English for drivers
LATEST NEWS
Just started a new project teaching English to Poles who would like to work in the UK and Ireland as bus and delivery drivers (for more info go to www.bes.info.pl). It seems no one else is doing this kind of specialist teaching, probably because they (the teachers I mean) think it's too difficult. Also, the teachers I've spoken to about it can't seem to understand that these guys don't need anything academic, they need the most practical lessons possible.
The employers too, (Brits mostly, I'm also British by the way so I'm allowed to criticise) expect more of the Poles than they would of an average British driver. They told me they need to be able to write accident reports, for example, in English. Why? It can be translated from Polish into English. Imagine asking a British bus driver to learn French to a level where they were able to write a report in French. You would be asking for master's degree level and then expect them to take a job just as a bus driver. At that level they could get a much better job as a translator with the EU, who I believe are short of translators for the newly-joined countries like Poland.
Teaching them to a level where they can communicate pretty well in English, perhaps not accurately but effectively, however is another matter. That's entirely possible. (for evaluation scale go to www.bes.info.pl/scale.htm)
LATEST RANT
Today I'm ranting about the many native English speakers who think they know how to evaluate someone's English just because they can speak it themselves. They don't understand the basics of language testing and often think someone can't speak English well because they can't answer what they think are easy questions. Some examples of questions (real ones I've heard) that may look easy but in fact are really difficult for a foreign learner of English;
"What would you have done if you had been involved in a road accident?" (3rd conditional)
"How long will you have been here by the end of the month" (future perfect continuous tense)
"How much time did it take you to pick it up?" (phrasal verb) etc etc etc
Of course, I won't mention the fact that most native English speakers wherever they are from, have the most horrendous accents you can imagine and are surprised that most foreigners don't understand them.
LATEST FUNNY BIT
As always in this section this is entirely true. I swear it is absolutely true, and is too funny to passover on the off chance it may offend. This happened this week;
Girl in interview for job on a ship; I'm 25 year old, I live Gdansk, I like cock.
Interviewer (me); Sorry?
Girl; I'm 25 year old, I live Gdansk and I very like cock.
Interviewer (me); Sorry? You like what?
Girl; I like cock. I like cock Italy, I like cock China, I like cock all kind I like soup I like cock meat, vegetables I like cock all .........
To appreciate this you have to understand that "00" in Polish (as in the word 'cook') is often pronounced "o" (as in the word 'hot')
Bye for now
Julian
julian@bes.info.pl
or
info@polishrecruitment.com
www.bes.info.pl
www.polishrecruitment.com
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That "cock" joke: here in small-town Korea, "Coke" often gets written as "cock" in menus. Hangeul is more phonetic than English writing, and especially the vowels don't really change much, especially the simpler (non-combination) ones. So the roman letter "o" is often used for the "o" sound in Korean, and the "o" in Coke sounds like the Korean "o". But a lot of people don't get why there's a silent-e on the end, and think, 4 letters, hard-c sound, must be "Cock". And they can't understand why anyone would giggle upon looking at their menus and pronounce "cock" as "cawk" since that "o' in "cock" sounds like an "a" letter to them.