Cynthia Howson – ON892 – mod1v1.doc

November 22, 2002

Module 1, Version 1

Hello Cynthia

As you will see I've commented on points below in blue with a final summary at the end.

This assignment is direct without being to brief while at the same time is clearly a well considered piece of work. I particularly like the ability you have to relate what you are talking about to learners (even if they are imaginary!). This is a strong pass for the initial assignment.

In my marking many of the comments are just to help you rethink ideas or consider things from a different angle - you can't fail the assignment on the Points To Consider (PTCs) for example - although you do need to answer all of them fully. They are really just me thinking aloud as I read through your work.

When anything does need changing for a resubmission I'll mention it in my final summary.

It is actually quite hard on a course like this not meeting face to face so sometimes if my points seem unclear, unfair or you think I haven't quite understood what you have been saying in the assignment please feel free to get back to me.

David

Part 1, Question 1

--Points To Consider #1

Did you understand the explanation above? Check it against your own grammar books* and make sure that it is correct by looking up the rules for using articles. After you have read the rules regarding articles, decide if you think this explanation is just right, too difficult, or too easy.

Explanation from Module 1: "Firstly, the past of watch is watched. Then, singular nouns like movie must be introduced by an article; when we talk about a noun for the first time we usually use the indefinite article, so: a movie."

The explanation is correct, as one would hope. However, a student who would say "Last night I watch movie" is unlikely to understand a technical explanation. During a class exercise about "What I did last night," I would most likely ask other students to provide the correct answer, and see if they could offer a reason. If not, I would give the correct answer and save the article explanation for a day when I had prepared an exercise on definite and indefinite articles.

Good point. Would you perhaps focus on the Past Tense and let an incorrect Article "slip through" on this occasion? When redirecting to another student or asking the student to correct themselves would you do anything to highlight the mistake, like a gesture for example?

--Points to Consider #2

You’re in an Intermediate class and one of your students asks: "What does faith mean?" How would you answer? How would you teach these words: banana (to a Beginners class), irony (to an Advanced class), iron, great and set (to an Intermediate class) – use a dictionary* if you need a start and don’t forget that you don’t have to stick with a dictionary type definition with your class: mimes and pictures for example can be used to explain words!

For a monolingual intermediate class, I would frequently translate individual vocabulary words and then proceed to discuss various uses of the word and possible differences with the MT in English. For a multilingual class, I would look at the sentence the student was reading and discuss the meaning of the sentence. I would say something like, "There are different types of faith. When we say ‘faith in God,’ we are talking about belief in God. But I can also have faith in my mother. Do you think that means that I believe my mother exists? Probably not; it really means that I trust her." I would then write on the board, Faith in God = belief in God

Faith in a person = trust in a person

A well spotted nuance, there is also the use of faith to simply mean a religion, like "The Muslim faith.".

For banana, I would either translate or draw a banana until it was clear.

Fine, very practical (assuming you know the word) but we are looking for how you could explain the word simply, for example "a yellow fruit" might do the job, what do you think?

Even in an advanced class, I would not deal with literary irony unless I had a literary example. I would say that to speak with irony is speak sarcastically, but that a situation can be ironic as well. I would encourage the class to offer examples and, if I thought it likely, ask if anybody remembered the Alanis Morrisette song, Ironic. Regardless, I would discuss possible examples: "If a person is afraid to fly and takes a train, but the train derails and the person dies, that is morbid irony. Irony always has an element of humor and an element of pain."

Rather a curious and unpleasant example, how about simply saying that whenever you wear a coat outside it turns out to be sunny but when you forget the coat it is sure to rain - isn't that Ironic?

For the intermediate class:

Iron "Here is a picture of an iron. It’s an appliance, like a machine that flattens your clothes so they look nice." I would proceed to flatten some fabric with my hand on a desk. "Iron is also a kind of strong metal that is used to make many things." If I had reason to believe they would know the periodic table, I would write "Fe" on the board (excellent).

Good - two different meanings here, would you need to teach both together? What about the Verb too?

Great "Something great can be very big or very important or simply wonderful. A great mountain is large. A great political plan will be very important. A great day is just happy."

Simple, direct and brief with relevant examples. Do you feel it is more appropriate to combine several meanings at this level?

Set "In math, a set is a group. I have here a set of books (show books). If I say something is set, I’m referring to the verb, which means defined or predetermined. For example, your homework tonight is set, which means I have already decided what it is and it will take you at least an hour."

There are quite a few more meanings of set. Would they all go in one paragraph?

