Page 352 - Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies 2009

Chapter 22: Distinguishing Monolingual and Multi-lingual Classes
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Problems for Japanese students
The Japanese students pronounce every syllable with equal length and stress, so they can sound a little like robots. Monitor and drill intonation and get students to mark the stress on all the vocabulary listed in the course book. They can also underline key words in their notes so they give them more emphasis when speaking.
Read /li􏰀d/ is a key word in this lesson but these students have difficulty with the letter ‘r’, so show and exaggerate the mouth position for this word.
Being overly polite is a hindrance for some of the students. Encourage them to be bold and not to apologise too frequently. Explain that formal and traditional gestures like bowing and receiving things with both hands are unnecessary but not objectionable.
When they’re unsure, some of the Japanese students say ‘Huh!’ in what looks like a startled manner from an English speaking perspective. This response needs to be softened. Memorising some of the expressions from this lesson will give the students something to say in response to any question.
Problems for Colombian students
My Colombian students are all university undergraduates from the same college. They stick together a lot and break into Spanish whenever they can get away with it.
Students put an initial /e/ before words which begin with ‘s’, such as sports / espɔ􏰀rt/ and science /esaiens/. Apart from the initial vowel, I predict that students will pronounce science in a Spanish way because of the Latin connection /ʃi􏰀ens/.
Problems for Brazilian students
Collectively the Brazilians are the most outgoing and vocal. They sometimes intimidate the other groups, especially the Asian students, simply because they speak up more readily. If others wait for a convenient moment to speak they find it difficult to get a word in sometimes. This manner brings a lively atmosphere to the classroom though.
They have some ingrained bad habits that will lose them marks such as: ✓ Omitting the auxiliary verb: What you think? instead of What do you
think?
✓ Making adjectives plural to match nouns: bigs books instead of big books