That is another brilliant question I get from English learners about their pronunciation. As if it would solve their problems to be just understood. I can understand handicaps too sometimes, does that make them good communicators? Any English speaker who knows about 300-500 words of English can somehow manage to make himself or herself be understood provided he or she is not discussing or debating some philosophical, religious or political topic. So the question that should be asked now is “How do I sound?”. Unfortunately, 80% of the times, the answer would be “ridiculous” “funny” “childish” “boring” etc. There you have it.
You know what? I’m sick and tired of those phonies and hypocrites (English teachers mainly, those who teach English as a hobby or just for travel) who actually dare to look straight into their students’ eyes and lie to their teeth about how their students sound. “Oh your English is great. I can understand every word you say!”. “Oh your grammar’s amazing, it’s better than mine”. “Oh I wish I could speak your language as well as you speak mine”. Is that right you imbecile? Maybe if you had a bit more pride, respect and appreciation for your language (English), you wouldn’t be feeding us all that B.S. First of all, no one is stopping you to learn a foreign language if that is what you REALLY wish! And it would be truly good if you did, but guess what, it wouldn’t honestly matter much if you didn’t either. Why? Because you already speak the language that these poor suckers are spending a little fortune on, don’t you? So the least thing you can do for your students is be honest and tell them what they REALLY sound like. Maybe that would be an inconvenient truth for you wouldn’t it? It would basically prove your failure as a teacher. So you tell them their English is great so that YOU can feel better about it, isn’t that it?
It is immoral to do that pal! It is your duty to be genuine with your students about their progress and fluency in English. The students WANT to believe lies as everyone else does especially when these lies grant you instant gratification and unfounded confidence that could, sooner or later, lead to much embarrassment and humiliation in life.
I’ve got to say this though. Some students deserve such teachers because they are not serious about mastering the language either. And you know what? Not everyone absolutely has to, and that’s fair enough. So I hope this industry can someday somehow introduce something like a teacher-student matching service if you will, phony teachers can teach or “jack around with” phony students and good teachers can teach the good ones. Wouldn’t that be something!
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