by Daniel Puzzo

 

Part 1: the serious(ish) version

“In Boston there is an old joke about a woman who landed at Logan Airport and asked the taxi driver, ‘Can you take me someplace where I can get scrod?’ He replied, ‘Gee, that’s the first time I’ve heard it in the pluperfect subjunctive.’”

Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language

Dearest teachers and language learners,

There’s never a bad time to brush up on some basic teaching terminology now, is there? 

This will be familiar to most language learners and should be clear to every single English teacher on the planet (and if not, then you shouldn’t be teaching!).

• Native speaker: the term used to refer to people who speak the same language from birth, as opposed to those who learned it later. For native English speakers, this can include those from the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Nigeria, India, much of the Caribbean and any other countries where English is an official language. Many language teachers hate this term. It leads to a lot of problems. 

• English teacher: a better term than native speaker, but as this could also refer to your literature teacher at school, it might be confusing.

• Metalanguage: words used to refer to other parts of language and language terminology like nouns, verbs, adjectives, intransitive verbs, direct object, third conditional, non-defining relative clause, subjunctive, etc.

• Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs: shame on you if you don’t know what these are.

But just in case:

• Noun: a person, place or thing (book, happiness, doctor, theatre, Birmingham, the Gruffalo)
• Verb: a word to describe an action (eat, play, ponder, disturb)
• Adjective: a word that describes a noun (beautiful, disgusting, scrumptious, hilarious, orange)
• Adverb: a word that modifies or gives more information about a verb, adjective or another adverb. They are also used to express attitude or manner (quite, very, quickly, breathtakingly, unfortunately, surprisingly)

• Present perfect: I have never been to Madagascar; She has already eaten; We haven’t seen that film yet.

• Conditionals: If I have time, I’ll do my homework; If I had a million dollars, I’d fly around the world; If I hadn’t eaten that yellow snow, I wouldn’t have got so damn sick; If I had become a doctor, I’d be writing a completely different, far more interesting article right now.

• Inversion: Not only have I decided to write a book, but I’ve also decided to shave my head if I can actually get it published and sell at least 10,000 copies; Under no circumstances would I encourage my daughter to become an English teacher.

• Relative clauses: My sister, who lives in London, works for an animal charity; a teacher is a person whose job it is to educate people; a dictionary is a thing which most people under the age of 25 have never seen a copy of.

• Collocations: words that naturally occur together, as opposed to isolated words like make. Examples could be verb + noun: do homework, make a mistake, go to the cinema; or adverb + adjective: vitally important, meticulously planned, widely influential.

• Phrasal verbs (or multi-word verbs): a verb followed by a particle (or particles), either a preposition or an adverb, where the meaning is very often different than the mere verb itself: take off, put on, do away with, get away with. English is one of the only languages with these multi-word verbs, and because of this, they tend to be awfully confusing for students.

• Articles: these go before nouns and function like adjectives. There’s the definite article the and the indefinite a/an. Students love these, especially those whose own language doesn’t have articles. It makes the learning process so much more challenging, enjoyable and stress-free.

• Phonemic script: a transcription of the sounds of words and phrases, using symbols. For example: /ˈsɑː.kæz.əm/ or /ˈsɑːr.kæz.əm/

• Prepositions: little words that come before nouns and show the relationships between words: for, at, with, to, by, in, on, off, etc.

• Idioms: a phrase or group of words that usually has a figurative or metaphorical and not a literal meaning, for example: break a leg (used to mean good luck for someone about to give a performance) or we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it (we’ll decide when we really have to).

(We could also add malapropism here, which is when words get mixed up, especially in idioms. We have the idioms ‘to burn your bridges’ and ‘we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ and I love saying, “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.” I enjoy it all the more when I see the confused looks in people’s faces. “Did he mean to say that?”)

• Colloquialism: an informal word or expression that is more suitable for use in speech than in writing. It’s ‘street language’ or slang-like expressions used in conversation. Often when students ask for idioms, they actually want colloquialisms or idiomatic language rather than actual idioms themselves (without realising it).

• Acronyms related to the profession – surely these don’t need to be spelled out:

TEFL, EFL, ESL, TESOL, ESP, CELTA, DELTA, IELTS, PPP, TTT, etc

• False friends: words that sound very similar or almost the same in different languages but mean completely different things. 

Now that we’ve covered a few basic terms, let’s move on to something lighter.

