Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Calling All Teachers
I've just come back from teaching my ESOL class and in answer to " What did you do at the weekend ? " one of the students wrote " Me and my friends went to the cinema ". I said it should really be " I and my friends... " The student said that was what she put at school but her teacher said it should be " Me and my friends.. "
Is this what they teach nowadays or had she misunderstood ? ( Genuine question btw, not being sarky 
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by 314vkrvy6nrtx on
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This is a very common misconception. There are different ways of speaking and writing English - me and my friends would be appropriate in most conversational contexts, whereas my friends and I would, probably quite literally, raise eyebrows! Your students certainly need to know this. If one of my students used the more formal structure in a classroom conversation I would correct them and point it out, just as I do when they say things like 'With whom do you live?'. Their objective is to fit in to society rather than to sound weird and unnatural. As for the person on this thread who said that 'my friends and i' is proper grammar', I would suggest that he or she read up on the crucial distinction between prescriptive and descriptive grammar.
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Do you realise that some of them would not be too happy if they were to know that they were not taught to the standard of their own, complex and rich language ?
But, unlike in French, English grammar is very flexible and I have not yet met an English teacher who could answer a complex grammatical question !
Excellent, TBD. I'm inviting John D to join us. All the English need is a French(wo)man, a Scot and an Irishman to set up L'Académie Anglaise to save English from the English. Michael Gove will be so delighted once we mention 'Academy' that he will load us down with lorry loads of cash. Aux armes!
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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always teach to the highest level !
Good for you TBD!
It's not necessarily wrong to break rules, but before breaking them, its good to know what the rules are and how and why you're (not "one") might be breaking them. Like not splitting infinitives where the result would sound clumsy.
I'd rarely use "with whom do you live?". It sounds stilted and formal and it is for those reasons that in some contexts, it might be appropriate.
I was fortunate to be a French Assistant in Scotland,
Education in New Zealand was based on the Scottish (certainly at university level).
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Bonjour TBD!
pupils wear a school uniform
Well, I don't know what's going on there. When I attended secondary school in NZ a while ago, I had worn uniform and looked forward to the then "privilege" of wearing mufti in the Seventh (or upper sixth) Form.
On the achievement of this immensely high level of education, the school authorities then decided that pupils of all Forms could wear mufti, removing all distinction. After some decades of uniform, it was controversial amongst parents. It was argued that uniforms were (desirably) a great leveler and that mufti meant that parents' differing wealth would then be reflected in the expense, and possibly ostentation, of clothing.
Perhaps uniforms have made a come-back in NZ.
Onslow College—local, co-ed, state and secular—was known in NZ then as an avant garde school. One of my fellow pupils, who sported hair half-way down his back, once fell into trouble for distributing in school the radical EYE magazine (he is now with the Church of England, a man-of-the-cloth and probably with conservative flock, in an English Home County).
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As I mentioned, I think reading up on the debates on these serious issues would help you overcome your 'horror' at the very idea of helping people to speak like others do. Luckily in the English-speaking world we do not have an arrogant body of individuals who believe themselves to have authority over the spoken language. As for the 'beauty' of the language, I'm afraid that what you regard as beautiful may not coincide with what other speakers do, but so what - it's just as much their language as yours!
On the subject of French, I was very relieved a few years ago when a teacher pointed out to me that liaison is not obligatory - I'd struggled to remember to join together all my consonants and vowels, and found that my inability to do so consistently often inhibited me from saying what I want to say. She mentioned that always using liaison is a mark of a rather posh and stilted speaking style, which is excellent news, because it made my French sound much more natural. When I speak a language I do not want to sound like a pedant and a snob, and I am afraid that that is how people who insist on saying 'my friends and i' (because of a misconceived notion of the relationship between grammar and logic, combined with a desire to 'speak better' than the rabble) sound. If you are 'always teaching to the highest standard', without raising your students' awareness of how the language is used by different people in different situations for different purposes, you my be doing them a disservce. They want to sound like themselves when they speak, not like some 1950s textbook!
Incidentally 'I and my friends', which was the phrase in the original post, is just plain wrong, because *no-one says that*, in any circumstances.'
Btw: I've in terms of my own credentials, I've been teaching for 15 years, and have a Master's in teaching.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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Thanks Rich for the interesting comments. I agree that " my friends and I " is the more elegant but at the beginner level I usually choose to correct one error at a time.
In the ESOL context, would you accept or correct " We was / you was / they was " - grammatically wrong but in very common use ? Most of my students will have learned at least some English at school in their native countries and to hear me say " We was hungry " would confuse them or lead them to ask for a different teacher
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Bit concerned when an ESOL teacher is asking advice on such a basic question! We use I/we/he/she as the subject but me/us/him/her when the object. This is regarded as 'correct' in any formal writing situation. In conversation however to use 'I' as in John and I would be regarded as pompous and rude. On a more boring note-a short sentence in the King James Bible has Jesus saying 'It is I' Of course he SHOULD have said 'It's me.' Notalorrapeopleknowthat.....
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As far as I know, it was in a writing exercise at her school. Yesterday evening it certainly was an essay-type task.
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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Wow that jesus was astonishing, speaking English, albeit ungrammatically, where Aramaic, Latin and Hebrew were the -er- lingua Franca.
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Please replace my 'rude and pompous' with 'a little over formal in some situations'
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Remarkable, John!. A little question on English usage raises as many comments as a lament for a missing cat. Good to see (that) we English have our priorities balanced.
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