Fun Stuff > CHATTER
English is weird
Gyrre:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 30 Apr 2021, 18:10 ---I can't think of a better place to put this, though it doesn't really fit.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/04/25/989765565/tower-of-babble-non-native-speakers-navigate-the-world-of-good-and-bad-english
Summary: expecting or requiring ESL speakers to reach the skill levels of people like Akima is exclusionary and unnecessary since clear communication is possible with far less effort.
--- End quote ---
We've got several folks where I work who are ESL speakers, can confirm that it's a dick move.
I started carrying around a dry erase marker for the back of my clipboard for the deaf and hard of hearing employees, but me writing things can also be a big help for the ESL speakers since we have to deal with machine noise on the production floor.
Morituri:
Yah. With coworkers from all over the planet during my career, it didn't take long to work out that the quality of someone's ideas had little to do with the fluency of their speech. We grow up thinking of ungrammatical or hard-to-understand speech as something we associate with small children who haven't learned the language yet, and we have to adjust our view of the world to really get that difficulties with the language don't predict difficulty with thinking.
I observed though that people who work with formalisms and ideas that get evaluated according to 'hard' inflexible criteria, like engineers and programmers, tend to get it faster than most, because by hard criteria, ideas work or don't work. Or doing things in terms of an idea is easy or hard, regardless of where or with whom the idea originates. People who work exclusively with people, however, don't really have those 'bright lines' and tend to evaluate people in terms of social norms. As a result they form poor expectations of colleagues who have difficulties with language and that tends to lead to unfair evaluations of their ideas and performance.
More than once 'sensitivity training' was required to bop someone over the head and guide them toward making profitable decisions instead of stupid ones. GOD I wish they'd use a better name for it; 'sensitivity training' does not convey that it reduces business stupidity, and it's widely seen as a thing sort of irrelevant to actual business decisions. Instead, people who hear it called by that name think of it as just training them to be 'sensitive people' who offend others less. Which is true, but often they don't value that. Its effect on what you decide is more important than its effect on who you offend.
Akima:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 30 Apr 2021, 18:10 ---Summary: expecting or requiring ESL speakers to reach the skill levels of people like Akima is exclusionary and unnecessary since clear communication is possible with far less effort.
--- End quote ---
Definitely. Whatever level of competence I have achieved in English is mainly the result of being dropped into immersion in an English-speaking environment at a young age, which is not an... opportunity that most ESL students get. And while the general assumption that I must be stupid because my English was poor was a sharp spur to improve, I do my very best not to make that mistake myself.
Edit: Fixed stupid mistake. Especially embarrassing where I'm being complimented on my English. :oops:
Is it cold in here?:
>Whatever level of competence I have achieved in English
I do hope someone along the line has had the integrity to tell you that you are above the average for native speakers.
Dock Braun:
--- Quote from: Morituri on 01 May 2021, 09:01 ---More than once 'sensitivity training' was required to bop someone over the head and guide them toward making profitable decisions instead of stupid ones. GOD I wish they'd use a better name for it; 'sensitivity training' does not convey that it reduces business stupidity, and it's widely seen as a thing sort of irrelevant to actual business decisions. Instead, people who hear it called by that name think of it as just training them to be 'sensitive people' who offend others less. Which is true, but often they don't value that. Its effect on what you decide is more important than its effect on who you offend.
--- End quote ---
Sensitivity isn't wrong in that context, either. The issue is, so often the word is associated with (only) taking and not making offense. Really, sensitivity is an excellent business skill, letting one discern more, leading to more and finer opportunities to profit---In my mind, it's made quite strange that persons blame profit-seeking---not stupidity---for uncaring businesses: It pays to care! Maybe the training'd be better received called don't be so damn obtuse.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version