who else reckons this is a fake "teacher" letter?

When I asked "George Johnhay" as to his origin I got the following:
"Would you mind telling me what part in my English is weird? I’m curious to know, because I have observed that you’re not that perfect with your writing as well. However, I wish to extend my due courtesy to you."
well....

Definitely a Chinese Senior Teacher(tm)! Someone who thinks no mere native speaker can match his/her unrivalled mastery and understanding of the English language.

Your letter on the other hand sounds fake, 'cause there is so much fluff. I think real teachers would be a lot more short with their writing.
"Boss is good, students are decent, weather is shit" - that's the kind of thing I would say.

I disagree. Maybe on this forum we might be curt, but when I am asked to submit something official or important, I can be long winded.

Oh, try reading some of our finger happy posters (ME! Calach Pfeffer, EL, or Larry P) Thoughtful, insightful and the occasional grammar mistake. I have read far too many letters from native speakers who just seem that they'll fail an IELTS test

I will however mail "George" and enquire as to his origin.

No you won't! Nothing to do with me. It's a fake letter!

African?


Just guessing.

I'm still 100% sure it's a semi-literate and slightly pompous FT.  It's exactly like so many I've read from known natives.

Bottle of baijiu says I'm right 

Is there any way we can test this?  It would be interesting.

The only sliver of a hint of a clue that he is Chinese is his ability to spell 'weird' correctly.

Back in the days when I regularly corresponded with dossers DoSs (plural DsoS??) I very seldom got an error-free message, and often a completely unintelligible one.

OK, I'll stretch it to two bottles 

OK, I'll stretch it to two bottles 

Empties?

Well, they will be if you don't hurry!

I've just been looking back through some old emails from western managers, DoSs, etc, from a few years ago.  Honestly, this one could easily be someone from the UK, Canada, Aus, or the US, who emailed me back then.

I'm genuinely interested in this. I thought (I'm an arrogant sod) that I could identify native, non-native and Chinglish fairly easily. 

I'd like to find out where he's from, but 3 bottles is just pushing the bet too far!

Oh, these lovely end-of-term days, with nothing to do but drink and browse and gamble, after a hard few minutes' hiking!

Hmmmm.... on the one hand, long sentences with mostly okay clausal grammar marred by clunky word choice... Some indication he's writing as he speaks and making up punctuation to fit ("Not for long, things went bad, two of us ..."), and we might allow that this explains the awkward grammar... and perhaps we can take note of the good, mostly appropriate vocab...

But on the other hand, he looks into a new apartment and thinks, "Rice cooker? Score!"


Okay, I change my vote to non-academically inclined extrovert who likes talking and doesn't have all that much education.

And comes from a culture that isn't Chinese but does value face, aka making an effort to appear as if you believe people completely from the git go and letting difficulties be solved by a slow steady process of not quite not agreeing.



Pakistani?


Wait no, that's not right... to be Pakistani and have that level of English needs education...


Dammit, it may be a native speaker after all.

"I came to China back in 2007 as a tourist, holding an L-visa. I have exited and entered China 8 times before converting my visa to a work status in 2008 and taught English in one of the IT colleges in Chengdu. There were only 3 of us foreign teachers teaching there and we complained about the poor accommodation. Not for long, things went bad, two of us left after finishing our contract and the other one got fired for putting up an attitude during his contract.

"Have" should be "had" but that's excusable.  "Not for long" should be something else because it's referring back to "teaching there" even though "complained" happened in between and changed the reference.  Still, all sloppy native speaker mistakes.

I went hopping from one language school to another because of dissatisfaction on the work environment conditions and accommodations. When I came back I was hired by CISISU, my fourth school. Before I moved into the apartment, they had it cleaned and furnished (other schools don’t do that). For the first time, I saw a rice cooker, frying pan, knives, bowls, eating utensils, bed sheets, quilt, pillows, pillow cases, study desk, and a desk lamp apart from the usual things a school here only supply like a TV, refrigerator, microwave, and washing machine. As a result, I got a lot of unnecessary things.

"On" is a strange choice of preposition and plainly wrong, a native speaker would know.  A sloppy native speaker might not care.  "For the first time" looks really wrong unless it is taken to be referring to the whole of this teacher's experience in China, which it can be because of the parenthetical comment that comes before it.  So, okay, if badly organised.  But the last sentence is just odd.  Glaringly not native.  The coherence device "as a result" is inappropriate and "unnecessary" is okay but also has a glaring non-native quality to it.  Buuuuuut.... still could be sloppy native.

