I stumbled across "Improve your English" (Lesson 224), as published in the Yemen Times.

It certainly seems a demanding program. For example:

• Foreign words and expressions: Give sources of origin and meanings of the following: 1. deixis 2. denouement 3. diachronic 4. synchronic 5. dialysis
• Same; suggested answers to last week’s questions: 1. cacophony 2. calendar 3. carol 4. causerie 5. chorus
• Idioms and phrases: Bring out the meaning of the following in entences 1. to fight shy of 2. to gild the pill 3. to nip in the bud 4. other fish to fry5. go to roost
• Same; suggested answers to last week’s questions: 1. not worth his salt 2. to play with edged tools 3. to put a spoke in one’s wheel 4. to set Thames on fire 5. to take people by storm

You'll find the entire text here.

Question: Is this the scribbling of some unrealistic author whose only experience is academic, and who has never had to actually teach English? Or is this the sort of thing that foreigners are actually expected to learn?

The former, Hic, IMHO.

The Yemen Times, like the Yemen Observer, is written in the English language. Many of its readers are expatriot British and Americans whose first language is English. Many other readers are people who are fluent in English as a second language, but may want to improve their idiomatic use. Similar columns are published in some Indian and Pakistani English language newspapers.

The test seems pretty standard for how English is taught / used in certain parts of the British ex-Empire. When I was in India last, my host's extended family (17 nieces and nephews) and I played some interesting word games, and I helped them with American idioms. Almost all of their education uses English. I also visited a couple of grade schools and my host's university, observed classes being taught, and discussed educational matters with teachers. Whenever I read an English-language newspaper like The Hindu I am struck by the old-fashioned, 19th century flavor of some of the writing. I believe the only time I've heard dearth used in normal conversation was by a Parsee friend from Pakistan. Many Indians have to learn to speak English more slowly when they get to the States, and replace much of their British vocabulary and pronunciations with American ones. The irony is that many Americans just think Indian English is not very good.

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Question: Is this the scribbling of some unrealistic author whose only experience is academic, and who has never had to actually _teach_ English?

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Many years ago, when I was 19, I was bartending at the 602 Club in Madison, Wisconsin when a fifty-ish Japanese man sat down at the bar. I asked him what he wanted, and on the third try I finally understood "Beer, please". He became a regular and it turned out that he was a English translator of some accomplishment in Japan. I recall specifically that he translated the works of Jack Kerouac into Japanese. He once explained to me why he had to change the title of 'Dharma Bums' to 'Zen Hippies': dharma in Japanese more commonly means a gnomish little kitchen god figurine, and bum has only the connotation of utter irresponsibility, not freedom, like hippie did in Japanese. His trip to Madison had been his first trip outside of Japan. When he arrived his English was very halting and very accented, but always grammatically correct and sophisticated. He once offered me half his lunch because it was too voluminous for him. Ultimately he became more fluent but his accent was always strong.

This brings me to a larger question: I've known a lot of Japanese visiting scholars, all of whom have taken years of English, and their English is generally bad when compared with other nationalities. Is it because Japanese is so different in structure from English that it's very difficult for native speakers of one language to learn the other, or is it because Americans set up the English education programs in post-war Japan?

and their English is generally bad when compared with other nationalities

A friend of mine, who is Japanese and studied linguistics with Chomsky at MIT, told me that the reason for Japanese speaking English so poorly has to do with how it is taught in Japan. Poorly. While he was a grad student in Japan he tried to hire native (American, British, Australian) speakers of English as tutors to help the Japanese students. The professors wouldn't hear of it. Mainly, he confided with me because they couldn't speak English ... Having taken a year of Japanese, I can testify that it is not the strangest (to English speakers) language I've run across. It's rather tame phonology- and syntaxwise.

Teaching foreign, mainly Japanese, students in the Summer has shown me that Japanese children will often arrive at the school with extremely good grammatical skills. Set them a written grammar exercise and they will demonstrate a knowledge of, for example, subjunctives thatwould send most teachers scrambling for the textbooks. However ask them a question and there will be blank incomprehension. Interview them and when it's possible to get them to speak at all you will need half a dozen tries at an answer before you can work out what they have actually said. When you work it out it's usually correct.

This does all come about because of the way English is taught in the Far East. There is a massive emphasis on learning grammar: tables of irregular verbs, obscure uses of moods and tenses and so on. There is almost no attention paid to productive skills.
It's getting better. Japanes schools now hire thousands of native English speakers ( I could get a job out there tomorrow if I wanted one) but the emphasis is still skewed away from listening and speaking and towards learning the intricacies that will be of absolutely no practical value when they try to communicate with anyone other than a fellow student in Japan.

I will never forget the year that Shu coached a gifted basketball player (junior high age), who was here from Japan with his family. The father was a high muck-a-muck in a bank here, and yet we had the hardest time communicating! Shu literally had to use hand signals most of the time. The phone was impossible. Shu even bought some Japanese books in an effort to communicate with them in Japanese to ease the strain.

However, it turned out to be a very enriching experience for all of us.

Many years ago, when I was 19, I was bartending at the 602 Club in Madison, Wisconsin

Neveu, I bet our paths crossed at some point in Madison!

If you passed through the 602 Club 1979, we probably did. I was the bartender who looked like he was 12.

Obligatory literary references: the gay bar in the movie Advise and Consent is called Club 602. Either Wendell Mayes or Allen Drury had been a 602 regular while in Madison. And someone (Jane Mankiewicz, maybe) wrote a story in the New Yorker about a bar called the Blue Lantern that was based on the 602 Club (there was an eating co-op a couple doors away called the Green Lantern that a lot of regulars frequented). Entirely optional pop-culture reference: in the Star Trek universe there is a bar called the the 602 Club in Mill Valley where all the Starfleet guys hung out, or something. One of the writers went to Madison.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: neveu,

I am not sure if I have been there (I did frequent a lot of clubs when I was in Madison! ), but one thing is for sure...I will definitely go there the next time I am in town!

Originally posted by Kalleh:
I am not sure if I have been there (I did frequent a lot of clubs when I was in Madison! ), but one thing is for sure...I will definitely go there the next time I am in town!

Sorry, all that's left is the website.