Here’s yet another story, this time in the NYT, about Malayalees tutoring American juvenile delinquents using porncams instant messaging and headphones. 
Where’s the fire button in this game? It ain’t real until desi teachers can simulate stabbing you in the head with a pencil. It’s not the Montessori method, it’s the belan method:
Greeshma Salin swiveled her chair to face the computer, slipped on her headset and said in faintly accented English, “Hello, Daniela.” Seconds later she heard the response, “Hello, Greeshma.” … Ms. Salin, 22, was in Cochin, a city in coastal southern India, and her student, Daniela Marinaro, 13, was at her home in Malibu, Calif…They must go through two weeks of technical, accent and cultural training that includes familiarization with the differences between British English, widely used in India, and American English… “They learn to use ‘eraser’ instead of its Indian equivalent, ‘rubber,’ and understand that ‘I need a pit stop’ could mean ‘I need to go to the loo…’ ”
… she was “floored at first when 10-year old American students addressed me as Leela. All my teaching life in India, my students addressed me as Ma’am,” she said.
Fussy Americans, we shall school your haraam zaday spawn in ye olde English:
Dr. Marinaro said that he had misgivings when he first considered enrolling his daughters for English tutoring. “I thought, how could somebody from India teach them English?”
There’s something very reverse colonialist about this. Now instead of wealthy families importing teachers to provide a proper English education, we have… wealthy families importing teachers to provide a proper education in English. I can just hear the anti-Macaulay bruting about over Skype: ‘Your native culture is worthless! Jonathan Safran Foer, I spit on him! You sawdust-for-brains natives– read Rushdie, Roy, Khushwant Singh if you want to be proper Indian gentlemen.’ 
This part is actually true — we probably get more 1st gen – 2nd gen interaction on this blog than face-to-face, because it’s in text and only the essence remains:
Eliminating factors such as skin color, appearance, gender and accent made the Internet “more egalitarian than most classrooms,” he said.
Previous post here.
I’m not sure if the results will be quite the same without the attah roller.
As my dad will tell you until he’s blue in the face, they don’t teach English in American schools…they teach literature. 😉
hear, hear supermenon! i concur. 😉
OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE EMBARGO TILL 18:00 GMT Uncleji via his holding company Slumlord PLC wishes to announce an exciting new development in Offshoring Opportunties.
from the economist via mental block
rather than importing the nanny, offshore the children. from the economist via mental block
How to solve the biggest issue in modern politics
FORGET Iraq and budget deficits. The most serious political problem on both sides of the Atlantic is none of these. It is a difficulty that has dogged the ruling classes for millennia. It is the servant problem.
In Britain David Blunkett, the home secretary, has resigned over an embarrassment […]
In America Bernard Kerik, the president’s nominee for the Department of Homeland Security, withdrew last week because he had carelessly employed a Mexican nanny […]
There is an easy answer to the servant problem – obvious to economists, if not to the less clear-sighted […]
Parents are not the only people who have difficulty getting visas for workers. All employers face restrictive immigration policies which raise labour costs. Some may respond by trying to fiddle the immigration system, but most deal with the matter by exporting jobs. In the age of the global economy, the solution to the servant problem is simple: rather than importing the nanny, offshore the children.
Many working parents would hardly notice the difference, and there would be clear advantages beyond lower child-care costs. Freeing up rich-country real estate currently clogged with cots and playpens would lower rents; liberating time currently wasted in story-telling and tummy-tickling would raise productivity. For parents who wished to be present at bed-time, video-conference facilities could be arranged.
Luddites and sentimentalists will whinge about the disadvantages of raising a brood in, say, Beijing. Language, for instance: what if one found oneself in possession of a posse of mini-Mandarin speakers? Yet in the age of global culture, few sensible modern parents are susceptible to such small-mindedness. If they were, they wouldn’t so commonly leave their offspring in the care of monoglot Mexicans or Poles.
Unthinking conservatism may spawn resistance to this eminently sensible idea. But politicians, the people most often embarrassed by the servant problem, should be keen to popularise it – not just for themselves, but also in the national interest. Offshoring could help solve several problems afflicting rich-world economies, including that of ageing populations: after all, you get more bairns for your buck in Bangalore. And why stop at toddlers? Difficult teenagers, the offspring most liable to vex political parents, could be conveniently removed: imagine how much easier George Bush’s life would have been had his twins been confined to, say, Pyongyang.