As far as I know here in CISISU, I have heard other foreign teachers complained about their water pipe dripping and requesting for a toilet seat replacement which was attended eventually by the school personnel but it was not that immediate because of the channels, action is not that swift. When I got a drainage leak one time I immediately went down to the plumbing store which is right outside the compound and got one of the guys there to come to my apartment and fix it. That’s how things go if one wants a quick fix and can’t wait for the school sending in some guys. Usually for small matters like that, we don’t bother the school anymore to avoid delays.

"As far as I know here"--again with the crappily coherence device.  "requesting for" is either a dumb phrasal verb creation or just sloppy preposition work again.  "Because of the channels" looks like non-native, buuuuut.....

Generally, I’m okay with CISISU. We try to extend respect and courtesy to locals plus extended tolerance to slow action. In effect, they reciprocate with respect and kindness after all. (I mean for this school)"

Etc.

Seems like there aren't actually that many mistakes.  And they're mostly failures of coherent construction, which could be attributed less to being non-native and more to being not much of a reader, nor drafter, nor writer in general....


You could ask him if he has a degree and watch him not write back.

Ok Paul and all the plot thickens. I wrote asking for another teacher to corroborate what "George the English teacher" had said.I got a geezer called Paul(funnily enough) who checked out (with the intriguing email address of sirblois) as a Canadian.I grilled him as to the enigmatic George's provenance and he replied as follows.First he complained that George's English was far better than mine by saying:
"It's very well written, colorful as well as dramatic. It is full of action and yet concise.
You might have been right that he didn't quite seem Western in that he hadn't criticised the school in any way - that's definitely his Asian side coming out. You're also right to be careful and check into who you're talking to when learning about schools in China, because what you mention does happen sometimes, unfortunately enough.
 
Ok, I will let the cat out of the bag,
and say that George is from the Philippines,
he is, however, a native speaker by every definition!
native speaker:
"    
Definition: a person who has spoken the language in question from early childhood;
a person having a specified native language" - www.dictionary.com
 
native language:
"Definition:    the language that a person acquires in earliest childhood; also, the primary language of a community; also called primary language, mother tongue" - www.dictionary.com

Furthermore, I maintain that George's writing is of exceptional quality, from what I have seen thus far, exceeding your own, and as such I am very interested in the details you've identified (picked out) as soon as you have free time.
 
BTW, very pleased to hear that you are fluent in Hebrew. I really admire you for that.
 
I would love to enjoy some of what you have to share about Hebrew.
One of the most beautiful languages in existence
~~~the language of the Pentateuch~~~
turns out the guy (Paul not George) is a Bahai Canadian whatever one of those is.
So who owes whom an empty bottle of booze? 

Interesting thread.  Are you going to be able to work with these people after this?

As an aside:  Bahai is a religion that I had never heard about until I came to China.  Since then I have met an unusual number of FTs who seem to be doing semi-covert proselytizing for said faith.

I knew it. I would have honestly bet dollars to donuts that this guy was either from Africa, the Philippines, or possibly South Asia -- India or Pakistan. There's just that near-native quality about his writing somehow. He obviously uses English regularly and is very comfortable with it, but I doubt it is what he speaks when he talks to his mother or his childhood friends back home. Native speaker? I guess that's debatable, but I doubt the school is paying him what they're paying the Canadian guy.

I'm curious too, are you still considering the school piglet?

Hmmmm, well:  I'm not sure whether I owe you the booze or not.  The Philippines has real native speakers as well as many whose first language is something else.


What the hell!  It's only 4.5 RMB for half a litre!  I concede defeat.

This highlights the problem of English becoming a lingua franca. Do we say that the only authentic English is that spoken by Americans, Canadians, etc, or is the English spoken in India, Phillipines, South Africa, Israel etc equally valid.

Personally I find the English spoken in South Africa and Israel to be native standard, and that in India and The Phillipines pretty bad, but there's no definitive version of what correct English is. Americans use different past participles from Britain (such as got versus gotten) and there are several other grammatical differences between the 'languages'.

In effect English is developing into a lot of 'dialects'. Chinglish isn't exactly a dialect yet, but I think that Chinese English will develop to that level eventually (within 20 years, assuming they fix their methods for teaching language). Chinese people, however excellent their English, will still need to adapt and develop the language to be able to express their cultural ideas. If we want everyone in the world to speak English we're going to have to be a bit tolerant of diversity.

Of course, I think it's counter-productive for this George to be teaching English, as 'dialects' should be derived from a 'native' source, but hey, he's probably cheap. I've come across some very good English teachers who are not technically native speakers.