Page 5 - ELG1705 May Issue 447

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WELCOME EDITOR’S LETTER

It takes two

to be understood.

Native English speakers need to meet everyone else half way

y husband and I don’t always understand
each other. He likes Star Trek and Denzel
Washington, I like The Times newspaper and
Mcups of English breakfast tea. He’ll never get my theteam
obsession with dusting the leaves of my aspidistra plant. I’ll
never understand what he gets out of wearing chinos. IRENA
On these small matters of taste, we tolerate each other’s BARKER
quirks and we find a way to get on. studied French
However, we frequently find ourselves bickering, arguments and linguistics at
that can escalate into full-scale rows, about things we later Durham, UK and
discover we actually agree on. taught English
Because my husband is a native speaker of French and I have English as a in France for
two years. Her
mother tongue, we frequently find ourselves tied in knots because of linguistic subsequent 15-year career in UK
misunderstandings. I have a tendency to blame him for all of it, of course. I am the news journalism includes reporting
native speaker of English and we are in England after all. for local and regional newspapers, a
In my less sympathetic and more frustrated moments, I say to myself: ‘Why doesn’t he news agency and a 10 year stint at
just get it? Why does he not understand this even when I have said it three times?’ the Times Educational Supplement
C magazine.
But our report on page 27 made me realise my attitude is wrong – it is actually up to
M
me to make myself understood better. Not to huff and sigh at his failure to grasp some
Y quirk of English or fail to put the stress in the right place on a word like ‘Caribbean’. MELANIE
BUTLER
Our interview with linguist Dr Barbara Clark reveals that airline pilots and ground started teaching
CM
EFL in Iran in
We frequently nd ourselves tied in knots for the BBC World
MY 1975, she worked
CY Service, Pearson/
because of linguistic misunderstandings Longman and
CMY Modern English
teacher magazine before taking
K over at the Gazette in 1987
staff who are non-native speakers of English are not always to blame for near-misses and also launching Study Travel
caused by miscommunication. In fact, native speakers can cause significant confusion by magazine. Educated in ten schools
in seven countries she speaks
ignoring the rules of Aviation English and using jargon and slang. uent French and Spanish and
What this finding really illustrates is how important it is to see communication as rather rusty Italian.
a two way process. It is up to the speaker to try to make themselves understood and
it is up to the listener to try to understand. Pilots bandying around their local argot CLAUDIA
CIVININI
may think it’s the height of cockpit cool, but it won’t help Captain Martinelli land his won a scholarship
Alitalia Airbus at Heathrow. to teach Italian
Administrators in New York clearly understand the importance of meeting English in Australia in
Language Learners half way by extending their school bilingual and transitional 2009, where she
quali ed as a state
language programmes (page 17). Rather than stubbornly insisting that children ‘battle school teacher in
on’ in mainstream classes, they have taken a more nurturing approach I can approve of. 2010. Bilingual in English and
Education chief Carmen Fariña, the daughter of Spanish immigrants, clearly knows that Italian, she joined the Gazette
simply expecting non-English speakers to get on with it might end up excluding them as head of research in 2014
after teaching for ve years. She
from education altogether. specialises in data journalism
On page 20, Melanie Butler explores how the Chinese are tackling preparing students and research news.
for the Ielts test. Their reluctance to use communicative teaching techniques, which
involve speaking and listening in English, may be stifling their potential to excel. Their
tradition of ‘one way’ teaching methods ANDREA
PÉREZ EGIDO
may be holding them back, results
ALAN LIGHT suggest. has a BA in
Journalism from
Complutense
They might do well to remember, it
takes two to communicate properly – and University, Madrid
and a Masters
listening to the teacher might not be in Corporate
London. She previously worked on
enough. It might pay to talk back. Communications
from the Kingston University,
the international desk at the Spanish
IRENA BARKER, newspaper La Razón. She joined
the Gazette as online and social
EDITOR media editor in 2015.
editorial@elgazette.com 5

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