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Article: How to teach a language with skype audio conversations.
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
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Feb 13, 2011

This topic is for discussion of the ProZ.com translation article " How to teach a language with skype audio conversations.".
 
Dave Bindon
Dave Bindon  Identity Verified
Greece
Local time: 08:24
Greek to English
In memoriam
1st comment: Style Mar 9, 2011

Without even reading beyond the 2nd paragraph, I have to say that there is no 'flow' to the writing. It's a series of very short sentences, almost mechanical in style, and not 'a good read'.

It comes across as an instruction manual rather than an article. It could be improved greatly by the use of conjunctions to link related ideas as clauses in a single sentence.
 
Dave Bindon
Dave Bindon  Identity Verified
Greece
Local time: 08:24
Greek to English
In memoriam
1st paragraph Mar 9, 2011

"You need to be almost perfect at the language you want to teach."

Check "perfect at the language" on Google and see how rarely it has been written. It's far from perfect English. Something along the lines of, "You need to speak the language almost perfectly" would be much better.

"Specify if the level you are teaching is native, because your student sometimes cannot make the difference."

For a start, we say "cannot tell the difference", or "doesn'... See more
"You need to be almost perfect at the language you want to teach."

Check "perfect at the language" on Google and see how rarely it has been written. It's far from perfect English. Something along the lines of, "You need to speak the language almost perfectly" would be much better.

"Specify if the level you are teaching is native, because your student sometimes cannot make the difference."

For a start, we say "cannot tell the difference", or "doesn't know the difference". It also doesn't make much sense to say that you are teaching "native level": a native speaker (or someone who speaks at near-native level) can teach to 'advanced level', but not to 'native level'.

"Note that your student may not even know the alphabet pronunciation of your language."

"the Alphabet pronunciation" is wrong. "Your language" is ambiguous and potentially incorrect: if the teacher is not a native speaker of the language he/she is teaching, then the language being taught should not be referred to as "your".
Try something like, "Be aware that your student may not even know how to pronounce the alphabet of the language you are teaching them yet". [Or "...may not yet know..." in more formal English].

I hope that helps! I don't have time for more. ▲ Collapse
 


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Article: How to teach a language with skype audio conversations.






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