One girl I know and am becoming quite good friends with (let’s call her Yoon Chung, because, well, that’s her real name and I am completely incapable of coming up with Korean pseudonyms) is fairly well travelled.
She’s lived in both Canada and America for a few years, meaning that her English is miles better than any other native person I know here. Even the Korean English teachers at my school don’t speak particularly good English, which continues to surprise me on a daily basis! I understand that someone teaching a language not their own will most likely not be as fluent as a native speaker. They’re bound to make mistakes, and that that’s where people like me come in – teaching our first language and knowing when certain things are correct just because they sound correct, without having to look up The Rules. I do not believe for one second, however, that my French teachers at school had abilities anywhere short of excellent when it came to speaking French. It really does disturb me to hear the teachers struggling to make themselves understood to us, or teaching things that are totally incorrect. To small children! Who will, with their sponge-like minds, absorb everything they hear and fall into habits that will be as good as impossible to break.
Some of these are things I would describe as fundamental to the entire structure of the English language – it’s not as if I’m complaining about them splitting infinitives or using a colon instead of a semi-colon. But to me, anyone who hesitantly says “I am new coat/sore throat/(other word that should come after have a)“, or consistently fails to know the difference between he and she, is rather dubiously qualified to be an English teacher.
And do you know why the children can’t say ‘wolf’? asked Yoon Chung, as we discussed this strange phenomenon of English teachers who can’t speak English. I shook my head. It’s a strange one. Unlike the letter ‘z’, which Koreans really cannot pronounce (in the way that I am utterly failing to pronounce ㅈ and ㅊ in Korean, simply because they’re not sounds I’ve ever had to make before in my own language), they can make a ‘w’ sound. They copy me easily when I say words like “would”, “want”, or “went”. But that’s because those are very familiar words to them, said Yoon Chung. They’re looking at the whole word, and recognising it instantly. Wolf, however, is not so familiar, so they try to sound it out, as they do with all new words. And I will guarantee you that those children were taught that the letter ‘w’ is pronounced “oooo”!
I looked blankly at her.
It’s the fault of whoever named the English letters, said Yoon Chung, laughing. Double U? Seriously? Well, at some point in history, a Korean person has been teaching himself English, and said to himself, ah, double U! One ‘U’ is “oo”. So double ‘U’ must be “oooo”.
Oooolf! I exclaimed, some understanding dawning. It seems that from that mistake, everyone else has become convinced that that’s how ‘w’ is pronounced. And so, when reading and encountering a new word beginning with ‘w’, my students will make a long ‘u’ sound instead of a ‘w’ sound. Their English teachers have taught them that. But it’s not their fault, because their English teachers taught it to them, and their English teachers taught it to them!
Tragically, I think it’s too late to undo the damage as far as my students are concerned. Their brains have taken the information and stored it so that any time they see a word beginning with ‘w’, they pronounce it as if it begins with ‘uu’ and the following vowel is unnecessary. William becomes Ooool-ee-am. Wonder becomes oooonder. Wing becomes oooong. They can pronounce it perfectly when I get them to repeat me, but getting them to read that letter correctly is a lost cause. It will always be ‘uu’, unless I have a ten minute W Time at the beginning of every class from now until the end of my contract.
Actually, that’s not a bad idea. If it oooorks!
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