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Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Sick of teaching American English

I am AUSTRALIAN hear me roar!!!! I am so sick of teaching American English. Yesterday when teaching kids new food words using flashcards, I got to the red sauce stuff you put on meat, potato chips etc..... Do we all know what i'm talking about?? TOMATO SAUCE!!!!! This card had of course, Ketchup written on the back. So I taught the kids both words.

Please take heed, a sweater is a JUMPER.

Fall is AUTUMN. When teaching a kinder class the seasons, I didn't even have the option to say Autumn, as only 'Fall' was written on their worksheet, as you can see here;

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Oh and for the record, does anyone know what a castinet is?! Yet another new word I am supposed to teach, yet don't know.

3 comments:

Akubi-chan said...

I know what you mean!!! I even find myself using words like fall etc in conversation...eek! I only teach privately so I warn my students that I don't speak American English. but when I'm teaching I usually mention both ways, like fall vs autumn etc. It IS unfair that US English is seen as best in Japan grrrrrr!!

Anonymous said...

Hi Laura,

I'm sorry to say, but I have to side on the 'ketchup' side of things - tomato sauce and ketchup DO NOT taste the same, and I have good experience for both, as I'm Canadian, and have lived in Australia for 2 years. Oh, and I think castinets are those little things that fit on your fingers that you hit together during some Mexican dance...at least, that's my best guess!

Your (sometime) Canadian penpal
Catherine :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Laura
Poor ye,lass
well I am a Japanese man but I stayed in the UK for a year as you know so my English is based on British one well most mates are from UK,Asutralia,New zealand but many schools here use American English textbooks and my Scottish mates resigned a big school and he told me that their texbooks were rubbish :) When I was in Canada, I said take away instead of take out at Mcdonald and people looked at me like I was a bit crazy Asian man lol
my kiwi couple mates left Osaka last week for NZ and other kiwi mate will go home(christchurch) next year as well.
ciao
(in Flames(yasu))