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In at least one respect, I'm not a typical expatriate teacher of
English. Many-perhaps most-of us make our careers teaching
overseas. I came out here after many years of teaching and teacher
training in England only three years ago, so I'm still relatively a
newcomer. And of course I make comparisons. Of course former
colleagues ask me what it is like to teach Chinese students? In
what ways do they differ from native speakers of English? How do
they compare with the students in English schools who are of Asian
parentage, but who hardly remember a home elsewhere than in an
English city? To these questioners my answer is that Chinese
students differ from one another just as do those of any other
nationality. The longer I stay, the less I am willing to
generalize.
至少,就某方面而言,我还不能算是最典型的外籍英语教师.我们当中许多人,也可以说大多数的人都是以海外教书为终身职业。我经历多年的教书生涯，而于三年前到英国接受教师训练之后，才来此地任教，因此算是相当资浅的教员。不过，我倒作过不少教学的比较研究。当然，以前的同事总会问我教导中国学生的一些心得；比如，在教法上，中国学生和以英语为母语的学生有何不同？
或者，和就读英语学校，从小又一直生活于讲英语的城市之亚裔学生，又有何不同？针对这类问题，我总是回答，中国学生和其它任何国家的学生一样，也因个性和程度的差异，各有不同。我教书时间愈久，愈不愿以偏概全，一概而论。
When students ask me similar sounding
questions, I find that I want to give a rather different answer.
There is, I think, more to their questions than friendly curiosity.
They want to know (even if they do not put it like this) where they
stand, and how they rate, as users of English as an international
language. They know, as I do, that for all the hard work that has
gone into their learning of the language, their attainments still
fall short of their hopes. They want to know if that English is
good enough, and indeed what “ good enough” means. They would
like to know if there are ways in which their bilingualism, and
their biliteracy, gives them and appreciable advantage, and
whether, especially, their limitations and weaknesses in English
are identifiable and can be remedied.
要是学生问我类似的热门问题，我就很想以不同的方式来答复。我认为在回答时，
不应是满足善意的好奇心理，而就针对他们的问题，多作阐释与发挥。他们很想知道（即使不明讲），自己目前的程度，以及在使用国际语言的能力方面，如何给予自己确切的评估。他们也和我一样明白，尽管为了学好英语，下过功夫苦读，但成效依然不能令人满意。他们也想知道，自己的英语是否够好，而“够好”的真正定义又是什么？他们更想了解，是否可利用某些捷径，得以有效提升自己的双语沟通与读写的能力；此外，尤其想知道，是否可以找到自己学习英语的先天限制与种种缺失，以及补救之道。
These are some of the answers I think are
true, and that I hope are useful. Learning any foreign language
takes a long time and a great deal of effort, but learning one that
belongs to a different language family from your mother tongue is
especially hard. I knew in England experienced teachers of English
to speakers of Asian languages belonging (as do the languages of
Europe) to the Indo-European language family. When these teachers
met primary students from Hong Kong they perceived them as diligent
but slow. Those teachers simply failed to recognize that if
Cantonese is your mother tongue you simply have more to do than
(say) a Punjabi speaker, so of course you need longer to do it. It
is easy to get discouraged and, in effect, to give up. Some people
do—even if among those who go on attending classes
conscientiously! Many more fail to recognize how much they have
actually learnt and to respect their own achievements.
我想下面这些答案是千真万确的，也盼望对大家有所帮助。学习任何语言都需要很长的时间和巨大的努力，而学习一门跟你的母语不属于同一语系的语言，尤其艰辛不易。我在英国认识一些经验丰富的英语教师，他们专教（十分接近欧洲语系的）印欧语系的亚裔学生。他们一旦碰到班上有来自香港的小学生，立刻会察觉这些学生虽然用功勤勉，但却成效不佳。这些教师都未能认清一个事实：要是本身的母语是广东话，学起英文来比讲印度加语的人士，就得多花一些功夫，自然学习时间要拉长了。这样他们很容易气馁从而放弃学习。其中还不乏不曾缺课的认真学生！更有不少人对自己所学的实际进展，茫然不知，不晓得珍惜自己的学习成效。
Realistic Targets
It is important to set yourself realistic
targets. For all but a small, exceptionally gifted minority, native
proficiency is not a realistic target. A Chinese user of English
should not feel that because he sounds and seems Chinese when he
uses English that he has been less than successful in acquiring it.
To have learned English well is to be fully intelligible to another
user of standard English and to understand him, in ordinary
circumstances.” Of course “ordinary circumstances” differ
between users. Highly technical vocabulary is entirely ordinary in
the context of air traffic control or information technology or any
one of the many scientific and technical contexts for which English
is the language of international communication. Advanced students
of English need to consider what are the range of purposes for
which they are likely to use their international language, and to
select courses where those purposes are recognized and understood
by their teachers.
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