The genesis of the whole notion that English speaking works differently from writing began in front of my first ESL class the moment I couldn't say I am exactly as it was printed. (I say I yam)It was years before I learned that Linking was the explanation for what was going on and I learned about that in Lydia Aiello’s pronunciation class.
Like most of my great opportunities I stumbled into this one by accident. Lydia was casting around the staff room for a supply teacher for her Friday Pronunciation Class. “I’ll do it!” The eagerness of my response was a measure of my ignorance about the task. “Are you sure?” she said, “It’s pronunciation?” No problem I assured – beginning to wonder what I had gotten myself into. Lydia is one of the most gifted teachers I have ever known. She left a lesson plan so complete a monkey could have followed it and the photocopying was done. I needn’t have worried. The lesson was about Linking and I don’t know about the students but it shifted my universe.
Lydia was chock-a block full of fascinating foibles about the way we speak English and I was hooked. Why doesn’t everyone know this I wondered? The following term I team-taught Lydia’s Friday Pronunciation Class on alternate Fridays and I was exposed to an entire curriculum of pronunciation. (Lydia has since published her method and exercises in a photocopiable workbook called Word Pals.) Then I signed up for Katherine Brillinger’s Teaching English Pronunciation certificate course and my fate was sealed. My love-affair with how speaking works blossomed into a life-long romance.
A big break happened for me in 2002 when the well-dressed strangers from head office paid our site a visit looking for teachers to go overseas. Everyone was excited about the possibility and I knew they would never choose me over the experienced teachers who had expressed interest. I submitted my application anyway. The situation was reminiscent of the old army cartoon where a row of soldiers are lined up facing the Sgt. and he asks for, “Volunteers to step forward”. All the soldiers but one stepped backward. I was chosen to go to South Korea by simply standing still.
I spent the winter teaching Korean English teachers about pronunciation and things I had learned from Lydia and Katherine. When the Korean school year started in March 2003, I taught 500 middle-school boys every week at Nonsan Middle School. There were 13 classes, 35-40 boys in each class and we met once a week for 45 minutes. My contract was up at the end of April so I would be standing in front of each class for a total of 4½ hours before I left the country. I had a progressive principal – Mr. Kim. He gave me carte blanche and it was daunting. I asked myself, “How can I affect these boys’ relationship to English for the rest of their lives in 4½ hours? Has that book been written? No it hasn’t. Can I even do it? I thought I could.
The first thing they absolutely had to have was a functional phonetic alphabet. The ABC’s are only for writing. I had used the International Phonetic Alphabet long enough in Lydia’s class to know it was a pile of crap. I invented a more user-friendly English Phonetic Alphabet, and we started with that. The next thing I thought they needed to know was that English is a stress-based language and how speaking works at the word level. We also had time to cover how sentences worked with important words and unimportant words. Grammar isn't useful for speaking English, only for writing (and moderately useful at that). By the time I left, hundreds of 15 year-old boys were chatting away in English to the surprise and delight of Mr. Kim. Bear in mind, Korean school-children are trained to receive information and study - at school they don’t even talk Korean!
Something was obviously working and that was good, now all I had to do was convince the rest of the world to follow my program. When I got back to Canada the administration at my school wasn’t the least bit interested adding a speaking component to their program no matter how simple or important I thought it was. And they suggested I find another job.
Although my school was not interested in my suggestions I took theirs very seriously and approached Sheridan College with an idea for a new course – Speaking Canadian English based on the differences between written and spoken English. They were refreshingly open. If you can fill the seats – we will run the program. The rest is history. We filled the seats and still run the program. The textbook English is Stupid was printed in 2009 is now being taught in 14 countries around the world including the United States, China, India, Japan Italy and Iran.
We introduced English is Stupid at the big TESL Ontario Conference in Toronto only ten months ago. It was very warmly received. The teachers who bought books at our booth last year brought their friends and site managers this year. The traffic was so heavy at Thompson Language Center, the other booth operators came over to see what we were selling. By Saturday at noon hundreds of teachers had heard me speak, the Toronto Star wanted to write our story, the Royal Ontario Museum invited us to present a special education series and school boards across Ontario and Quebec had booked us for presentations.
Alpha and Omega, the beginning was standing alone at the front of my first class not knowing the difference between writing and speaking and the end is the end of struggling alone to make long overdue changes in this industry.
Speaking English 2.0
Certified training in the Thompson Speaking Method. Saturday November 27 from 9:00- 4:00 in the Music Room at Bloor St. United – 300 Bloor St. W at Huron.
Early Bird $275. After Nov.10 $350. Space is limited.
To register email Judy@thompsonlanguagecenter.com or call (905) 838-1257
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