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Trinidad: Teaching English As A Foreign Language

Trinidad: Teaching English As A Foreign Language

I can't believe the nonsense I am hearing on the news. The Ministry of Education is considering teaching English as a foreign language in order to raise the level of competency in secondary schools since dialect has basically 'taken over' the tongues of our children. That is the solution they came up with for raising the bar of education? So what will the official language of Trinidad & Tobago be? Dialect?

Language Foreign As English Teaching Trinidad

JB, what is the solution you propose? As an educator, I see students every day who are incapable to understand oral or written English, they are unable to spell the most simple words and they ask *me* a foreigner, to tell them how to write certain words. Don't get me started with basic comprehension skills.

Trinidad: Teaching English As A Foreign Language Caribbean / Tobago & Trinidad

Pandora, what age groups specifically are you referring to? I believe that our standard of education has been falling over the years.

Language Foreign As English Teaching Trinidad

Lower and Upper Secondary School students. In my opinion, it is also an issue with teachers. A lot of them speak to the students in dialect because they feel they can connect better with them this way, however it encourages the misuse of the English language in a setting where dialect shouldn't take place.

Language Foreign As English Teaching Trinidad

How can we expect children to speak proper English when you have leaders on TV and in public speaking in dialect, slang and slack talk?

Trinidad: Teaching English As A Foreign Language

Thanks Pandora. What I realize though is that as a Trinidadian, we don't have a textbook English way of saying certain things while sounding authentically Trinidadian. I love Standard English but the dialect is who we are and how we express ourselves naturally and a little thrown in for good measure adds spice and flavor to a conversation or chat.

Trinidad Teaching English As Foreign Language

Name: Linda

Title: speak English

Comments: There was a comment about speaking English instead of Spanish. [?] The people from Trinidad who come to the United States speak terrible English. Their accents can't be understood.