Home | How It Works | Stats Login | Register         Case: My Colleague Speaks Broken English In my school we practice team teaching. One of my colleagues and I share the same students. She teaches Science and Social Studies, while I teach Math and Language Arts including Reading. Because we teach lower elementary students—2nd grade—I pay special attention to modeling correct use of English in both writing and speaking in my lessons. This is where my problem begins. My team teacher is an immigrant from Korea. She speaks English well, but she makes mistakes regularly. I can see some of my students making mistakes in their speech and writing that mimic the mistakes I hear from my team teacher. What should I do about this? I do not want her to get in trouble because she is a very good teacher. If I inform her about what I have observed in her speech, would I be culturally insensitive? How should I tell her about this? I am at a total loss. Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) I think that I would find a way to diplomatically tell her. She would probably be happy to know so that she can work on that. Also, I think that it would be beneficial to explain to your students that because her first language is not English, sometimes it is hard for non-native English speakers to be grammatically correct at all times, as they may still be learning the language. It has nothing to do with her teaching abilities or intelligence, it is just because of the varied technicalities present in the English language.