One of the lesser-documented problems resulting from the US becoming the sole global superpower is this has made my job as a tutor a little difficult.
Let me explain.
After more than a century of British rule, Malaysia has been influenced by its former colonial master in many ways great and small. This remains true after nearly half a century of independence and it remains true despite the long shadow the US has cast over the rest of the world in recent times.
My problem with the US dominating the world so much these days is that the younger generation of Malaysians tend to develop American accents. By younger generation, I mean kids as well as some of their school teachers. Is this bad? Well, no. It’s just annoying and exasperating.
Take the word “command.” I pronounce it the British way as do most Malaysians my age or older.
Some school teachers of the kids I tutor, on the other hand, are pronouncing it the American way. This is a bit annoying as I have to explain the differences between American English and British English to my pupils and often as not I have to delve into the complexities of dictionary phonetic guides.
At this point, I should mention some of my pupils don’t even speak one form of English particularly well. The only times most of them even use the language are during English classes at school and during after-school tuition classes. All told, that’s less than 8 hours a week.
I could see from their expressions that they were still doubtful after my explanation. After all, why would their school teacher teach them the “wrong” thing?
I thought I could rely on the pronunciation feature of my pupils’ electronic Chinese-English dictionaries to settle the issue once and for all but much to my dismay, the voice that pronounced the word did so the American way. This was all the more exasperating since those Chinese-manufactured electronic dictionaries displayed the IPA phonetics for the British pronunciation.
Clearly, the US wasn’t the only one to blame; China was at fault as well.
It’s actually a bigger deal than it might seem since it comes down to an issue of trust. Who does the pupil trust: the school teacher or the exasperated tutor?
I’m confident that I’ve done my very best to explain the situation to my students. I didn’t enjoy pointing out their school teachers were wrong. I certainly hope my students don’t point out the mistake to their teachers. Some teachers have a nasty habit of not admitting their mistakes and victimising pupils who point them out. These kids suffer enough during their formative years. They don’t need some underpaid, overstressed educator making their lives difficult for 45 or so minutes every weekday.
It’s still frustrating for me, though. I feel like asking those teachers if they plan to drop the “u” from some words, start celebrating the fourth of July and driving on the right side of the road. Actually, if they’d begin driving on the right side of the road, I’m pretty sure it would solve the problem pretty quickly.
(On a side note, I wonder if any coroner has had to ascribe death to a bad case of mispronunciation.)
By necessity, all living languages evolve and I’m sure we’ll see some moves towards global standardisation of the English language. In fact, the sooner this happens, the better. Get to work, international community.
This I command.
