Circumstances Pronunciation

Peculiarities of the English Language The English language was created in England. Throughout history, this language has spread to many parts of the world. It is used as a link language for International business and diplomacy. According to Madhukar N. Gate, it has taken thousands of words from other languages such as French, Latin, German, Greek and so on. We can even find Sanskrit words in English. For example: Guru and Pundit are two Sanskrit words used in English. English grammar is quite simple, in many languages nouns have grammatical gender which makes some verbs and adjectives change. This doesn’t happen in English. The adjective “big” is used with all nouns such as man, woman, child, book etc, as well as applying to both singular and plural nouns. Counting large numbers in...  [Read more]

Volunteer Teaching As I began my TESOL course in Phuket, I met all types of people wanting to be teachers. Some students needed to work immediately after graduation and others were going on to a college or university to further their academic careers. I was in the position of having to return home and finish other work commitments before I could embark on a teaching career. I soon realized that if I was going to be confident in my new found teaching skills and to have the opportunity to build on what I had learned, I was going to have to do something proactive in the area of teaching English as a second language even though I was not in the position to take a full time teaching position. In pondering my predicament, I realized that I did have an option that would serve me and people...  [Read more]

Japan can present the traveller with a bewildering combination of culture, manners, beauty, architecture and personalities. Whether one goes to Fuji San - mount Fuji, to admire it’s serene beauty, or one parties all night long in Roppongi - the nightclub district of Tokyo, one is constantly taken aback and presented with the unexpected. At times a shade frustrating, such as when you are on a train so crowded that you go three stops past the one you wanted because you cannot move. Hence, the ‘gaijin’, or foreigner learns to laugh about these things and accepts them as a part of life. A population of one-hundred and twenty seven millions is jammed into a landmass of one-hundred and forty five square miles. Indeed, the population density in the big cities is amazing. The official...  [Read more]

Bilingual Education versus English Only Models Over the years, many debates have arisen in regards to second language instruction (L2), giving prominence to two main models: English Only versus Bilingual Education. English Only uses solely English as the medium for instruction, whereas Bilingual Education, as its name implies, uses both English and the student’s native language. While there are several aspects to the debate, this paper will briefly cover a certain few: cultural sensitivity, accuracy, and segregation. Proponents of the English Only model claim that the use of a student’s native language creates a “cycle of native language dependency,” meaning that the student, to some extent, gets “tethered” to his native tongue. Using solely English in the classroom, advocates...  [Read more]