Is it right when you want to talk to a teacher to call him/her “Teacher”?
Exam :
"Teacher XXXX i want … " ?
I think it’s more suitable to refer to them as “sir” or “miss”.
But I guess it also depends on where you’re from.
Usually ‘Mr Brown’ or ‘Mrs Brown’ or ‘Miss Brown’ or ‘Ms Brown’ where I come from.
Where I live we address teachers in the same way that Mister Micawber recommends.
You should realize that in English it’s very impolite to call your teacher “Teacher”. You call a teacher “Sir”, “Ma’am” or by “Mr.”, “Mrs.”, “Miss”, “Ms.” and their last name.
Never call your teacher by title and first name, so never say “Mr. John” or “Mrs. Mary”, because that is not so polite either. It makes you sound like a slave addressing his master, and we don’t like that.
Many teachers prefer to be called only by their first names, with no title. So it’s very normal for adults to call their teachers “John”, “Mary” or whatever their first name is. It’s not impolite if the teacher prefers it, but I would never do it to a very old teacher.
OK.Thank you for the advice
You can also call one who teachs in an university: Professor + surname or Prof + surname
or one with doctor degree: Doctor + surname (Dr. surname)
This sounds strange to me. When I was in university, only if we became very friendly with our professor, then we could call him ‘Prof’ or ‘Doc’, with no surname attached.
Hi Emily,
Note the correction:
You can also call someone who teaches in/at a university…
Alan
We always called them by their first name only.
None of my professors insisted on being called “Doctor”, and in fact Americans think that if someone insists too much on that title being used he is not intelligent. We used the title only with very, very old professors.
‘Not intelligent’? I doubt it. You are obviously of a much younger generation than me. Or I.
Actually, I’m probably older.
It’s widely believed that a PhD who jumps in and angrily corrects people when they call him Mr. instead of Dr., or Mrs. instead of Dr., is using the title to cover up a lack of intelligence.
It sounds more like a personal view than a language phenomenon. Those who work hard to attain their titles have a right to expect others to acknowledge them. If anything, it is a weakness of pride, not intelligence. Which senator was it who recently asked that a reporter not call her “Ma’am”? She had made a great effort and overcome significant barriers to become a US Senator and simply wished her rightful title to be used.
It IS a personal view more than a language phenomenon, but that personal view is very, very widespread, particularly in academia. I’ve heard several PhDs question another PhDs’ intelligence when they snippily corrected someone on their title. And if the person doesn’t have a PhD, but a doctorate of education for example (often referred to as “not a real doctorate”), their intelligence is even more likely to be questioned in that situation.
That senator you mentioned didn’t berate a reporter for calling her “Ma’am”, but a general! She was very widely and loudly criticized for that behavior for several reasons. One was that his rank and status were essentially equal to hers. Another was that “Sir” and “Ma’am” are the standard forms of respectful address in the US military, and the senator was too ignorant to know it. The third is that senators are elected to be public servants and are not a form of royalty, so “Sir”, “Ma’am”, “Mr.” and “Mrs.” are sufficiently respectful forms of address for them. The general public opinion was that the senator was being rude and arrogant.
Sorry, but I still doubt your ‘public opinion’, Jamie. The CNN story I saw presented quite the reverse viewpoint. Serendipitously, here is a thank-you post I just received on another forum, and the title was completely unsolicited:
[i]Thanks Doc,
That helped. Problem solved 
Vince[/i]
In Chinese, we use ‘family name + Teacher’ like Wang Teacher, Lee Teacher. So, a teacher who teaches English always feels in a dilemma about the way students address him or her, for Mr/Mrs/Sir/Madam sound too alien to our ears, and meanwhile ‘surname + Teacher’ (or technically Teacher+surname) is too far away from the English convention.
My goodness, I am so ashamed, how could I make those funny mistakes, thanks Alan
uhmm, I dont know Jamie, I have been studying there, in California for a while, and our professors required us to call them Prof + surname
E.g. Prof Xiao, Prof Taga
Some other ones (I dont know if they are junior teachers or so) told us to call them by their first name, and that’s easy.
Then somes asked us to call them Ms/Mr + surname
That’s my experience. Note that I am not a native English speaker (!!!)
Has a professor asked you to call him or her “Dr. So-and-so”?