I think English is tough, but definitely fair!
It’s unfair that some non-native teachers teach it wrong. I’m sure there are scads of undequalified non-native teachers who are unaware of this usage of “will”.
I think native or non-native doesn’t matter. There are many good teachers who are non-native working hard to have strong command of the language.
Some of them are much much better than average native speakers. ^^
Well I think it DOES matter.
As Alan put it few years back (and I happen to concur with his point), no matter how good you are, you can still misfire and misuse an idiom or use the wrong word. Either you learn a language at mother’s knee or your command of it is inferior to that of an average native speaker’s (with an average IQ).
The nitty gritty is: a non native speaker can’t measure up to a native speaker when it comes to English speaking skills.
Hi OTS,
Native speakers can teach the language better — that’s one of the common fallacies many people easily believe.
I’m a Japanese but I don’t think I can make a good teacher of the language because I don’t care much about the grammar,
I don’t need it, I’ve just absorbed the language. I think that’s the way how most people speak their own languages.
And that’s why being a native speaker alone doesn’t mean he/she can be a good teacher of the language.
From the point of view of a student of English language, I want to be taught by a person who has studied grammar for many years
and is good at explaining the usage as clearly as possible rather than by a person who happen to be a native speaker of the language but nothing else.
To me, it doesn’t matter if he/she is native or not. But yes, native speakers are better when you want to practice speaking English on.
I agree with you. ^^
I agree with Pooh here. For instance, the proper use of articles is one of the toughest parts of getting English right. But even a native English speaking child who has never taken a formal grammar course has no problem adding the "a"s and "the"s, but like me, they have a hard time explaining exactly where they belong.
You define a student of English as someone who’s really into grammar and I take exception to that definition. I think for many students knowing grammar has become an end unto itself: all they care about is knowing all the grammar rules there are. And I’m a student of English and I’m not really THAT keen on grammar, to study it day in and day out. I think grammar is good in moderation.
That said, I would never study with a non-native sppeaker who knows every grammar rule - there’s a good chance he doesn’t know EVERY rule, or every exception to every rule. Non-native speakers lack the gut feeling about the language, and without that feeling they will never measure up to native speakers, and therefore not as good.
Hehe, there’s no hard and fast rule about their usages to date, all the rules known to man have about a gazillion exceptions and therefore not very accurate, you still must have a gut feeling to know when to use them. That’s why a native speaker is better at teaching them to non-native speakers in my book.
I’m not really into grammar, but I believe that grammar is like a foundation everything can start from there when it comes to learning foreign language.
Without a solid foundation, you cannot built a nice house on it. In order to understand grammar to some extent, I think we need a good teacher who can explain really good.
But for speaking, I think we don’t need a teacher, we can improve our speaking skills through practice. Thanks for the internet, it is not so difficult to speak people other side of the planet everyday in this modern world. haha ^^ So that’s why I think people called English teachers should be good at grammar.
Yet Luschen’s children don’t know the rules on how to use the articles and they use them perfectly well. In fact I bet they can run circles around your average non-native English professor. And so can all native speakers.
So that solid foundation you’re talking about is not really needed to speak the language well. Moreover it creates clutter in your head and may prevent you from speaking fluently, because you may develop a need to constantly to look up a rule or two in your head.
Therefore I strongly disagree that grammar is absolutely necessary to speak the language well. However it does help non-native speakers in a way. As I’ve said, it’s good in moderation. Too much of it will queer the deal.
You should be careful not to get too hung up on grammar, it should never be an end in itself, it’s simply a tool (and there are many other tools) and you can fare well without it (like most native speakers do).
My goal is a good command of English, not a good command of English grammar.
Aha, now I understand that you think we can learn foreign language in the same way we did our native language. That’s the big difference b/w you and me!
I don’t think it works as we live in totally different environment.
I cannot live using English 24 hours a day!! If I could, then I would agree with you, we could learn English in exactly the same way native speakers do.
Well, we have different ideas on how to learn foreign language after all.
Anyway, it was fun talking to you on this kind of topic.
See you around! ^^
The Monkey and the Guerrila may claim oness but the Monkey is a Monkey and the Guerrila, a Gurrila.
Native speakers are always articulate and fluent even the little child, non-native speaker has to think over the language before spewing out any English. Native speakers have no grammar hung ups. But I think you are all right in your sayings. Luschen I think you are native speaker?
Yes, I am a native speaker, but I would not say I am right in all my sayings! I do try though and readily admit when I am uncertain of a point.