Palmer Language

What We Mean When We Ask For The Milk

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:48:09 +0200

Excellent article about the cultural influence on language use. Just teaching grammar and vocabulary won’t help students understand the pragmatic differences between the target language and their native language.

“If we understand these differences better, we can understand where other people are coming from, while also reflecting on what our own language says about us and how we relate to others.”

mrisdal: The caught-cot merger. I’m fully merged, are you?

Mon, 07 May 2012 10:17:22 +0200

mrisdal:

The caught-cot merger. I’m fully merged, are you?

Empowering the Language Learner

Mon, 07 May 2012 10:14:28 +0200

Empowering the Language Learner:

jpbonil:

A very good lecture to review and rethink our practice and also language itself.

Authentic audiences

Mon, 07 May 2012 10:13:50 +0200

decomposingclassroom:

When I was a student, I always valued schoolwork and projects that felt like they had some sort of “authentic audience.” Why was I writing a paper that only my teacher would read? I would consistently put more effort into assignments that would be peer reviewed and shared with the class, and even more into ones that I knew would be viewed by the larger community.

Now that I’m a teacher, I try to give my students as many opportunities as possible to feel like they are doing meaningful work, work with a purpose. Almost every extended project culminates in an elaborate “gallery walk” or “gala” or “exhibition,” where the students set up their work and then take a tour of everybody else’s, filling out feedback slips as they go (I also like giving them lots of opportunities for feedback and constructive criticism…which is usually good, except for the time that Kyle and Trevor gallivanted around the class with the aliases of “Pigster” and “Squag,” writing snarky, negative comments on everything. Luckily, I have uncanny handwriting analysis and I immediately knew it was them, confronted them, and had them rewrite constructive comments.)

I’m realizing the power of authentic audiences even more now, as I have my 6th graders work on wetland brochures. We went on a field trip to a local wetland last week, and we’ve been learning about plant/animal adaptations, as well as the important functions that the wetland ecosystem serves. Back in class, we began to brainstorm reasons why someone might create a brochure: to inform, to educate, to persuade, to raise awareness, etc. Then I mentioned that some of the high quality brochures would get to be linked onto the town’s wetland website, or hang in their downtown office where hundreds of people pass through each month. As soon as I said this, they all started producing really high quality work! There’s something about knowing there’s a purpose to what you’re doing, some greater reason to do it, that sparks people to stepping it up a notch.

Also, I was excited about showing them brochure templates on Microsoft Word so that they could experiment and produce some really cool, professional looking creations!

Great idea!

9 Ideas for Reinventing America's Language Education System

Mon, 07 May 2012 10:09:44 +0200

9 Ideas for Reinventing America's Language Education System:

Great article. Not new, but new to me. One of the most interesting ideas (to me) was #3 - No Language Specific Classes. While I don’t know if I agree that there should NEVER be language specific classes, I do think at the introductory level, students should be required to take linguistics courses before specific language study.

Palmer Language Blog

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 06:53:36 +0200

Palmer Language Blog:

If you like the things posted here, you’re welcome to check out our other blog, where we post original articles and blog posts about teaching, language, and occasionally, applied linguistics.

Using Semantic Mapping to Help With Learning Vocabulary! From...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:26:42 +0200

Using Semantic Mapping to Help With Learning Vocabulary!

From Palmer Language Blog:

This is a good strategy to use with visual learners, because it illustrates connections between ideas and words.

didyoudrinkmygingerale: lostmymindinseoul: Phonemananagram! For...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 08:16:20 +0200

didyoudrinkmygingerale:

lostmymindinseoul:

Phonemananagram!

For my pronunciation course we had to come up with a study game. I made Bananagram tiles with phonemes on them (six for each sound and a whole bunch of extra schwas) and had my classmates grab a few handfuls and try to make as many words as they could in five minutes. When my timer beeped, they had to read their words out loud. If any were wrong, a classmate could correct the word and steal it to count as one of their own words. It was really fun and my professor loved it! We tried playing it correctly with the Bananagram directions as well, which was fun but more nerve-wracking for some of the students. I wonder if I can convince my friends to play it with me again this weekend… I am terrible at pronunciation and IPA and I need the practice!

doorsandsardines: hahahahah bwahahah

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:44:32 +0200

doorsandsardines:

hahahahah bwahahah

Homework...WTF

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:57:05 +0200

laur93095:

Why don’t teachers understand that we don’t want homework??? Like do they not get that their not the only class we go to through out the day or that we have other things outside of school that we have to do and we might not have time!! Like the eight hours we spent at school Is not enough?? WTF I hate homework with a passion :(

Why don’t students understand that there is no possible way that they are going to learn, practice, and produce even the key concepts of my subject, just sitting in my 45 minute class three to four times a week? Like do they not get that their educational future will most likely rest on their topical knowledge measured by a series of poorly interpreted tests designed to separate them from the other 99% of college-bound graduating students or that perhaps the assignments I give are purposefully created to reinforce the topics I taught today so that there is a higher chance they will remember them in 6 months??

Sorry, I can’t help myself sometimes.

"Those who were born completely deaf and only learned sign language will, not surprisingly, think in..."

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:38:37 +0200

“Those who were born completely deaf and only learned sign language will, not surprisingly, think in sign language. What is surprising is those who were born completely deaf but learn to speak through vocal training will occasionally think not only in the particular sign language that they know, but also will sometimes think in the vocal language they learned, with their brains coming up with how the vocal language sounds.”