***

False friends story time

There is a lot of great potential for funny and awkward misunderstandings here. 

Let’s say I’m in Ukraine and go to the barber to have my hair cut. As I’m waiting, I look around for a magazine to read but don’t see any. So, I ask for one. They look at me, confused. Do we have a magazin? How can we have a shop? Maybe you’re looking for a specific magazin to buy something, like bread? “Ah, so magazin in Ukrainian means shop? Oops, I didn’t realise!” An innocent mistake.

In a magazin supermarket in Ukraine, just after I had arrived, I asked a shop assistant whether the jam had any preservativos in it. She looked puzzled. I was merely interested in whether it was chemical-free, and she was probably thinking, “Why the hell would this foreigner think we put condoms in our jam, what kind of country does he think Ukraine is?” A Ukrainian preservativ is not what we put in food products in the English-speaking world in order to make them last longer, but rather something else. Still innocent, but awkwardly funny.

(Just in case it’s still not clear, one of the funniest pieces of graffiti I’ve ever seen was in Ireland, on the condom machine in a pub bathroom: “For a refund, please show us the baby.”)

If I were in France and wanted a bookshop, they might direct me to a librarie. If I said, “No, I don’t want to borrow a book, I want to buy it,” they would insist I go to a librarie. If I persisted in asking for a bookshop, they’d say, “No, you idiot, a librarie in French is a bookshop.” Okay, got it.

So far, nothing too embarrassing, right? Well…

Now we’re in Spain. I am talking to a woman and practising my terrible Spanish. She tells me a story about an embarrassing thing that happened to her, and I pretend to understand and laugh at the appropriate moments. Then she looks a bit shy, takes out her pocket mirror and points to my mouth, showing me the spinach stuck between my teeth. “Yo estoy tan embarazada!” I say, thinking that I am saying, “I am so embarrassed!” She looks perplexed, and says, “What?! How can you be pregnant? You’re a man!”

Again, that’s not so bad. It could be much worse. Imagine if I asked a woman if she were embarazada after she had farted in public and she thought I was calling her pregnant. The next thing you know, she’s either slapping me or I’m getting into trouble for body shaming.

After this, I badly need to go to the chemist’s (or pharmacy) for some medicine. It’s nothing to do with my previous embarrassment. It turns out, I’ve eaten too much cheese and chorizo and not enough fiber, and I’m badly constipated. I say to the chemist, “Yo estoy constipado!” and she responds with something I don’t quite understand, but there’s no confusion on her face and she calmly turns around and hands me a type of spray. It looks like a nasal spray, but perhaps that’s how they relieve constipation in Spain. 

She starts explaining how to use it, but for some reason keeps pointing to her nose. Well, maybe that makes sense, it would be terribly awkward if she were to start demonstrating by putting the spray up her backside, wouldn’t it? Still, I don’t quite understand, and I ask her again in my lousy Spanish, how many times I’m supposed to spray this stuff up my backside and whether I need to insert the nozzle all the way up inside and how many times…right, now this is getting pretty filthy (sorry)…she’s looking at me like I have horns growing out of my head and the other customers are giggling. But I am desperately constipated and need relief and so I resort to miming to show her what my problem is. Cue more laughing amongst the customers. Her face turns red. 

“Ah, señor, so you are estreñido, not constipado!” And then she gives me a laxative.

Now I know. Constipado in Spanish means I have a cold, and a blocked nose. Well, blocked – it’s all the same, right?

Awkwardness is one thing. Death is another. The consequences could be potentially fatal.

For my final example, it’s birthday time in Vienna. My daughter has been invited to yet another party and so it’s time to look for a gift. But I have no idea what to buy so I ask a shop assistant for help. My German is terrible, and the shop assistant barely speaks English. When I say I want a gift for a five-year-old, he looks baffled. And then runs away. What a strange man, I think…

I ask another assistant for help. This one looks equally perplexed. But he doesn’t run away, he calmly directs me to a chemist’s. That’s odd, I think. Why would I go to a chemist’s to get a birthday gift? Anyway, I do as he says.

In the chemist’s, I ask for a recommendation for a gift for a child. The chemist looks concerned and then walks away. She returns in a few minutes with her manager. The manager asks me to repeat my request. Now I’m the one getting confused. Why so much hassle for a gift? I should never have asked for help. I’m about to leave and go buy a puzzle when the police suddenly show up.

