minulla on......onko sinulla etc

[oompah18]

My 9yr old, bilingual son speaks to me in English, & to my husband in Finnish, & has almost completed a whole year of sitting in the basic English class with his Finnish classmates who are learning English from scratch. He has been very bored & unstimulated. Since Easter, he has had weekly English tests & is always marked down on one thing, it drives me mad. For "Minulla on", he translates as "I have", simple hey? I have a ball, I have some money etc. But his teacher always adds GOT, I have GOT, then takes away a mark from his final score. As an English woman, I think that Got is often missed out, especially when speaking. I ask him, "do you have your shoes?", usually, not, "Have you got your shoes?", it varies of course according to situation. Asked to translate pusero, he wrote sweater & got a big, fat WRONG, correct answer should be Jumper! This is a typical cultural thing isn´t it, if you use, jumper, sweater or pullover?! I have never, as yet, corrected the English teacher´s marking of my son´s work, but this sort of thing is occurring more often. maybe I should just get a life & ignore it, as he is only 9yrs old, but it does bother me!!!!!!!! Don´t call me a pushy mother! Anyone else had problems with English teachers?????!!!!!!!

[AldenG]

Hmmm...

Sounds quite arbitrary.

FWIW, 'got' is actively discouraged in American English except in its proper function as the simple past of 'get.'
Our teachers think it sounds schoolyardish.

And one hardly hears 'jumper' at all. We'd use it mostly, if at all, for a pullover dress.
For a sweater it calls attention to itself as British.

Then again, we could also start quibbling about the meaning of pusero, which I consider a broader concept than sweater, more like what Americans would variously call a blouse or top or shirt. I'm used to hearing villapusero for sweater. So possibly the issue is not what word he uses for sweater but how he translates or understands pusero.

At that age I suspect there is more to lose than to gain in making an issue of it with the teacher. She'll be out of the picture next year, your son isn't getting bad marks, and he's too young for these dings to make a lasting difference. I would guess it is an attitudinal thing on his teacher's part, though there are several different attitudes it could be expressing. Among them would be insecurity and a chip on the shoulder. I would tell him to do it her way in class even though you both know better for real life. In Finland, that's a useful life lesson in its own right.

[oompah18]

Thanks! Sometimes I wonder if I am too pushy, too competitive, poor kids, we always want the best for them
Anyway, I wont pursue it further, I just hope her lessons get more interesting, as my eldest has 3 more years with her studying English, and he also begins to study German with her, next Autumn for 3 years, learning through Finnish of course!

[Jukka Aho]

Since Easter, he has had weekly English tests & is always marked down on one thing, it drives me mad. For "Minulla on", he translates as "I have", simple hey? I have a ball, I have some money etc. But his teacher always adds GOT, I have GOT, then takes away a mark from his final score. As an English woman, I think that Got is often missed out, especially when speaking. I ask him, "do you have your shoes?", usually, not, "Have you got your shoes?", it varies of course according to situation. Asked to translate pusero, he wrote sweater & got a big, fat WRONG, correct answer should be Jumper![ This is a typical cultural thing isn´t it, if you use, jumper, sweater or pullover?!

That reminds me of my English classes back in the 3rd grade. We had a textbook called “Jet Set 3”. It kept on drilling the “have [you] got” construct to such extent I was later a bit confused when I realized the “got” isn’t actually used all that frequently, in the wild.

As for the jumper thing, the English—Finnish—English dictionaries usually mark American and British usage separately, where applicable, and “jumper” appears to be a word that at least Kielikone Oy’s MOT Sanastin (an electronic English dictionary) considers “British”. Now, the English classes in Finnish schools are based on the “British standard” so maybe this is a case of an overzealous teacher trying to correct something she thinks isn’t “British” enough.

There’s a saying in Finnish that occasionally someone might try to be paavillisempi kuin paavi itse... (roughly: holier [or more “Pope-ish”, “Pope-like”] than the Pope himself; trying to out-Pope the Pope...) The way how English is taught in Finnish schools might be one of those cases, in some respects.

[oompah18]

My son uses Wow 3 IceCream Island book series, which he read the whole way through easily back in August 2011, no wonder he is so bored with the course. as they are still on the same basic book! However my son will find German FAR more difficult, so that will be a challenge for him. The teacher said he would find it much easier to learn German though English, which of course won´t happen, being in rural Finland! I am going to learn it at the same time, with him, using Énglish course books, as my German is limited to "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik"
Allie ,stop moaning & get on with life, it´s summer

[Pursuivant]

He might get "too bored" and flunk his grammar if he doesn't pay attention in class. What I'd recommend is get some good English Grammar books, I'd say from the time they still taught grammar in school and not from your self-esteem raising era. Theres also a lot of stuff available on the web, albeit it seems to be more US. The school system allows either, but you then need to be consistent in both the grammer and spleddning to be either or.

As for German... well... at age 9... theres those German soaps and police series still on TV? Or then download some good old kids series like "Kocken Konstantin" Thats the best dialogue/accent teacher.

[Jukka Aho]

Theres also a lot of stuff available on the web, albeit it seems to be more US. The school system allows either, but you then need to be consistent in both the grammer and spleddning to be either or.

Back in my day, they allowed US English (or any other variant), all right, but only taught the British variant in the classes — save for a couple of textbook chapters where some of the differences (pants vs. trousers etc.) where highlighted as curiosities. So if you wanted to write your English essay for the matriculation examination using the U.S. spelling, idioms, and vocabulary, and did that in a consistent way, it was OK, but you didn’t really get taught the language that way in the classes.

As for German... well... at age 9... theres those German soaps and police series still on TV?

They appear to be on a summer break at the moment: click, click, click.

Well, there’s Marienhof and Sturm der Liebe (Lemmen viemää) on Sub. If Allie has cable, maybe the local cable TV company carries some German channels with more diverse content. You might want to check out the channel listings and packages on their website.