terça-feira, 31 de julho de 2012

The Irregular Verbs



Steven Pinker



I like the irregular verbs of English, all 180 of them, because of what they tell us about the history of the language and the human minds that have perpetuated it.

The irregulars are defiantly quirky. Thousands of verbs monotonously take the -ed suffix for their past tense forms, but ring mutates to rang, not ringed, catch becomes caught, hit doesn't do anything, and go is replaced by an entirely different word, went (a usurping of the old past tense of to wend, which itself once followed the pattern we see in send-sent and bend-bent). No wonder irregular verbs are banned in "rationally designed" languages like Esperanto and Orwell's Newspeak -- and why recently a woman in search of a nonconformist soul-mate wrote a personal ad that began, "Are you an irregular verb?"

Since irregulars are unpredictable, people can't derive them on the fly as they talk, but have to have memorized them beforehand one by one, just like simple unconjugated words, which are also unpredictable. (The word duck does not look like a duck, walk like a duck, or quack like a duck.) Indeed, the irregulars are all good, basic, English words: Anglo-Saxon monosyllables. (The seeming exceptions are just monosyllables disguised by a prefix: became is be- + came; understood is under- + stood; forgot is for- + got).

There are tantalizing patterns among the irregulars: ring-rang, sing-sang, spring-sprang, drink-drank, shrink-shrank, sink-sank, stink-stank; blow-blew grow-grew, know-knew, throw-threw, draw-drew, fly-flew, slay-slew; swear-swore, wear-wore, bear-bore, tear-tore. But they still resist being captured by a rule. Next to sing-sang we find not cling-clang but cling-clung, not think-thank but think-thought, not blink-blank but blink-blinked. In between blow-blew and grow-grew sits glow-glowed. Wear-wore may inspire swear-swore, but tear-tore does not inspire stare-store. This chaos is a legacy of the Indo-Europeans, the remarkable prehistoric tribe whose language took over most of Europe and southwestern Asia. Their language formed tenses using rules that regularly replaced one vowel with another. But as pronunciation habits changed in their descendant tribes, the rules became opaque to children and eventually died; the irregular past tense forms are their fossils. So every time we use an irregular verb, we are continuing a game of Broken Telephone that has gone on for more than five thousand years.

I especially like the way that irregular verbs graciously relinquish their past tense forms in special circumstances, giving rise to a set of quirks that have puzzled language mavens for decades but which follow an elegant principle that every speaker of the language -- every jock, every 4-year-old -- tacitly knows. In baseball, one says that a slugger has flied out; no mere mortal has ever "flown out" to center field. When the designated goon on a hockey team is sent to the penalty box for nearly decapitating the opposing team's finesse player, he has high-sticked, not high-stuck. Ross Perot has grandstanded, but he has never grandstood, and the Serbs have ringed Sarajevo with artillery, but have never rung it. What these suddenly-regular verbs have in common is that they are based on nouns: to hit a fly that gets caught, to clobber with a high stick, to play to the grandstand, to form a ring around. These are verbs with noun roots, and a noun cannot have an irregular past tense connected to it because a noun cannot have a past tense at all -- what would it mean for a hockey stick to have a past tense? So the irregular form is sealed off and the regular "add -ed" rule fills the vacuum. One of the wonderful features about this law is that it belies the accusations of self-appointed guardians of the language that modern speakers are slowly eroding the noun-verb distinction by cavalierly turning nouns into verbs (to parent, to input, to impact, and so on). Verbing nouns makes the language more sophisticated, not less so: people use different kinds of past tense forms for plain old verbs and verbs based on nouns, so they must be keeping track of the difference between the two.

Do irregular verbs have a future? At first glance, the prospects do not seem good. Old English had more than twice as many irregular verbs as we do today. As some of the verbs became less common, like cleave-clove, abide-abode, and geld-gelt, children failed to memorize their irregular forms and applied the -ed rule instead (just as today children are apt to say winded and speaked). The irregular forms were doomed for these children's children and for all subsequent generations (though some of the dead irregulars have left souvenirs among the English adjectives, like cloven, cleft, shod, gilt, and pent).

Not only is the irregular class losing members by emigration, it is not gaining new ones by immigration. When new verbs enter English via onomatopoeia (to ding, to ping), borrowings from other languages (deride and succumb from Latin), and conversions from nouns (fly out), the regular rule has first dibs on them. The language ends up with dinged, pinged, derided, succumbed, and flied out, not dang, pang, derode, succame, or flew out.

