Good news for any of you who’ve spent some time abroad as a poor and destitute TEFL, only to make the move back to Britain to find yourself even poorer and more destitute. If you managed to pick up the local lingo to a decent level of proficiency, why not offer your services to the …
Monthly Archive: November 2008
Nov
26
Obama’s Use of Language Stirs Controversy
I’m not sure of the source of this but I received it via email and it made me laugh: Stunning Break with Last Eight Years Nov 18 – In the two weeks since the election, US President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of …
Nov
24
Americans set to learn English
English can be a tough language to learn, just ask the misunderestimated outgoing president of the United States, but the federal government hopes to make it easier with a free website intended to improve access to language instruction for immigrants, as well as ex-presidents. The website, the innovatievely titled usalearns.org, is a free and easily …
Nov
19
It’s partly Greek to me
Celia Webb has followed up her article ‘Improving Vocabulary through Latin Prefixes‘ over at the ELT Times with ‘It was Greek to Me: Improving Your English by Knowing Greek Roots‘. ‘Greek provides many important prefixes, suffixes, and roots used in the English language‘ regales Celia in her article at the World’s first online TEFL Newspaper. …
Nov
17
Where should newbies go to begin their TEFL careers?
Times they are a changin’ and not for the better, it’s sad to say. ‘Where in the World can one make a decent living and save some AT A NEWBIE LEVEL‘ asks Spiral78 over on the ELT World forums. The question has received a number of responses and the outlook is not so great it …
Nov
16
Ireland sets a test for new citizens
Up until just over a decade ago the Republic of Ireland was one of the most culturally and racially homogeneous societies on Earth. In these last ten years or so, a relatively short time, the nation has been radically and rapidly transformed into a multicultural society. Multiculturalism can only mean one thing to us TEFLers; …
Nov
12
Lost in Mistranslation
Welsh is not the easiest of languages to get to grips with, especially for native English speakers, it would seem. When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed. Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: “I am not in the office at …
Nov
09
Improving Vocabulary through Latin Prefixes
‘English contains many words adopted from other languages‘, notes Celia Webb, somewhat emphatically, over at the ELT Times: the World’s first online TEFL Newspaper. ‘In fact‘, she proclaims, ‘experts estimate 80% of English words originated elsewhere. The biggest influence on English vocabulary is Latin. An examination of the 20,000 most used words reveals 5,000 words …
Nov
06
Will Indian English become ‘Worldish’?
If we stop and think about how the Indian economy is growing, it’s not an unrealistic prospect for Indian English to stake its claim as being the new global Standard English. Pravin Kumar, in an article for the Deccan Herald, looks forward to the widespread use of phrases such as “You only told me like that” …