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Should I correct a French teacher who teaches English ?


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Chancer, you spend your days winding up people on the Brexit thread on the dark entree forum. Don't say you don't because you do.

Now Chancer, how did you manage to renovate your 'forty towers' in France whilst at the same time accumulate nearly 20,000 posts across two forums.

Good question methinks. When I was doing renovation I did not have the time for a shower never mind *** about on forums.

Answer me this ?
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How does a person get so many posts, well, you already have over a 1000 ALBF and you have been on here for long, it doesn't take much to get lots of posts.

What annoys me are the lurkers who are either too nervous to post, or perhaps think that there is a click on here and there is not. I just wish they would post, keep the board going.

And ALBF, read what people say, all is there about folk, you can pick up their circumstances quite often and re NH, he certainly does not live in Little Britain and has worked in France and not running a gite etc. Some of us do live other than this notion you have.

Me, well, I must say, I never got why people were moving to the parts of France that seemed so popular with british people in the main. For too many years, these regions had no good press to speak of in France, the indiginous population sadly have to leave.......finding work elsewhere etc and it was what it was. Cheap housing and no work, hardly enticing. But it was just that, cheap housing, which became the attraction. And that had no appeal to me either cheap housing for a young couple like us would have been stupid in the extreme without decent and steady work. And it all felt a bit like friends telling me donkeys years ago you could get two litres of wine for a quid in french supermarkets........... and I did find it when I looked, because frankly I had never looked for such a thing, in a corner near where people could go and fill their own bottles with cheap plonk, mainly alcoholics, I would assume, I wouldn't even cook with the stuff, beurk! Ofcourse incomers with money actually have put a lot of money into these regions, how much it will have helped, especially if the incomers are pensioners rather than younger folk with babies and kids, I have no idea........ to be seen!

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[quote user="alittlebitfrench"] Now Chancer, how did you manage to renovate your 'forty towers' in France whilst at the same time accumulate nearly 20,000 posts across two forums. [/quote]

 

You have me there, I didn't, I made it all up, really I am stuck at home looking after the kids on invalidity benefits, I dont have any practical skills, I cannot do renovation, I just talk a good job although nowhere near as good as someone else.

 

But I can dream..............................

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For the newer members of the forum - I would like to remind you that long ago we had a sort of gentleman's agreement that we would not discuss other forums on this one. It would be good if we kept to that.
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[quote user="alittlebitfrench"]

Ok, my little girl ask me to correct her homework so I did with a pen. I crossed out all the 'gots' because they weren't needed. She said that was the exercise you idiot. I said oops. I phoned my mum who is indeed a professor and has written and published many books. She agreed that the 'gots' weren't needed. I had no choice but to write a little note explaining why I had butcherd her homework.

[/quote]Why would she ask you, of all people? And why would you correct her homework with a pen? Frankly I don't believe a word of it. You must have way too much spare time on your hands!
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Red pen is far too authoritarian, top down; you should use a non-judgemental and neutral colour. Remember you are there to help your child, not as a substitute for the teacher whose role is far beyond 'simple' teaching.

Maybe get her to do the exercise on a neutral piece of paper in future (just the answers) so they can be discussed without fouling up her class work or homework book. Or use a photocopy to work on then copy the work out.

Maybe, you should have sent the teacher the link to the British Council website that Norman quoted so that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet rather from personal prejudices.

Note that these prejudices are defined by age; the average age of the contributors to this thread is about 100 so they have fairly 'old' and somewhat prescriptive ideas of what language is acceptable. "Got", for example is a young upstart for most posters who probably picked up their English from Masters who were aged anyway, and who thought that English was an extension of Latin.

And do be careful ALBF, your style will cause heart attacks in the cloistered reaches of the Dogdogne and we don't want that do we!!
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Flipin heck Wooly, it was just a colouring in of a face and they were asked to describe it with a couple of sentences. She is only 9. She preferred the colouring in.

The trouble also is that French children write English with that lovely French handwriting which is very difficult to read.

Last time I was at the channel tunnel I parked behind a big BMW SUV registered 24. I thought oh look some French family has been to the UK from the Dordogne. Then out popped the monster family. The blokes exposed tummy was hitting the ground. So was the tummy of his wife. The kids in the back were telling at each other. They were more Ant and Dec than Inspector Morse wolly
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 LOVELY FRENCH HANDWRITING?

You mean like my grandmother who was born in 1879 used to do and was hard to read. And why has France not got past those great educational reforms of the 80's........... NO! I DO NOT MEAN THE 1980'S BUT THE 1880'S.

And for some reason I had thought that your daughter was in college, but primaire and you may be OK ......... and the teacher may not exact revenge at a later date......... but just keep your eye out for it.

Best not to get me started on french education, I despair of it.

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I'm not quite a centenarian but I was taught NEVER to use the word "got" at all, ever, by my primary school teachers (in 1950s Forest Hill, south London - I doubt whether very many of them had much Latin).

It was only later that I came to understand that this is a very English prejudice against a useful word, and one that makes almost no sense at all to most writers in the United States.

It's highly likely that English teachers in France will have studied material from the US either instead of, or as well as, from England.

So to answer the OP's original question, in my view it was wrong to "correct" the French teacher's use of "got", as it isn't wrong.
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Buzzard wrote :

It's highly likely that English teachers in France will have studied material from the US either instead of, or as well as, from England.

Here, not far from Vannes, teachers of English appear definitely to be of the US/English rather than UK/English variety. I have discovered this in talking English with Lycée and IUT students.

Being in my late 60's I am quite firmly planted in the anti-got school as it was drilled into me in the many schools I went to how abominable this word was.

But, hereabouts, the students use it extensively - just as it is used in the US.

Sue
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Well done the last two posters. We finally got there Lol. ?

The teacher in question speaks perfect English with an American accent. We Brit Muppets think that kids in France should learn English English...!!!

My dad ( a cockney type who left school at 15) b###cked me whenever I I used the the word 'got'.
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So just out of interest, do the "never use got" people extend the prohibition to the interrogative and negative forms?

Would you say, "have you got many children?" or "do you have many children?".

I think the answer to the latter could be, "never more than one a year". ?
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I think my primary school teachers thought it was a word to be avoided, because "it was an ugly word".

Which is a funny objection, when you think about it. There's nothing wrong with "cot" or "lot", for example, and there are a large number of phrasal verbs like "get up", "get off", "get out", "get going" etc, which would find they were missing an important past tense.
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It's a blessing the homework didn't use the word 'gotten'.

Some members of English classes we take in our town used to have an American couple teaching them before we took over. We found members used quite a few American phrases, which really grated, such as gotte, cowlick, parking lot etc.
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Interestingly, sources such as the British Council say that "have got" is more common in British English and "have" in American English. I certainly think this is true in the interrogative form.

"Gotten" is an interesting one. It was, of course, the original form for the past tense, crossed the Atlantic and remained in American usage, but declined in British usage. It is still used in Scotland.

Of course we happily still use the form in "forgotten".

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I think the prohibition in primary schools (though I have never come across it myself) will be more to do with encouraging an extensive and varied vocabulary. "I got up, I got breakfast, I got dressed, I went to school", becoming "I arose from my bed, donned my garments, prepared my morning repast and departed". Ho hum.
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