[Hayet Maamouri]

Is it correct to say to say "you just make your car full of gas and concentrate on your driving and every thing will be OK"
or " ...give it a lot of petrol..."(this instead of what's underlined.
the pupil who wrote this is a pre-intermediate level student of english and i've been correcting writings the whole day. i can't no more distinguish between what's english and what's translated. this pupil would like to say:" faire le plein"

another question, how is the person who works in a petrol station called?
thanks for your help.

[susan53]

I wouldn't say either of these - I'd say "just fill the car up with petrol" or (in this context) "make sure you have a full tank of petrol". I'd use petrol incidentally because I'm British - an American would say gas. I don't know whether there would be differences in the rest of the phrase.

[Hayet Maamouri]

Thank you Susan. But what about the person who works in a gas station? I'm abusing! Sorry for that

[susan53]

Sorry Hayet- don't understand what you mean. Do you mean what do we call the person who works there? In Britain we'd say "service station" "petrol station" or "garage" rather than "gas station", and the person who works there, giving out the petrol would be the "service station attendant" "petrol station attendant" or garage attendant. Is that what you meant?

[Hayet Maamouri]

yes thanks a lot.that's the word i was looking for.
i must teach RP by the way. so it scares me when you correct what i wrote and say it's american. I looked them up in the dictionary. it seems that i'm still enable to distinguish British Eng and American Eng.

[susan53]

RP is a form of pronunciation rather than anything to do with grammar or vocab, and actually is not the standard British pronunciation any more. But if what you mean is that you need to teach British rather than American English, I wouldn't worry. There are very few diffences which are incomprehensible, and a lot of American influence on British English, especially from American TV programmes. British people would know exactly what you meant if you said gas station.

I'm interested though in why you have to teach British English? I'd have thought that most learners now need a more neutral international version of the language, as in most cases it's impossible to predict who they'll later need the language to speak to - it's as likely to be the Chinese as it is Americans or Brits. Being British I inevitably have to teach British English - but where I know there are variations always point them out. So my learners know about gas stations as well as service stations for instance, and know the difference between an American subway and a British one. As they're as likely to travel to New York as to London they need both.
What do other people do?

[Hayet Maamouri]

Probably I, myself learnt the word from TV.
To answer your question, "Why do I have to teach RP?" simply because when I was a student myself I was taught RP and during my training we were asked to do that. Anyway I guess RP would always be a clear and safe way to communicate with others in English. I doubt that I still pronounce plenty of words the way I learnt them, that's due to TV influence and the fact that I no more seeing english people as when I used to when i still studied, 7 years ago. We had some foreign teachers with whom we enjoyed talking.
i'll have to ask about the reasons the next time i'll meet our inspector. by the way is the school year nearly over where you teach? here school will be over by the end of June.

[susan53]

Yes, here the state school system finishes in mid-June, with only the kids who have school-leaving exams going on for an extra week or so. I teach in-company and will probably go on till the end of June, but then we're on holiday. My son will go back on Sept 10th, and my courses will probably get going around the end of the month - if I'm lucky.

[michèle 2]

[
I'm interested though in why you have to teach British English?
In France, students have to be taught British English for example
( holiday/vacation, lift/elevator, pavement/sidewalk, tap/faucet petrol/gas ect...)
But personally I have seen some changes since I started teaching English. Lots of texts used in the final exam in highschool are from American writers now. So students learn more and more American words. Anyway youngsters are keen on American series and for them English = American!!
Michèle

[emile]

Even some British people have picked up American English from movies, tv etc.