 

 

--Points to Consider #6

Do you think that adults can learn a language like children can? Why or why not?

In most cases, adults are not able to learn language in the way that children do. The ability to learn language differs widely among adults. All healthy children learn language simply by being exposed to it. They have no need to study, read, or translate.

My mother tongue is English but I studied English at school. Did I need to?

The older a child is, the more difficult he/she will find it to learn a new language. While adults exist who are able to learn simply hearing a language, most need to study it academically because the brain’s ability to accept new information decreases with age.

So are adults worse learners than children, even with all those study skills they have gained (reading, research skills - eg. dictionary use, note taking, self discipline, self motivation) and all the explicit language knowledge they now have from their first language (eg. we know that such a thing as questions exist and that some have positive/negative answers whereas others require information)?

To offer an anecdotal example, I lived in Germany at the age of four, and it was assumed that I would learn the language easily. Even at that young age attending a German kindergarten, I learned virtually nothing and communicated only with a non-verbal, developmentally challenged girl. On the other hand, young school children can study a language and oral immersion will take a more important role than it will for adults. As students develop the ability to think critically, they think of language differently, contemplating grammatical rules and ideas in their MT and analyzing consciously rather than sub-consciously absorbing the new words.

There was once much talk in linguistics of a "critical" age before which we can acquire a language more easily (about 8), clearly your example defies this. Modern work considers the learning atmosphere and learner's attitude (the so-called "affective factors").

 

 

Part 2, Question 1 - A grammatical example of MT error.

A French person might say:

"God is with us in the life and the death."

"Are you going to the Canada?"

"During the French Revolution, the people fought for the equality and the liberty."

A good range of Definite Article errors.

Part 2, Question 2 - Explain the grammar of the error above.

In French, nearly all nouns require articles when they are in prepositional phrases (proper nouns are sometimes excepted to this rule). In English, philosophical concepts and places do not require articles. Regardless of the structure of the sentence, articles in English are used primarily to modify things, but not necessarily other types of nouns.

This all seems clear - in the very last part above are you talking about Concrete Nouns (chair, table¼ ) vs Abstract Nouns (freedom, equality, brotherhood) ?

Part 2, Question 3 – 3 or 4 activities dealing with the error in discussion.

Activity One: Which is the correct sentence?

There are several sets of two sentences on the board. Either A or B is correct. You get to choose which one.

(Below are the first sentences with which the class would begin.)

A

B

Martin Luther King worked for equality.

Martin Luther King worked for the equality.

Many people are afraid of the death.

Many people are afraid of death.

I have seen the movie.

I have seen movie.

I live in Canada.

I live in the Canada.

Good to get some Models up. This is quite similar to writing sentences with several the's and asking students which ones should be removed in English. Would you consider any examples with Indefinite Article here?

 

Activity Two: Finish the sentence with one of the nouns below. Remember to use the appropriate articles (such as, "the," "a" or "an", when necessary). If you want to make up your own nouns make sure you include some that require articles and some that don’t. (This activity would also work orally with the nouns written on the board.)

Banana Peace Canada Movie Justice

Mahatma Ghandi is famous because of the way he worked for ________.

I would like to visit _________.

Of the fruits on the table, I would like _______.

On Saturday night, I will go see __________.

According to its Pledge of Allegiance, the United States offers ___________ for all.

Perhaps either here or above the students can attempt to classify the words which are and are not being modified by the Articles. This will lead in well to your third activity as the students can then include new words from these categories in their sentences.

Activity Three: I will give you 15 minutes to write 5 of your own sentences. Try to have at least two sentences with nouns that do not require articles, at least one sentence with a definite article ("the") and one sentence with an indefinite article ("a" or "an"). When you’ve finished, I’ll ask everyone to read a sentence out loud to the class.

Following on from my idea above you might precede this with getting students in groups to "brainstorm words for the various categories. This will help the slower students and re-enforce the ideas for those who are already grasping them.

Make sure there is a purpose to your feedback too - for example each person reads one of their sentences to the class and then the class together decide on some of the most illustrative (or simply fun) examples.

Part 3, Question 1 He has a fast car. He drives fast.

"An adjective talks about a noun or a thing. Some adjectives are: red, tall, dark, and hot. Can you name an adjective?" Meanwhile, I would write "Adjective - Noun" on the board and proceed to draw a tall stick figure and a short one, a big square and a little one, etc. Under each picture, I would write an applicable adjective and noun (tall girl, big square, etc.)

