PDF #101 – T Silva – Second Language Writing
In light of increasing globalization and written eletronic communication, worldwide interest in second language writing has increased rapidly during the past 25 years.
English language: We’re going through changes
English language: We’re going through changes
The times they are a-changing and language is a-changing with them. Since languages are organic creations of human culture, as that culture changes so too do they. The language used by Shakespeare is so different to modern day English that secondary school students usually reach for their dictionaries. That’s quite old, but even texts from the Victorian or Edwardian era sound very strange to a modern ear. A lot of people ejaculate in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels, yet the modern meaning of the word gives the whole thing a comical feel. Learn more about this topic by reading on TheBogotaPost.
The Role of Memory in Language and Communication
PDF #100 – Julie A Van Dyke – The Role of Memory in Language and Communication
Lnaguage comprehension requires the ability to construct linguistic dependencies between nonadjacent constituents.
Why Are Some People Better at Learning Multiple Languages Than Others?
Some people pick up languages like colds, or sunburns—without effort, through simple immersion in the atmosphere. Others can’t hear the word ‘conjugate’ without flashing back, in shame, to the classrooms where they failed, so long ago, to shake the curse of monolingualism.
Learn more about this topic by reading on Gizmodo.
After reading “Learning an L2 in a troubled world” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.
Bilingualism and Education
PDF #99 – Kenji Hakuta and Eugene E Garcia – Bilingualism and Education, 1989, Uni of California
The concept of bilingualism ps applied to individual children and to educational programs is discussed, and the history of research on bilingual children and bilingual education programs in the United States is reviewed.
Lawrence Township stresses language immersions in schools
The Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township has longest-standing dual language program in the state with Forest Glen Elementary, which opened in 1993. Now, the township is continuing its efforts in implementing dual language programs throughout the district.
Learn more about this topic by reading on YouAreCurrent.
After reading “Learning an L2 in a troubled world” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.
How English came to be Brazil’s second language
PDF #98 – Gustavo Rubino Ernesto – How English came to be Brazil’s second language
This paper will look on the events that let Brazil, a country with more than two hundred million people, to adopt a language that has never been directly influenced before over its five hundred years of history. Brazil has had many periods of mass migration, but it has never held an Anglo-Saxon flood of immigrants. This paper will also present in details the reasons and influences that led this gigantic country to choose English as its second language.
Why has language been a sensitive matter in TN?
State government would stick to the two-language formula is expected to bring to an end the raging controversy over the National Education Policy but a perusal of the State’s history reveals that the language question has always been a sensitive subject.
Learn more about this topic by reading on TheHindu.
After reading “Learning an L2 in a troubled world” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.
Swedish upper secondary school teachers and their attitudes towards
The aim of this essay is to investigate what English teachers‟ attitudes are towards British English, American English and Mid-Atlantic English. What variety of English do teachers use in Swedish upper secondary schools today and what are their reasons for using that variety? Do upper secondary school teachers think it is important to expose students to several varieties of English and do they teach differences (e.g. vocabulary and spelling) between varieties? The material is based on a questionnaire, which 20 participating teachers from five different upper secondary schools in Gävleborg answered. The study showed that there is an even distribution between the varieties used and taught. British English was preferred by teachers working the longest time while both AmE and MAE seemed to be growing in popularity among the younger teachers. Of the 20 teachers, 18 considered teaching differences to students since it gives them a chance to communicate effectively with people from other English speaking countries.
The nature of generalization in language
PDF #96 – Adele E Goldberg – The nature of generalization in language
This paper provides a concise overview of Constructions at Work (Goldberg 2006). The book aims to investigate the relevant levels of generalization in adult language, how and why generalizations are learned by children, and how to account for cross-linguistic generalizations.
How do learners acquire generalizations such that they can produce an open-ended number of novel utterances based on a finite amount of input? Why are languages the way they are? In order to address these long-standing questions, many linguists with varying backgrounds have converged on several key insights that have given rise to a family of constructionist approaches. These approaches emphasize that speakers’ knowledge of language consists of systematic collections of form-function pairings that are learned on the basis of the language they hear around them. This simple idea is, to my mind, what sets constructionist approaches apart from traditional generative grammar. The learning of language is constrained by attentional biases, principles of cooperative communication, general processing demands, and processes of categorization.
The term constructionist is intended to evoke both the notion of “construction” and the notion that our knowledge of language is “constructed”
on the basis of the input together with general cognitive, pragmatic and processing constraints. It is intended to be a more inclusive term than Construction Grammar, as the latter is a particular instance of a constructionist approach.
After reading “The nature of generalization in language” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs and visit my channel by YouTube.