Hmm. This does seem like it’s a growing market for “outsourcing”. I know a lot of Malayalees who are taking up teaching jobs (English and Science) in the UK and US — the certification process for new teachers is farily short and easy in the UK. … from what I hear, they are managing to put some Deva-bhakthi in most of their students, even if they’re not allowed to bring their atta-rollers to class with them!
what poor posture these kids have! Too bad there’s no way to e-slap them on the arm with an e-ruler. CHA-TAAK!
well atleast this should cut down on inappropriate teacher-student relationships….or will it be the contrary???
Thanks for the new post title 😉
I wonder if the motley crew of regulars here in the comments section would have ever talked this much if we met face to face? Nope, not at all, is my guess….one thing I’ve noticed about the internets it allows cross-talk across generations and age groups in a way that usually doesn’t happen that much in the non-virtual world.
Hmm… I would have thought that instant messanging would have been the reason that American kids need a grammar tutor in the first place.
epoch says: lol. epoch says: an alos dats a tight title u got der manish epoch says: *also dats… epoch says: neways gtg cya ltr.
Hmm, as usual my last comment makes no sense. I seem to have been responding to a comment that isn’t really there….hello, MD, SM is addling your brain.
Let me rephrase: I wonder how well virtual communication fares versus the non-virtual kind when it comes to these sorts of teaching excercises? I can’t imagine teaching medical resident’s virtually, although, I suppose we are doing that all the time nowadays. Poor old Luddite me, can’t seem to get my head around it.
I wonder if the motley crew of regulars here in the comments section would have ever talked this much if we met face to face?
Ahem, cough cough. You haven’t met me. Ask Brimful and Anna. I actually hold back on the comments.
Unavailability and high cost of broadband in India is really restricting this idea to take off. Specially at personal level. A lot of desi guys can make 300-400 bucks/month doing such job independently. Same with programming jobs for small businesses. Hopefully broadband cost will come down in couple of yrs and a lot many college going guys can do such stuff to make quick buck. Tutoring(done by mostly young grads) is a huge unorganized business in India already.
I hope it doesnt become an unorganized crime like what our Italian brothers do…..
well, I am not trying to be funny, but silly
heh heh, I think it’s time for Punjabi Boy to come visit the states… and talk our ears off!
Insert topic. Watch as Saheli holds forth. Rinse, lather, repeat.
Seriously.
🙂
MD,
your comment meant total sense to me and I couldnt agree more. The types of things and the groups that one says those things to, is IMPOSSIBLE in real world.
This teaching business is not gonna work unless you add the compulsory parental-guilt and achievement-curve angles. What you really need is a mom to go ‘hmm, never mind, we’ll love you even if you were below the 97th percentile’ or an uncle to ask your dad why you did not make it to MIT at 15 like his son/daughter.
Once you put that in a bottle, or in an application that can be managed remotely from India, we’ll truly have outsourced the education business!
The first priority for a teacher is to be present with the student. Imparting information is a far second.
Commercial forces and other pressures elevate the latter and devalue the former.
Wren and Martin’s High School English Grammar and Composition is the finest textbook I’ve ever seen on the subject, but since it doesn’t have 4 color pictures and glossy paper, American schools won’t use it…
Serves us right, like, you know what I mean?
I have to recommend “English Grammar for Students of French.” I know that sounds zany – but keep in mind, I went through the American system – very little actual grammar.
The comparison between the English and French grammars is really, très helpful!
Example:
In English, the past perfect tense is used to express an action completed in the past before some other past action or event. It is formed with the auxiliary had (past tense of the verb “to have”) + the past participle
In French, the term for the past perfect is the plus-que-parfait. It is used to make clear that an action took place before an action in the passe compose or the imparfait. It is formed by putting the auxiliary verb avoir or etre in the imparfait + the past participle
… As if I just typed that all out.
Maisnon,
English is also the target language in the book:
Word Routes Anglais-Français : Lexique thématique de l’anglais courant (Cambridge Word Routes).
This is a fun and well organized thematic lexicon. It won’t replace a dictionary, and it is not a grammer, but I’ve found it to be indispensable and very entertaining. (I also have the Italian edition in the series.)
I agree with your point. The study of any of the Romance Languages should yield great improvement in the home (english) language.
In Italian, this tense is the Trapassato Prossimo. The method of construction is identical. The main verb is conjugated in the simple past (passato) and the auxiliary verb (to be = essere or avere)is conjugated in the passato prossimo.
Diceva che aveva visto una tigre allo zoo.
He said he had seen a tiger in the zoo.
Diceva = trapassato prossimo of the infinitive dire (to say).
aveva = trapassato prossimo of avere (auxiliary)
visto = passato of vedere (to see).
Happy verbing!