Next, I would write on the board under "adjective - noun":

Adverb - Verb

Adjective

Adverb

Meanwhile, I would say:

"Adverbs are harder. An adverb talks about a verb, an adjective or another adverb." I would then write some examples on the board.

I agree they are harder if you attempt to deal with all of their roles at once, perhaps here you could simplify the case to those that "talk about" Verbs (especially Adverbs of Manner). The issue of word order can be particularly confusing here.

He walks carefully.

It is unusually dark tonight.

She speaks English very well.

"Who can name the verb in the first sentence? Good. ‘Walks’ is the verb. How does he walk? He walks carefully. Can anyone find an adjective in the second sentence? I’ll give you a hint. It is one of the words I gave you on the list of adjectives. Right. ‘Dark.’ This is a hard one. What is dark? It is dark. ‘Dark’ is talking about ‘it,’ which we can assume is the whole night. Now, where is the verb in the third sentence? Good. ‘Speaks’ is the verb. Now this is hard because there are two adverbs. One tells us how she speaks. How does she speak? She speaks well. Now what is the other adverb? The other adverb tells us just how well. She speaks very well."

"Sometimes you can turn an adjective into an adverb by adding –ly. ‘Carefully’ here (I point) is the adverb for careful. This is a regular adverb. Other regular adverbs are:

Quickly (from quick)

Beautifully (from beautiful)

Quietly (from quiet)

"Not every adverb is regular. Sometimes there are exceptions. Try to find the noun in this sentence: He has a fast car. Good. Car is a noun. Fast is an adjective to describe or talk about the car. Now find the verb in the next sentence. Where is the verb?" (Point to the sentence, "He drives fast.") "Good. The verb is drives. Now, fast is talking about a verb. Drives goes with fast and (point to words and then parts of speech above) verbs go with adverbs. Fast is an adverb here because it talks about a verb."

(Obviously, the above sentences would be separated with pauses and restated where they were met with blank stares.) J

Part 3, Question 2 Fast Activities

Activity 1:

You just read sentences where the adverbs were underlined. Now I want you to do the underlining for me. Anatoli, sorry, you get to be first today. Will you tell the class what the adverb is in the sentence on the board? Where is the adverb?

Fumiko walked quietly around the room.

(Depending on class size, about 3 students will answer a problem like Anatoli’s)

Good. Now, Fatou, yours is even harder. The next sentence has an adjective and an adverb? Can you tell me which is which?

Kumba’s hair is amazingly long.

(Another three students will answer a problem like Fatou’s)

Kekuta, I hope you’re ready for a hard one.

Realtine’s hair is bright red.

Bright is an irregular adverb just like fast. You can say that something is bright green, so bright is an adverb. But you can also say, "That light is bright." In that case bright is an adjective talking about the noun, light.

Activity 2:

For each of the following sentences, fast is an adjective or an adverb. Circle

"adjective" next to the sentences that have fast as an adjective. If it is an adverb, circle "adverb".

She swims really fast. ADJECTIVE ADVERB

He is running fast. ADJECTIVE ADVERB

José has a fast computer. ADJECTIVE ADVERB

Ivan has fast boat. ADJECTIVE ADVERB

Here we are back to the pattern from the first example (not counting your Adverb of Degree - really). As you see it is simpler than what you had above. Could the students do more here with underlining the Adverb/Adjective and the word it relates too? Perhaps they would spot something about word order.

Activity 3:

Write 10 sentences using the word fast. 5 of them should use fast as an adjective and 5 should use fast as an adverb. If you have trouble thinking of ideas on your own, here are some nouns and verbs that can be fast:

Plane Swimming Jogging Train Cheetah

The exercises here are fine, they deal generally with the simpler cases though and do not support all of the work in your explanation. This probably means that much of the explanation can be omitted as it is not needed - yet! I expect in a classroom situation you would intersperse some activity with the explanation and gradually "layer up" to deal with the points you have mentioned.

 

Hello again Cynthia

Here is where you will find a summary of what needs to be done (if anything) when you have to resubmit an assignment.

In this assignment everything has been done to a high standard. Some of the exercises could be expanded or altered a little and you have tended to a long and technical explanation in part 3 which I feel may confuse a little.

Remember, if you have any questions on what I have said please don't hesitate to email.

David

Grade: 18

[As with all ICAL assignments, a pass mark is 16. If you grade less than this then you are allowed to re-work and re-submit the assignment as many times as you wish to reach a pass mark. If you grade 16 or above then you move automatically onto the next Module.]