I've received a variety of comments and reviews on my ability and competence as an instructor. Some of the comments are funny and some are strange and some are just mean (she's a racist!) and some although seemingly mean I can recognize the facts in them (she writes on the board and I don't know what the arrows and arrows and more arrows mean...strangely enough the arrows and the writing have also made sense to some students; she gets flustered in class and talks about too many things and goes off on tangents).
However one comment is so funny and delightful - I have decided to share it. I laughed when I read it. I have got all sorts of comments about my accent: where do you come from? Where did you do your schooling? You have a different accent...I personally think I've got a mongrel accent. I can modulate it a bit when I'm careful and when I'm teaching but it lapses sometimes into a hotchpotch of an accent which it is anyway.
Anyway, one student: a very sweet young boy with a very disarming smile had written words to the effect of, ....has got a lovely accent. Her accent reminds me of Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music" !!!! Very embarrassed I was indeed.
I could write a mile long post here but I'll get going for now.
2 comments:
Now that's really sweet!
Reminds me of the joke in Asimov's book: "When I meet an Englishman speaking verray pukka, I ask him 'Are you a foreigner?' and he replies, 'No I am English', I get back with 'I knew it the first time you spoke. You speak our English in a funny way' "....
Thank you lots for your comment, Suvro da.
I don't remember this joke by Asimov...I wonder whether I can somehow fit it in class now...And you've never heard me pronounce hypothesis when I'm not watching myself....It's quite a monstrous pronunciation.
That reminds me of when you said, 'first' over the phone the other day. I couldn't make out what you were saying because I've gotten used to hearing the Americans roll their 'rrrr's...I can't copy them and I never roll my rrrs (which was a problem when it came to my very brief stint with French) and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what you were saying! Apologies.
Thanks once again.
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