You may have already seen this clip of Hasan Minhaj explaining to Ellen DeGeneres how to correctly pronounce his name and why it’s important. It’s great!
We spend time in my IB Theory of Knowledge classes on names when we’re studying Language, and this will be a perfect addition.
In addition, Slate just published an excellent article about how Minhaj handled it, and I’ll also be using excerpts from it in class.
I’m adding this post to:
The Best Resources On The Importance Of Correctly Pronouncing Student Names
The Best Places For Students To Learn About…Their Names
Here’s the clip on Twitter:
What’s my name? Timothée Chalamet. pic.twitter.com/M4JvVTEz9O
— Hasan Minhaj (@hasanminhaj) April 4, 2019
I have awful memories of teachers and classmates mispronouncing my last name and/or making fun of it. For many years, I was the only student with a Polish last name in my Irish-Catholic grade school . I remember the shame and humiliation I felt when teachers routinely mispronounced my last name (even when I corrected the mispronunciation) or made jokes about me being “the Pope’s cousin”. I spent many tearful afternoons wishing I was a “McCarthy, or O’Sullivan, or Walsh”. I swear the nuns just liked those students more! Today…thirty-six years later, I am extremely proud of my maiden name and love to share it with my ESL students. They are very sympathetic!