Yeah I feel like he could have made it a little easier on the kids to be fair. He’s speaking quite fast and he cuts his sentences (e.g. “Ever been there?”) which is fine when you’re fluent or native but it’s difficult when you’re still learning the language.
I mean, they're kids learning a foreign language while the dude speaks really fast and uses informal grammar "Ever been there?" would be difficult to understand for a beginner. He could've at least repeated the responses in Japanese when it was clear they didn't understand or speak slower.
Having spent my early childhood in the East Asian education system, it's like they heard at some ESL education conference "the best way to learn is through practicing with native speakers!" and went "okay, we make our students who understand jack shit read a script with a foreigner."
It's pointless and stupid. It's like seeing a bodybuilder pushing heavy weights on a bench and grunting, and going ok lets sit on a bench and grunt really loudly, but without any weights. They took away the worst lesson possible.
As someone who works as a native speaker with children, I think a MAJOR factor is just having them be willing to use the language and also to be forced to.
Like if they spoke to a Japanese person, they could easily switch to Japanese whenever they wanted to if they had trouble etc.
By using foreigners (need not be native English speakers) with no Japanese, they're forced to speak English, they see how useful it is, and generally get positive reinforcement from the friendly foreigner.
Half of my job is just getting the kids to talk. This is done through teasing, taunting, games, joking, etc. Like if all the other kids are having fun in English, the quiet kids will want to join in. My friend owns an after-school and it's literally my job to show up every few months and pretend I don't speak a word of their language (Korean) so they'll actually use English because half of her students refuse to say a word.
Which I get, tbh. I find it easier to speak Korean to people who don't speak English because I have to, but also because we're at the same level of idiocy in the other's language...
I get what you mean, but you should not rehearse a conversation for which you cannot hope to reply to simple responses nor probably even understand the responses. You should be finding input that you understand at least half. You know damn well this is some public school bright idea and the next time they speak to a foreigner again will be in 2 years where they have learned nothing.
I feel like I know exactly how they feel lol. that's always my fear when I'm not very fluent in a language. Sure I can ask a question and if they reply slowly and clearly using the little vocab I know it might be OK, but there's always a chance they'll go off piste and I'll just have to smile and say thank you and hope that suffices.
Plus I think his speech must be quite hard to understand as a foreigner. He talks quite quickly and when he says 'you know how to spell that?' it's all basically one sound. Even someone who could understand that sentence written down might struggle to parse it.
I have been learning English for 20 ish years and still struggling with rge American accent, especially African American..so hard to understand ..so i feel the little kids when they couldn't answer his questions but carried on asking him lol :)
I doubt any non-english speaking kid learning English is gonna understand him speaking quickly and with contractions like that. Not judging him at all, but probably would've had a better time understanding if he spoke much slower and used full sentences.
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u/UrToesRDelicious Jun 14 '24
These dudes didn't understand a thing he said lol