27 May, 2013

Correcting WHY questions directly: Mission aborted…



As an addendum to the last post, I must say that the direct correction strategy is not working very well. 
I was immersed in one of these WHY question rounds the other day and he was constantly using the Spanish order of words instead of the English one. I was trying not to be intrusive so I asked him some WHY questions in the right order but he wouldn´t get back on track, so I started repeating the phrases after him in the right order to see what happened… One try, he repeats the question in the right way, goes back to Spanish order, second try, he amends the phrase again but looks at me annoyed, third try he stops the conversation, hesitates a bit and then says “Papi, por qué?”.
I didn’t need to read between lines too much. The clear message is: If you want me to keep going with your English circus, don´t be too much of a pain in the ass or I´ll switch into Spanish…
Alright dude, I got it for now, no pressure man...

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