ESL teachers should consider Canadian folk sayings as a potential part of ESL pedagogy.
There is humour, of course, in folk sayings. But, in the collected wisdom of folk speech, there are pathways to the very heart of a people's language. Although folk sayings are expressed in simple English, nevertheless the complexity of the semantic and cultural content of a saying's humour sometimes prevents beginners and early English-learners from "getting the joke" or the cultural reference. Some effort on ESL teachers' parts to incorporate the folk saying as a learning module for ESL English may be worth consideration. My books abound with the comic and serious content of Canadian folk sayings fully explained. The linguistic, cultural and social content of sayings, once explicated, permits Canadian folk proverbs and sayings to be used to introduce the newcomer to Canadian lifeways not always depicted in sociology texts or even in civics classes for New Canadians. Folk sayings are an “up-close” encounter with the real way that Canadians speak. True Canuck talk is the way to introduce Canada to a person learning Canadian English. Formal speech is often necessary for work. But what is usually missing from a newcomer’s way of speaking a new language? Missing are idiomatic turns of phrase, the little bits of street talk and folk wisdom that make Canadian speech distinctive from British and from American talk. These "genuine" Canadianisms help new speakers "fit in" more comfortably in their first Canadian conversations. The everyday idioms both of language and of lifestyle are conveyed in folk speech. Is this a mode worth attempting for teachers of English as a Second Language? Perusal of my three volumes of Canadian folk sayings will answer that question in the affirmative. bill casselman
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