbent upon those of us who learn English as our
first language to speak English when abroad in a
predominately non-English speaking country, as a
service to those large numbers of people learning
English as a second language. Second, "English as a
second language" is rapidly evolving into a separate
language from English with a simpler syntax and a
smaller vocabulary than English but also with some
completely new words and grammatical forms. Thus,
it is often easier for two second-language English
speakers from, say, China and India, to understand
each other than it is for either to understand a native
English speaker. |
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That's not a problem. The English person just needs to shout, slowly. Eventually, the foreigners will remember their English, which they have simply forgotten through jabbering to one another in their funny foreign lingo all the time. It's their own fault. |
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// This sort of already happens // |
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We know, we just want it formalised. |
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It all starts when you demonize the Israeli agents. |
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No-one's demonizing anyone here ... |
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What?! Who's on the rota for Mondays? |
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"I am no longer infected." - Monty Python |
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<Proffers packet of 20 cigarettes> |
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//(well, american "english", anyway)// |
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