Link Ed In by Steve Way

 The great language teacher Michel Thomas often said that you learn a lot more about your own language when learning another. Although only semi-fluent in French, I am able to teach beginners (as my dad used to say, ‘In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king’) and often tell them that ‘most posh English comes from French’. Despite that I still feel uncomfortable saying ‘Je demande’ even though in French that merely means ‘I ask’ rather than that I’m being argumentative!

As an adjunct to Michel’s statement you could perhaps add learning more about your own language when you teach it. In my case, teaching mainly Spanish speakers, it’s made me more acutely aware of how unintuitive the pronunciation of English words is. Previously, though the habit of familiarity, it had never occurred to me that the pronunciation of the mass of words ending in -ed are never in fact pronounced as ‘Ed’, as in the abbreviation of Edward. Understandably, until I make my best effort to explain, my students ask-Ed or answer-Ed (also sounding the w) etc. Given that my teaching colleagues and I are only explaining this to a fraction of Spanish speakers, adopted English words ending in -ed also end up dedicated to Ed. Our most frequent discussions revolve around the professionals’ social media platform ‘LinkedIn’. Spanish speakers refer to it as ‘Link Ed In’.* One of my students responded to my explanation of this error by saying, “Ok Steve, I get it. It should be pronounced ‘Link-t In’ but I’ll have to carry on calling it ‘Link Ed In’ with my friends, otherwise they won’t know what I’m talking about!”

A different English term that has been changed in pronunciation by Spanish speakers is ‘WiFi’. They pronounce it as ‘wiffy’. I first discovered this from a student who was excited about going to a conference in London. “I’ll have to do some work while I’m in England,” he told me. “So when I get to the hotel, I’ll have to ask them if they’ve got a really strong wiffy!” In order to maintain cordial diplomatic relations between our two countries, I gently suggested that he didn’t do that.

Even though we state some acronyms as though they are words, such as ‘NASA’, Spanish speakers do so far more frequently. When I asked one student where he had been on holiday, he seemed to say that he had been to ‘Ossa’. Being desperately ignorant when it comes to geography, I wondered if he was referring to an eastern European city. Fortunately all became clear as he continued speaking, “Yes, we visited New York and then we went to Boston…” “Ah!” I declared. “You mean the U.S.A.” emphasising each letter. On other occasions some students talk about an important executive at the company by referring to them as the ‘See-oh’. You’ve probably deduced they were speaking about their C.E.O.

Something else interesting I’ve seen from teaching English is that it seems that the various schemes and courses used for teaching the language have certain idiosyncratic commonalities. It seems that all of them suggest that we all use one particular phrase, more or less in unison, when it begins raining. On the – increasingly rare – occasions when it’s raining on the plain or elsewhere in Spain, every student announces that, “it’s raining cats and dogs,” in the proud manner of a toddler exclaiming, “look, no stabilisers!” Now I know the phrase exists… but when did you last hear anyone using it? Also – astonishingly – the word ‘astonish’ is normally unknown to my students until I introduce them to it, which seems to indicate that for some reason this word has been excluded from all the standard courses. (I do tend to go off piste with my teaching, which is why I’ve discovered this.)

*Could that be misconstrued as ‘Link Ed in to a WhatsApp group?’ or does that could as splitting your social media sites rather than infinitives?

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The original idea behind Reluctant Writers Resource was to provide an 'idea-a-week' to support creative writing lessons during the 38 weeks of the school year. However the concept mushroomed and the resource now provides considerably more than 38 weeks worth of ideas. The resource is divided into four sections. The 'Get the Pen Moving' section provides short, snappy ideas to help stir up the creative juices and support writers by getting words on the page, ideas include 'Nutty New Year Resolutions' and 'Silly Rules' (including those for teachers, which children seem to love writing!) The 'Standard ideas' section provides accessible, punchy ideas like 'Crazy Superheroes (and a few villains)' and 'Very Short Stories' and is followed by the 'Advanced ideas' section, providing more extended and sophisticated pieces as writers gain more confidence, including 'Letters to Aunt Agatha' (an agony aunt who receives bizarre letters from her readers) and 'Fairy-sized Fairy Tales', comically foreshortened versions of popular tales. The final section contains examples of 'Structured Stories' ranging from a series of short stories following a very distinct format to a piece (Hank Bullman rides into Certain City) clearly requiring a sequel. (What happens when he rides into Uncertain City?) Writers are encouraged to become co-authors of the structured stories and authors of increasing confidence to compose the Hank Bullman sequel.

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