how does aperson's cultural background affects a person in having deficiencies in speaking english?
81540
i don't think it affects at all. maybe just in the pronouciation of some letters.
49523
A native English speaker is someone who grew up speaking English as his or her primary language.
586849
Language ability only improves with practice. They want to make sure the test taker is continuing with his or her English studies. A lot can be forgotten in 2 years if someone doesn't continue to practice.
1164586
This is an interesting question.\n\nLinguists, especially those who study second language acquisition (SLA), are aware that most people who learn a new language after about the age of 15 always speak with an "accent".  It is quite rare, in fact, to meet a person who doesn't.\n\nWhether or not this means that the person is not a fabulous user of the language is somewhat beside the point.  I am acquainted with a German woman who now teaches in English at an American university, for example.  As far as the grammar, pragmatics, and many other characteristics of her English, she uses English very very well.  In some cases, her ability to use English in an academic setting is superior to that of many native speakers.  However, she speaks English with an accent.  Does that mean that she is not able to use English to communicate?\n\nAnother complicating factor is that our perception and even comprehension of language is confounded by our perception of the person who uses that language.  A classic study that demonstrates this was performed by a researcher named Rubin.  In that study, students listened to a lecture.  They were shown different pictures and told that the person in the picture gave the lecture.  Students who were shown a picture of an Asian male did not perform as well on a comprehension test as students who were shown a picture of a Caucasian male, even though they listened to the same tape recording.  This type of effect, where our comprehension is affected by our perception of the person as well as that person's language, can affect interactions with non-native speakers as well.\n\nBecause so few non-native speakers are able to speak with an accent that sounds native-like, language teachers in general don't make it a goal to train their students to sound like native speakers.  However, there are some features of accents that can be changed to make them more understandable.  Native speakers often listen to the length of the vowel, for example, to tell the difference between the words "beat" and "bead".  So non-native speakers can be trained to make the vowel in "bead" longer than the one in "beat", which will help native speakers to understand them better.  However, one thing that frustrates me as an ESL teacher is the inequality of this; I teach the non-native speakers how to make their accents more understandable, but I never teach the native speakers how to understand accents better.  I find that to be quite unfair.  Who says the native speaker is the one that should be catered to?\n\nIn answer to your question, I know some people that I consider very "fluent" in English despite the fact that they speak with accents.  However, native speakers of English certainly do seem to react when they sense that someone doesn't speak English exactly like they expect.  How much of this is language-related and how much of this is (gulp) prejudice is up for grabs.\n\nEven having written that, I am aware of the irony that I complain about the inequality and unfairness that's built into teaching ESL pronunciation, but I still continue to teach it.  In addition, my ability to speak with a very native-like accent is something that I take some pride in as a non-native speaker of Spanish, for example.  So although I am aware of these issues, I am still contributing to them.\n\nAlso, as a linguistic researcher, I am increasingly interested in the problem of perception.  There is a lot of evidence coming out in research studies today that the reason people speak English with an accent may not be that their English sound system is influenced by their native language, but that their perception of English as they hear it is.  In other words, because they hear things through the sound system of their native language, English might sound more like their native language to them than it does to English speakers.  Therefore, when they hear and store new vocabulary words
611792
ok, i'm going to assume you're talking about the fluency of speaking, pronunciation and such.\n\nsure, there are tapes and books and reading aloud, but if you don't have someone to tell you it's right or wrong it's useless. so you need a conversation partner. someone who doesn't mind talking with you and correcting any mistakes (some people feel bad to correct your english, which is not that helpful really)\n\nin addition, if you're having pronunciation problems, you can work on it with a pronunciation tutor, speech therapist, etc. someone who will tell you exactly how to position your tongue, lips, etc. to make the sounds, stresses, etc. correctly.
1119863
Consider yourself blessed to be able to speak good proper English --- when my friends and i hire people, how they speak is right at the top of the list.\n\nDon't let your peers prevent you from living a better way of life.
626813
To be quite honest, it's not a matter of the market. It's more a matter of so-called 'native' speakers. In Vancouver, most of the ESL schools downtown (which there are quite a few around downtown) are owned by either Japanese, Hong Kongers or Koreans. And you know very well from experience in Asia that they are very discriminatory and only prefer to hire a 'white face', rather than an asian face. And they would tell you that it's the students' choice whom many of them are from Asia (Taiwan, Japan, Korea, etc.). So I hate to say that his chances of teaching ESL is very slim or zero. But one way to start off is to volunteer his service in a community centre where he can gain local canadian experience which can help him seek future employment in this field. So be prepared to face the discrimination or prejudice in the beginning and with self-preservance, he may come out alright with a school which is more open-minded and give him a chance. G'luck!
258207
If someone cannot or will not speak English properly, you have every right to NOT consider them for employment. An employee is a representative of your company and a bad representative does NOT help your company's image.
1096343
Due to the diversity of people in countries such as the United States, the education system needs to adapt by implementing a multi-cultural curriculum which considers the differences in language, learning behaviors and other factors that are affected by culture.
875424
You  could spare yourself time and energy by being up front, but remember its how you feel about yourself.\nPerhaps they wanted a typical outgoing person, not that it meant white, or american. I bet its how you feel about yourself, and you have to change that thinking.\nYour roots should not affect your english exchange dont feel guilty because you are not white. Besides that the Japanese person could feel the same as you, after all they are not white neither. If you say your english is underdeveloped a person may feel reluctant to learn from you.  Your openness and willingness to help someone should not go underappreciated.
856911
No, of course. That is only the "prelude" and one of the plausible excuses for that phenomenon,which can be observed quite everywhere. Unfortunately, we live in one confused world, that reverberates on every facet in our lives, also to the language culture and strictly speaking to the decline of English.\nBest of luck!
1100650
I would hazard a guess that the individual with a rudimentary knowledge of the English language - particularly in spelling - might make quite an impact.
750162
There are very few people who learn new languages who ever reach the point where they are essentially indistinguishable from native speakers of the new language.  I work with a number of people whose English grammar is excellent and very near-native, but who speak with accents that make it obvious that they are not native speakers.  That's just how second language acquisition works.  I'd say don't worry about it, and give yourself a break.
477426
Depends on the person.  I work as an English teacher in a Spanish-speaking-country and whenever I teach teenagers I have found out that they are more concerned with using the language to communicate, and being fluent enough to carry out conversations with native speakers, regardless of their grammatical mistakes.  When I had professionals though, the story changed; they cared more about sounding proper and talking without grammatical mistakes because they considered that to be a reflection of the person they are.
489894
well my culture has influence the classroom setting a lot where the teacher has the say in the class\nmeaning we students arent allowed to voice out our opinions that much\nthis culture tends to be permenant in the child's faculty even when they've reached univeristy level.\nlangauge proficienncy varies\nbut mostly what there always what the teacher says is always correct\neven when its wrong\nim from malaysia and a malay
35940
Look this Site:\nhttp://www.positivepractices.com/BilingualEducation/ProfienciencyAssessmentTo.html
671072
Yes I would say so.  Apart from cultural things that may be tied to a language, each language also has a unique sound or melody which I think affects you in some way just the way that music can. It affects how things are expressed, as well as perceived. This is why I would be concerned about the spread of English; it could definitely hurt the diversity of the world.  And the mainstream English is not nearly as melodious as half the other languages out there in my opinion.