Okay....a bit of intro here. Kids in secondary school are supposed to take two MFL (modern foreign languages) the moment they enter Year 7. My S1 chose to take up Mandarin and Japanese. The mandarin teacher was a HK guy with a somewhat Cantonese accent before. Loads of parents complained blah blah blah. I figured Cantonese accent also Chinese accent what. Didn't bother me that much.
So it didn't bother me when I found out that the Japanese teacher is angmoh. Surely he is really qualified to do so.
Fast- forward two years down the road. My S1 is now in Year 9, and he has a new Mandarin teacher. And guessed who replaced the old Cantonese-accented teacher? An angmoh lady! When I heard the news, I still gave her and the school the benefit of the doubt that they won't simply appoint teachers in the school. Surely she can speak very well.but guess what? The moment, S1 had a class with her, he texted me "she speaks like a gweilo".
When I had lunch with my friend the other day, she confirmed that the new teacher does speak with a Caucasian accent.
How can???This kinda bothered me. I mean, Mandarin is a very tonal language. One wrong tone, the meaning of a word is totally changed. So why can't the school get a native speaker? Surely a Teacher from Beijing would be cheaper and more qualified than an angmoh from the land down under, right?? Why? Why? Why?
5 comments:
hmmm, I would have thought so too... did you or the other parents bring it up to the school?
btw, love all yr trip's pics... classic "wish I was there" :-)
Maybe since it's an international school, they worry that a real china teacher cannot be understood by the angmoh students when the teacher speaks English.
Go and complain to school la.
KL
COMPLAIN!!!
Spend so much money to go to that school, the least they could do is give you your money's worth!
g
maybe the teacher was also an wife of expat working there and there's no chinese expat wife around ?
Sting - Not yet. I will bring it up to the Parent Rep so that it will be somewhat "anonymous". Don't want her to pick on my son.
Re pics. Thanks.
KL - See my comments to Sting.
Even if the Chinese teacher speaks broken English also cannot be so bad one lah.. Yeah. yeah. Will see how.
G - Maybe they think getting the angmoh is money's worth??
coffeencookies - no need expat wife maa... Lots of Beijing teachers working here as Mandarin tutors. Just don't know why the school go and pick an angmoh from Down Under. *Scratch head*
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