- Today I Found Out…

The Official Word - For Anyone Dealing With Accent Discrimination

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:57:12 +0200

The Official Word - For Anyone Dealing With Accent Discrimination:

From the Linguist List.

This article answers the following questions:

What is an accent?
Why do languages develop different accents?
Why are the accents a particular place like they are?
Is there a standard English accent?
Which English accent is closest to the spelling?
Can I change my accent?
Suggestions for further reading?

“The Story of Esaw Wood”

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:51:27 +0200

I dare you to read it out loud.

Esaw Wood sawed wood. Esaw Wood would saw wood! All the wood Esaw Wood saw Esaw Wood would saw. In other words, all the wood Esaw saw to saw Esaw sought to saw. Oh, the wood Wood would saw! And oh, the wood-saw with which Wood would saw wood. But one day Wood’s wood-saw would saw no wood, and thus the wood Wood sawed was not the wood Wood would saw if Wood’s wood-saw would saw wood. Now, Wood would saw wood with a wood-saw that would saw wood, so Esaw sought a saw that would saw wood. One day Esaw saw a saw saw wood as no other wood-saw Wood saw would saw wood. In fact, of all the wood-saws Wood ever saw saw wood Wood never saw a wood-saw that would saw wood as the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood would saw wood, and I never saw a wood-saw that would saw as the wood-saw Wood saw would saw until I saw Esaw Wood saw wood with the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood. Now Wood saws wood with the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood. Oh, the wood the wood-saw Wood saw would saw! Oh, the wood Wood’s woodshed would shed when Wood would saw wood with the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood! Finally, no man may ever know how much wood the wood-saw Wood saw would saw, if the wood-saw Wood saw would saw all the wood the wood-saw Wood saw would saw.

From Here

I love it.

None of you is here.

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:36:57 +0200

limechoux:

Mmm I just

really love the sound of incorrectly conjugated “to be” in English

“None of you is here”

“You is…”

I dunno it seems

poetic somehow

I’m pretty sure that “to be” is correctly conjugated in the first sentence…or at least a correct variation of the conjugation.

None —> (Subject - singular third person)

of you —> (adjective prepositional phrase modifying the subject)

is —> (third person present singular verb conjugation)

here —> (we’re just going to call this the predicate, because it’s not relevant to the conversation)

‘None of you are here’ is an acceptable variation in spoken language, but that doesn’t mean it is the grammatically ‘correct’ form. Many people think it is ‘correct’ because the second person conjugation of to be (are) directly follows the second person pronoun (you).

However, ‘you’ is not the subject, but rather, the object of a preposition that modifies the real subject (none). As such, when we are looking at subject-verb agreement and going around being all prescriptive about ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect,’ then ‘None of you is here’ needs to be recognized as being grammatically acceptable (and, dare I say, the ‘correct’ phrase).

Anyway, both ways sound fine to me.

Student: Can I go to the bathroom?

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:17:50 +0200

Student: Can I go to the bathroom?
Teacher: I don't know, CAN you?
Student: It seems you have mistaken the locutionary force of my question for its illocutionary force. See, the locutionary force was a simple yes or no question, but the illocutionary force was a request. If only you'd taken a course on pragmatics we could have avoided this whole misunderstanding.

Yes.

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:15:38 +0200

Yes.

#3 Gobbledygook: This word is defined as any text containing...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:56:49 +0200

#3 Gobbledygook:

This word is defined as any text containing jargon, or especially convoluted English, that results in it being excessively hard to understand, or even incomprehensible. The term was coined in 1944, by former US Representative Maury Maverick (pictured above). Even for professional literature translators this word represents a challenge.

From 10 Hard to Translate English Words

I can verify that this is not only a hard to translate word, but a hard to explain word. It came up in an article that I was reading in one of my classes, and I couldn’t think of an intelligent way to describe it to the students.

From Memory Strategies for Vocabulary:...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:57:06 +0200

From Memory Strategies for Vocabulary: Associating/Elaborating:

‘This memory strategy involves associating new language information with familiar concepts already in memory’ (*). I’ve used tricks like this for myself for years, like the “I’m a genie” trick to remember how to spell imagine (im-a-gin-e) and corazón (Spanish for heart) is the core of a person. ‘The associations can be simple or complex, mundane or strange, but they must be meaningful to the learner’ (*).

Deep processing of vocabulary (through memory strategies like these) can help learners fix the new words in their mind by linking them to other (known) words.

*Rebecca Oxford, Language Learning Strategies, 2010.

Re: Canadian Raising

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 15:09:00 +0200

Canadian Raising submitted (regarding my reblog)

I should have been more specific. What I meant was that the diphthong in those word pairs is the same in American English but not in Canadian English. You are right about the phonemic difference in the following consonant (its a voicing difference) though. Canadian raising is triggered by voiceless consonant codas in stressed syllables where the diphthong is [ow] or [aj].

I still argue that the diphthongs aren’t quite the same (as the [aɪ] changes to an [aɪ:] before the voiced consonants in the second word of the pair….at least in my idiolect), but thanks for the clarification.

Error Correction in the Classroom

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 13:32:00 +0200

Error Correction in the Classroom:

Error correction is a big question for many ESL and EFL (and other language) teachers. ‘How’ and ‘how often’ are especially problematic.

Explicit correction in the classroom that occurs too frequently in one session or over a few sessions can be discouraging for students. It is especially tough when one student needs more correction than the other students and subsequently disengages from the lesson or even from later lessons.

By Tim Palmer, Palmer Language Blog