The difference between regular English and ESL

For the sake of this article, I will call regular English as school English, and English as a Second Language (ESL) as spoken English. The essence of ESL education is to learn spoken English the way native speakers use it. If you’ve learned global school English — that is English learned from schools in non-native English speaking countries (as per my term and definition), then you’ve learned English from reading, not from listening. 

Native speakers learn English as babies, from listening. Their ability to speak English is natural and instinctive. They don’t have to think about word stress, sentence stress, reduced vowels, fast Ds and disappearing Ts. Are they going to spell every word correctly? Probably not, unless they’ve studied it. Written English has to be learned both by native speakers and non-native speakers. 

There is a huge difference between written English and spoken English. If you read the words: us, as and ass, you know exactly what they mean by spelling. In spoken English, you have to enunciate the vowel sounds and the consonant sounds correctly. You don’t want to say “ass good” instead of “as good” because “ass good” is probably not good at all. I apologize if the word a** has offended you. But a** is a real word that native speakers use. True story.

Do native English speakers have perfect grammar? Not always. But they understand every expression and every inflection, and fellow native speakers understand them perfectly. This makes them a culture. There’s this language that they speak which perhaps only makes perfect sense to them.

Just because English speakers use the same words doesn’t mean they use them in the same way, if they are from different cultures. Here’s an example:

In America, people say, “How are you doing?” to greet someone they’ve never met before, or someone they haven’t seen in a while. In Britain, they say “Are you alright?” In America, you never say, “Are you alright?” unless you saw someone trip or you suspect that someone might have gotten hurt.

Native speakers in a culture communicate with one another with an instinctive understanding of every intention and what’s acceptable. Just because someone speaks English doesn’t mean he speaks the same English as someone from a different culture. Take this example:

When my husband, my daughter and I spent time in the Philippines, my husband would ask people how they were doing  or how they liked something. The Filipinos would always reply, “Okay” or “It’s okay.” My husband began to think that they never liked anything or were never impressed by anything. I told my husband that when Filipinos say “okay,” they mean it’s good. Now in America, okay is not good. If you had cooked a meal for someone and it had taken four hours to prepare it, and you ask that person how he likes it and he says, “It’s okay,” then that’s just rude.

Mar’s ESL School doesn’t just teach English, it teaches the cultural aspect of American English. If you have learned English from your native country, but you are now living in the United States, Mar’s ESL School will teach you how to communicate better in your new culture. There is nothing more uncomfortable than when you’re in a social situation with native speakers and you keep missing their point because you think they are speaking too fast. They are not speaking too fast. They are saying their words in a way which you didn’t learn from regular school. ESL teaches “Listening” so you can understand spoken English better.

If you are a foreign person who wants to sell to Americans, have them read your blog or visit your website, you would want to be impressive by knowing how to speak their language. It will give you more credibility, whether you like it or not. If you want to work in America or visit America you need to have an understanding of the culture and how to communicate and be understood. Another reason why you want to study ESL is because you are awesome. Other people may want to learn how to paint or play a sport, but you want to learn languages with a near native proficiency because you can.

In the world of the Internet, there is so much information out there that is going to be unlocked when you become proficient in understanding spoken English.

This is where we're at, I will teach you how to understand spoken English. That’s why I define ESL education as learning spoken English. I will not spend so much time teaching you how to read English. You already know how to do that. You are reading this article aren’t you?

Mar’s ESL School is going to be very beneficial to foreign-born professionals who want to interact with native English speakers. This is not your typical English class where you learn how to spell and construct sentences. Well, our Regular English Tutoring service is for that. If you are a foreign-born professional, take my Accent Reduction Course.