“Halt!” they shout at me. “Why do you want to poison a five-year-old child, you monster! Come with us!”

What? Gift in German means poison? Deary me…what a funny language…

At the next birthday party in Vienna I attend, I’ll try to have some fun with this. I will hand the birthday boy or girl a small package and say, “Here is a lovely Gift for you!”

Be very careful with false friends.

***

Teaching terminology, part 2: the real definitions 

“To take my work seriously would be the height of folly.”

Edward Gorey  

“Life is far too important to be taken seriously.”

Oscar Wilde

Let’s revisit and review that basic terminology from earlier.

You can ignore part 1 of this list. Sure, it’s useful, but these definitions are far more realistic and meaningful than that mumbo jumbo. 

• Native speakers: teachers who think they’re gods and it’s their God-given right to walk into the classroom and be expert teachers simply because they were fortunate enough to have been born into a situation where they grew up speaking English. They are, naturally, superior to non-native speakers and much more knowledgeable, and best of all, they never, ever make mistakes. Students, you can trust 100% of what they tell you. 

• English teacher: this is what I tell people I do and kind of hope that they’ll think, “Oh, right, he teaches English literature and cool stuff like that,” as opposed to telling them I’m an EFL teacher where they might think, “Oh, okay, he didn’t know what else to do with his life, and he’s a slacker and he figures he can just rock up and teach English anywhere simply because he was fortunate to have been born a native speaker.” Sure, I’m thrilled with my career choice.

• Metalanguage: this is the language teachers use to show off and wow students with, even though 95% of them have no idea what any of it means: “Of course you need to use a transitive verb here because it takes a direct object, and the phrasal verb is inseparable so the pronoun must come between the verb and its particle you nincompoop!”

• Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs: shame on you if you don’t know what these are. There is nothing more to add here. More metalanguage, but pretty basic. Really, really, shame on you if you don’t know these. If you’re a language learner at B1 or above and don’t know, at this point it’s time to give up.

• Collocations: when learners produce errors like ‘make my homework’ and ‘do a mistake’, this is the word that teachers throw at students and tell them is the key to learning English and speaking fluently.

• Phrasal verbs (or multi-word verbs): phrases invented by evil forces designed to destroy every language learners’ motivation and desire because most of them are totally illogical and are too damn difficult to remember and use properly and thus will hardly ever be used, except pretty basic ones like get up and take off although way too many students still say stuff like, “I got up, put on my clothes, and then got home and put off my clothes.”

(Correct: I put on my shoes and then took them off. I put off my project until the last minute. As Oscar Wilde said, “Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.” Maybe someone else actually said that, but it sounds like something Oscar would have said.)

• Articles: probably even worse than phrasal verbs in terms of confusion and being able to use properly, and 99% of the time they’re not that important and you can get away with using them incorrectly without any risk of miscommunication unless you say “take a piss” when you mean to say “take the piss” or “buy the farm” versus “buy a farm.” 

Example one: the student gets it wrong

“My uncle just bought the farm!” said the student, excitedly.

Teacher: “I’m so sorry to hear that, were you close?”

“Um, yes, we are close, but I’m so happy he’s going to be a farmer now!”

Teacher: [confused, perplexed, scratching head…] “Ah, so your uncle bought a farm, I see…”

Example two: the student gets it right

“My uncle just bought the farm!” said the student, excitedly.

Teacher: “I’m so sorry to hear that, were you close?”

“Hell no, the dude was a jerk, thank God he’s finally kicked the bucket, now I’ll get to inherit his money!”

Teacher: [confused, perplexed, scratching head, thinking what a cruel little turd this student is…]

Example three: article rules are damn confusing

“My uncle just bought the farm!” said the student, excitedly.

Teacher: “Wait, do you mean he’s died, or did he buy the specific farm you mentioned to me last week that he might buy?”

“Yeah, that’s right, I mentioned to you last week that my uncle was thinking of buying a farm and he’s decided to buy it.”

Teacher: [confused, perplexed, scratching head, thinking, “Why the hell would anyone buy a farm these days?”]

Got all that? Good. 

• Prepositions: as a colleague of mine once said about these, “They aren’t sexy, but they’re pretty damn important.” He might have been referring to articles, but it applies to prepositions too. Like articles, these suck and can be pesky, irritating and confusing. There are lots of rules that make sense, but plenty of exceptions. When in doubt, just use in. Or at. Or with. Or by. Or for. Say whatever you want, it will probably be wrong anyway.

