Greg's English & Music Pages
  • Home
  • Blog Articles & Posts
  • Music & Song
  • My Recordings
  • Learn
    • Learners' Wall
    • Learning Help
    • Play
    • Read
    • See
    • Study
    • Talk
  • Teach
    • Teaching Ideas
    • Teaching Help
  • Portfolio

Towards Simplifying the Learning of English for Global Second Language Students

7/1/2011

5 Comments

 
Simplifying Learning English - 2011 Contemporary Issues Conference USQ
View more webinars from gregqbear.
5 Comments
Jade Hayes
10/1/2011 01:12:49 pm

This presentation is AWESOME!!!

Reply
Jade Hayes
10/1/2011 01:34:01 pm

When I was working in the NT I encountered a school where the teachers viewed Aboriginal English as a legitimate language in its own right, I had previously encountered Aboriginal academics who also saw it as valid, language. I noticed having lived in Indonesia as a child and speaking bahasa that many of my Indonesian friends would speak in the manner you described and I would often have to explain to other people the ways in which bahasa was different to English. Both of these language variants I have come into contact with, I found to be perfectly valid and felt no need to correct the speaker when conversing.

Reply
Greg Quinlivan
10/1/2011 04:28:58 pm

Thanks for the support, Jade. I hadn't realised that about Aboriginal English, and it sounds like a positive approach to what functions as a living language in a real community. I agree we sometimes get over enthusiastic with correcting communications when they are already clear and those involved have had their needs met regardless of our pontificating.

Reply
Bel Boothby
26/1/2011 01:09:54 pm

Greg, you can argue the relevance of simplifying the learning of English for second language students 'til the cows come home,this is a great idea but honestly I believed it will never happen. English is the lingua franca in the world and non-English Speaking students like me will always aim for the ultimate attainment of being able to use Standard English.

Reply
TEFL101 link
21/3/2011 03:23:46 pm

Greg,

Where do you draw the line between students' non-standard forms and the standard form of the language? If you don't draw the line at all, you get a pidgin which is inadequate for in-depth and complex communication, and over time becomes mutually unintelligible with the standard form. The are numerous historical examples of this.

What happens when you have an German speaker of English using their own idiolect or interlingua, communicating with a Malaysian doing the same -- both ignoring standard forms? You get confusion and breakdowns (especially over the telephone). Obviously there are also sociolinguistic issues associated with non-standard forms of the language and like it or not, the inability to code-switch to the standard variant causes problems in business and relationship-building contexts.

If you refuse to correct non-standard utterances in class, then you run the danger of having students who fossilize these errors and struggle to make noticeable progress. I'm not saying accuracy is more important than fluency but I am saying that they are both important and good teachers focus on both. Despite your belief in the needs of learners to ignore standard forms, the larger fact is that language has a well-established standard as a default for people to have recourse to, especially when writing. Chinese hanzi characters are a good example of how a long-established written standard transcends massive geographical dialect variation. This shows that the default standard form is especially useful in facilitating communication between speakers from a diverse range of nations. Why actively allow this to corrode?

Standard English makes the world more, not less integrated. Willful ignorance of standard grammar makes the world less, not more globalised. Standard English is both attainable and desirable and I think it is pretty defeatist and even intellectually dishonest to create such big shortcuts in language learning. In reality, there are no shortcuts to mastery.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Tweet

    Archives

    April 2020
    February 2019
    September 2017
    January 2017
    May 2016
    March 2016
    July 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    June 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    May 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010

    Categories

    All
    Assessment
    Bali
    Blog
    Book
    Buddhism
    Celebration
    Chicken Little
    China
    Christmas
    Classrooms
    College Quals
    Colour
    Computer
    Computers
    Co-teacher
    Countries
    Courses
    Creativity
    Critical Analysis
    Criticism
    Culture
    Curriculum
    Drawings
    Earth Day
    Education
    Efl
    Elementary
    Elt
    English Name
    Esl
    Essay
    Exams
    Expectations
    Facebook
    Feedback Validation
    Feel
    Flow
    Flowers
    Forums
    Friendship
    Games
    Glbt
    Goodbye
    Grammar
    Harpsichord
    Height
    Identity
    Ideology
    Ielts
    Interactive
    Ipa
    It
    Iwb Training
    Korea
    Learn
    Learning
    Leaves
    Lesson Plans
    Life-long
    Links
    Literacy
    Location
    Me
    Mothers Day
    Motivation
    Murphy's Law
    Music
    Myspace
    Needs
    New Year
    Online
    Opening
    Organ
    Paper Planes
    Paragraph
    Pd
    Performance
    Phonics
    Photos
    Pln
    Programs
    Pronunciation
    Publishing
    Punctuation
    Reading
    Referencing
    Resources
    Shape
    Size
    Skills
    Smartboard
    Smell
    Socialnetworking
    Social Networking
    Song Contest
    Speaking
    Speed
    Spelling
    Student-centred
    Taboo
    Tai-an
    Taiwan
    Teach
    Teaching
    Teaching Music Education
    Technology
    Testing
    Textbooks
    Textbooks Taboo
    Toefl
    Toeic
    Tools
    Training
    Trees
    Twitter
    University
    Unplugged
    Vegetarianism
    Verbs
    Vocabulary
    Web 2.0
    Web2.0
    Whiteboard
    Word Clouds
    Writing
    Young Learners

    Blogs I Read

    #ELT Chat
    ABC Teach Blog
    An ELT Notebook
    Angela Maiers
    Breaking News English
    Buddha,Dharma, Sangha & Me
    ED Compass Blog
    Educating Her World
    EFL Teaching Recipes
    Emerging Ed Tech
    Free Technology for Teachers
    Heads Up English
    IH Journal
    Jeremy Harmer's Blog
    Kalinago English
    Literacy, Languages & Leadership
    Maria Constantinides
    Nik's Learning Tech Blog
    Nik's Quick Shout
    Online Learning Insights
    OUP ELT Global Blog
    Sean Banville's Blog
    Some Random Thoughts
    Stephen's Web
    Storynory
    Teacher 2.0
    Teacher Reboot Camp
    Teachers' Tech
    Teach English Brit Council,BBC
    Teaching Life
    TEFL Clips
    The e-Learning Industry Blog
    The Innovative Educator

    RSS Feed

    FIND E-BOOKS

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.