单选题
Following Martin Wedell's piece "Local teacher or
native speaker?" now is perhaps a good time to explore the discomfort over the
use of "Native speaker" (NS) and "Non native speaker" (NNS). The discomfort may
stem partly from the fact that the word "native" is sometimes misguidedly used
to mean a primitive sort of savage; also partly because there will be an
increasing number of expert English users all over the world who did not start
their lives speaking English. The expression "mother tongue"
may be suffering the same guilt complex. Is it fair to brand a girl a NNS of
English because her mother was a French speaker while her father spoke English?
"Father tongue" then? Or should it have been "motherland tongue"? Fairer even
might be "environment tongue" for children growing up in an English speaking
environment (even though their parents might speak another language at
home). Students often tell me that they come to the U. K.
because they want to learn "pure" English in the "original" environment. While I
agree that learning in an English environment leads to more effective English
learning, this "purity" is a dangerous concept and I believe it is closely
linked to "mother" values and the term "native speakers".
"Motherland" and "fatherland" imply a patriotic love for one's country, but
language cannot easily work in this way, particularly when it is a "world
language" we are talking about. True, language is closely related to "culture"
but, for most modern users of English in the world, language is more about
international communication than nationality. Terms such as
"monolingual", "bilingual" and "multilingual" may be more appropriate for the
future. Or perhaps the fairest way is to eliminate altogether the need for these
terms. There is some concrete evidence that NNS and "mother tongue" are already
losing their influence. To study for the RSA Cambridge
Certificate or Diploma in Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Adults
(CELTA or DELTA), teacher trainees no longer need to have English as their first
language and there is no mention of NS or NNS. The CELTA rubric, for example,
states that participants must be "able to use written and spoken language in the
classroom which is clear and coherent and essentially free of mistakes in
spelling, punctuation and grammar". There is no mention of where the trainee was
born or grew up. More broadly, in English speaking countries,
bilingual and trilingual people from a variety of backgrounds are now not at all
rare. These people speak nearly perfect English and are accepted, I believe, as
"native speakers" would be (that is... if I used that term any more!).
单选题
The author feels discomfort in using "native" partly because ______.
A. many English people don't like to be labeled "native"
B. it's not good enough to generalize English people
C. it conveys the sense of "uncivilized state"
D. many English users are against its use
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] 使用native会使人联想到“a primitive sort of savage(野蛮)”。
单选题
According to the author, the terms "native speaker" and "non-native
speaker" can't be fairly applied to many English speakers because ______.
A. the speakers came from a background where English is not spoken
B. the speakers are from a complex nationality background
C. there is no relationship between the terms and the speakers
D. it is impossible to measure the speakers' English proficiency by using
the terms