• Phonemic script: like metalanguage, something teachers like to use to show off, and something which 99% of native speakers know nothing about, further confirming their god-like status in the TEFL world. We just hope that students won’t ask us to transcribe a word. If they do, the common tactic is stall or change the subject to something else, and then while the students are busily doing that ‘something else’, we go to the internet and find the transcription of the word, sneakily put it up on the board when no one is looking and then later refer back to it and say, “Here it is, by the way, for your reference,” and then feel proud of ourselves for the approved looks we get from students who are ready to confirm the God-given status that native speakers have so rightfully earned. God, my grammar is beautiful, ain’t it?

• Idioms: things that students like to use to show off, saying stuff like, “Oh my, isn’t it raining cats and dogs, teacher?” and “I live in such a small flat, there’s barely enough room to swing a cat in it”, and then teachers hear this and cringe and think, “Good lord, who taught them this, why are they using it?” Trust me: idioms are useful and a big part of English, but they can be hard to use naturally and when used incorrectly, they often stick out like a sore thumb.

(A better way to say it’s raining cats and dogs? Say that it’s ‘pissing it down’.)

• Colloquialisms: This is street slang, innit? Dinnae ken what I mean? What ‘bout ye? What’s the good word? Any craic?

 

(‘innit’: a Cockney question tag for ‘isn’t it’; ‘dinnae ken’: the Scottish vernacular for ‘don’t know’; ‘What ’bout ye?’: a typical Northern Irish greeting for ‘how’s it going?’; ‘What’s the good word?’: a New England saying for ‘what’s up?’; ‘any craic?’: an Irish saying for ‘any news or gossip?’ Craic is also a synonym for ‘fun’ and is pronounced ‘crack.’ In Northern Ireland, people might say, ‘Last night was great craic, so it was.’)

• Present perfect, conditionals, inversion, relative clauses: terms that 95% of native-speaking, non-TEFL people will not understand but which they might be able to use correctly 80% of the time. Many language learners despise these because they make their lives unnecessarily difficult and the vast majority, around 75%, will never be able to use them properly. 

Student: “Do we really need to learn this inversion nonsense, like whoever says, ‘Under no circumstances are we ever going to stay in your awful hotel ever again?’”

Teacher: “Yes, you need it, it’s in our course book and besides, it’s a useful structure used on various exams that you will need to take in the future.”

Student: “I’m not planning on taking exams, I’m just learning English for fun. Why would I ever need this?”

Teacher: “Well, for when you travel, and you decide to write a formal, official letter of complaint to the hotel you stayed in that offered less than satisfactory experience and you would like to express your displeasure and ask for compensation.”

Student: “Dude, it’s 2023, no one writes letters like that anymore, we just write Trip Advisor reviews or post stuff on Instagram like #HotelAlohaSucks and then get freebies or something.”

Teacher: [speechless, confused, questioning their career choices…] 

• Percentages: things English teachers like to use a lot. 75% of the time they’re made up and thus, totally inaccurate and very confusing. Ignore most of them, especially the ones in this article.

• TEFL/EFL/ESL/TESOL/YOLO/FYI/NSFW: teachers love acronyms. Most of them don’t know what they mean and so they’re probably not really important in the grand scheme of things.

• CELTA: either four weeks of hedonistic joy (in my case, because I was a bad student) or four weeks of torture where aspiring future teachers are given the rudimentary basics of how to be an EFL teacher even though the native speakers don’t know much about grammar terminology and are overall pretty lousy teachers compared to non-native teachers yet will still probably get jobs more easily and with higher salaries because, yet again, they have a God-given right to be teachers since they were fortunate enough to be born into an English-speaking culture are superior.

• DELTA: a more intense form of the CELTA, or “the CELTA on steroids”, as one of my tutors once called it, and in reality for many people it’s what you decide to do when you realise that you’re stuck in the English teaching world and you might as well do it, because it will make you feel a tiny bit better about your career ‘choice’ even though it was more because you didn’t know what else to do but at least it might make you take your job more seriously (but it will almost certainly not necessarily make you a better teacher).

• IELTS: an exam that many people take because they dream of getting away from their country, and in which the majority will not get the results they need and will thus be disappointed for the rest of eternity.

• False friends: friends you can’t trust, or imaginary friends that children like to dream up.

• Cynics: a lot of English teachers, the author included.