It takes humility…
Please, will all (and not just some) of those who read the news in English on the Bengali media practice doing so beforehand, preferably with a tutor?
On a wavelength that shall be nameless, shortly after midnight last night, I once again listened to the news, read by someone who did not seem to have read it through even once previously, nor to understand the content (so got the phrasing of the sentences wrong which made it almost incomprehensible) and kept talking about 'Darkie'. It was some time before I realised that the reader meant 'Turkey'…
As a child, when asked to read something in my native language in public (usually the Bible) my ex-actor father spent around 40 minutes discussing the meaning of what I had to read and then took me to the venue where he sat on the back row and (in those days before microphones) I had to be both interesting to listen to and audible!
As Principal, I used to tell my Bangladeshi pupils that many of them were surrounded by those who spoke English very badly and very confidently - and how I wanted them to speak it well. Learning to do this - as everything - takes humility…..
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