Hello folks. I've got some questions about English courses or private tuition in Krakow; Where can I find a private English native tutor? Maybe you know some decent schools or universities that are worth considering. Of course, there are a lot of adds about such tuition, but I need some recommendations and feedback.
In your opinion, what's best a private tutor or a group course?
Advertise on gumtree. Make sure that they show you certificates which entitle them to teach. It all depends on how much you want to pay, on your existing level of English, your age, your future plans.
Thanks. I've looked through that website and there are a lot of adds about tuition....but these certificates can be forged, and having a certificate doesn't necessarily mean that the teacher is experienced.That's why I'm asking for an advice about schools or universities which have a good teacher staff, or maybe someone knows a good private tutor, who he can recommend.
Some recommended lincoln and prolog schools. I've found some Uncle Sam Am school,but I didn't find any feedback about it. Has anyone heard anything about this rather new school?
If believing that standard pronunciation, be it US standard, UK standard etc. (English is pluracentric, after all) is somehow out of date makes me "old-fashioned" and "provincial", then I proudly plead GUILTY AS CHARGED!!
So long as any language variants are prefaced as such, e.g. a German teacher with a Viennese accent, an English teacher with a Scots intonation etc. I have no problem whatsoever:-)
its very rare for any student of English to be able to differentiate between accents, let alone have it affect their speaking. has to be clear, of course.
At the level that most of them are at I mean, the ones that attend lessons...:)
Also I have met some amazing people that were excellent English teachers, but not native speakers.
True enough. I'm only concerned in as far as some school/teachers might actually adopt the attitude that the accent of the teacher is unimportant in the long run; their students wouldn't know the difference or care anyhow.
Ever since the end of the '60's, there's been this ridiculous notion afoot that structure and proscriptive standard are somehow "bad" and that"freedom of expression" (however blatantly, even blithely offensive or disrespectfully vulgar) is somehow "good".
Agreed, Roz. There are thousands of Aussies and Kiwis working in ELT and their students don't end up sounding like Dame Edna.
I'd choose a Brit, or someone from Ireland, Aus or NZ as a teacher rather than a Yank or Canuck, simply becausr learners generally need to acquire the prestige register of any language, rather than a variant.
rare for any student of English to be able to differentiate between accents
I'm an American native speaker and freely admit I can't tell most British accents apart. Really exagerated extremes I can mostly tell apart but I can't tell different cities in the same part of the UK apart the way British people can. America doesn't have that wide a spectrum of variety though I've noticed British people can't tell the American regional differences apart very well either.
Way back in the 1990's the British-based EFL/ESL industry gave up on the idea of learners ever sounding 'native' though. There was some weird recursive double speak about 'any accent that sounds like a person who uses english every day' or something but I forget the details.
In the US I think there's still an idea of sounding like a native (but the US does have GAE, a neutral standard that never sounds out of place (geographically or ethno-racially, unlike the UK)
thats right Maf. Also, the vast majority of learners have no desire to sound British or American,they just want to for example. be able to make a conference call to China.
Hey, I'm not expecting foreign-born/trained English instructors to be double-agents, able to be remain indistinguishable from an English native speakers!! That's clearly nonsense.
I do though expect a degree of modesty on the part of a foreign-born English teacher when in the presence of an educated native English speaker:-) Just sometimes, the native might actually know betterLOL
Just sometimes, the native might actually know betterLOL
to be honest, someone that has learnt the language to such a high level is probably going to be better at explaining grammar than a native speaker is.
One university summer school I did, we all doubled up, native/non native, and shared a class. The non native would explain grammar points, the native would do the fun stuff..:) Suited me, (my partner was from Syria...:)
We also had colleagues from France, Greece and Germany. Most of them had just finished the Masters in ELT/applied linguistics course.
While I'd have to agree with you here, if only based on my own experience studying high school French with Mme.Osborn (from Athens, Georgia, but one HELL of a grammarian!!!), as regards the ins-and-outs of a language, not to mention the subtleties of accent etc. even the great Mme Osborn had to bow to her French-born and bred colleague, Monsieur Cabeau from Toulouse (admitting his own "francais de langue d'oc").
There was some weird recursive double speak about 'any accent that sounds like a person who uses english every day'
Fair enough, unless you're doing accent coaching for an actor. Learners rarely want to sound as if they're from a particular place. The want to speak the language well, with pronounciation that doesn't impede understanding. Anything else (with the very rare exception of learners who enjoy mimicking particular accents for fun or academic interest) sounds affected.
If any do affect a specific native accent other than RP without having actually spent enough time in that place to acquire it, I just pretend I don't understand them.
All depends on one's sense of standard as well as general expectation, roz. Since English is, once again, pluracentric, the result (above all, nowadays - ahh me, for the good old days of CBS in the '60's when announcer Jon Stephenson would correctively re-cast a foreign interviewee's English - deftly, seamlessly, unflappably, yet ever so soundly!) has been that it has turned into a kind of universal nurf ball, a helpless pin cushion into which the needles of abuse and misuse are all too merrily jabbed, sadistically and without mercy, more often than not, without a clue:-)
Walter Cronkite, Gil Noble, Eric Severeid, Jon Stephenson, and Charles Collingwood, where art thou, when thy reign is so desperately needed?
Like i said in the first place, provincial and old fashioned..:) Why would/should I or anyone else have heard of these aged/dead Americans? Its not the American language, its an international language. I could come up with people that you havent heard of, and shout NEXT at you. But I am not that rude or ignorant..:)
You've yet to produce a shred of evidence to support your claim, you realize.
Not entirely to blame, roz. Ever since Woodstock, the US has promoted "Do your own thing!", not necessarily the RIGHT thing:-) Compare how average teens spoke before '68 and today. It's not about different slang, allusions, etc. It's about the difference between:
Kid: Boy, were ya scared? (1958)
Kid: Were you, like ahmm, like scared? (2017)
And the latter's no doubt a hedge-fund mogul's son!
Same sentence fifty-odd years ago, ZERO GRIT!!!
Language, like nature's landscape, knows no real age, roz. Good language, like a view of the Tetons, is timeless:-)
NEXT!! Lyzko you are still being provincial. do you not see? Woodstock is feck all do with me. And i am not making 'claims' that need 'evidence' - am I?
