Cuntree

There were several humorous things that occurred during my English language teaching course last month as a result of inexperienced teachers trying to explain words and concepts. Gestures usually were involved. If you're interested in hearing more, tell me in the comments and I will share some more stories and maybe fess up to my own. However, the best story came from our very, very cool teacher about a previous course she taught.

Pronunciation is important when learning a language. You can say the right word in the correct grammatical structure, but if its not pronounced correctly (or close to correctly) people will still not be able to understand. There are several ways to help students with pronunciation, one of which is drilling. The teacher says the word correctly, the students repeat, the teacher says it again, the students repeat, etc. until the students are pronouncing it right. It is quite loud and sometimes can be heard down the hall.

Well, one teacher, bless his little heart, noticed that the students were mispronouncing the word "country," so he started to drill them. He then noticed that they were having trouble with the first part of the word and so broke it up (incorrectly, by the way) and just focused on the first part of the word.
T: count
S: count
T: count
S: count
Say it out loud as the first part of the word country if you aren't laughing in horror.