But many of the irregulars can sleep securely, for they have two things on their side. One is their sheer frequency in the language. The ten commonest verbs in English (be, have, do, say, make, go, take, come, see, and get) are all irregular, and about 70% of the time we use a verb, it is an irregular verb. And children have a wondrous capacity for memorizing words; they pick up a new one every two hours, accumulating 60,000 by high school. Eighty irregulars are common enough that children use them before they learn to read, and I predict they will stay in the language indefinitely.

And there is one small opportunity for growth. Irregulars have to be memorized, but human memory distills out any pattern it can find in the memorized items. People occasionally apply a pattern to a new verb in an attempt to be cool, funny, or distinctive. Dizzy Dean slood into second base; a Boston eatery once sold T-shirts that read "I got schrod at Legal Seafood," and many people occasionally report that they snoze, squoze, shat, or have tooken something. Could such forms ever catch on and become standard? Perhaps. A century ago, some creative speaker must have been impressed by the pattern in stick-stuck and strike-struck, and that is how our youngest irregular, snuck, sneaked in.

Steven Pinker is Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, and the author of The Language Instinct (William Morrow & Co., New York, 1994).

segunda-feira, 30 de julho de 2012

The Adventures of You: Savoring Part II

News_65_big1



- Yes, I know. Mas, teacher, esses irregulares são muito chatos.

- How do you say...

- Ok, ok, ok! But teacher, these irregular verbs are very boring.

- You, não é uma questão de ser "boring" ou não. Os verbos irregulares são fundamentais para falar inglês. Do you remember quando você aprendeu os pronomes?

- Yes! Foi bem boring também. Em que raio de língua, you é você e vocês ao mesmo tempo?

- Você consegue falar inglês sem usar os pronomes?

- No!

- That's right! Por isso é que aprender bem é importante. Os dez verbos mais comuns em inglês são irregulares (be, have, do, say, make, go, take, come, see, and get), além disso, quando falamos em inglês, 70% do tempo, estamos usando um verbo irregular. How do you say " estamos usando um verbo irregular" in English?

- We are using an irregular verb?

- That's right! " am, are, is, was and were" são variações do mais irregular de todos os verbos da língua inglesa: to be!

- É por isso que esse é o primeiro verbo que aprendemos na escola.

- That's right! However, a maioria dos alunos não aprende o " to be" direito, por isso, boa parte deles não consegue dizer " você era um estudante". How do You...

- You was a student?

- You WERE a student!

- Of course, Teacher! Você acabou de falar das variações to verbo to be e citou "were". Que desligado que eu sou.

- Take it easy, You! Não é que você é desligado, você está ainda aprendendo. Se dê o direito de errar e saboreie - savor the process!

- Tô me punindo de novo, né teacher?

- Remember: breath in and breath out and do it again!

- You were a student, now You are a learner!

- That's right! Eu gosto quando você me surpreende e responde muito mais do que eu pedi.

- And I DID many things at the weekend.

- Give-me more details, You!

- I go out with my friends, I take my car to the mechanics, I make a dinner to my girlfriend and so on...

- Almost perfect!

- O que eu falei de errado?

- All those verbs are irregular and you need to put them all in the past.

- What?

- You, você consegue refazer a frase colocando todos os verbos no passado?


Professor Frank



 

sexta-feira, 27 de julho de 2012

How to Use " FOR"?





FOR (preposition)


1. with the object or purpose of: to run for exercise.

2. intended to belong to, or be used in connection with: equipment for the army; a closet for dishes.

3. suiting the purposes or needs of: medicine for the aged.

4. in order to obtain, gain, or acquire: a suit for alimony; to work for wages.

5. (used to express a wish, as of something to be experienced or obtained): O, for a cold drink!

6. sensitive or responsive to: an eye for beauty.

7. desirous of: a longing for something; a taste for fancy clothes.

8. in consideration or payment of; in return for: three for a dollar; to be thanked for one's efforts.

9. appropriate or adapted to: a subject for speculation; clothes for winter.

10. with regard or respect to: pressed for time; too warm for April.

11. during the continuance of: for a long time.

12. in favor of; on the side of: to be for honest government.

13. in place of; instead of: a substitute for butter.

14. in the interest of; on behalf of: to act for a client.

15. in exchange for; as an offset to: blow for blow; money for goods.

16. in punishment of: payment for the crime.

17. in honor of: to give a dinner for a person.

18. with the purpose of reaching: to start for London.

19. contributive to: for the advantage of everybody.

20. in order to save: to flee for one's life.

21. in order to become: to train recruits for soldiers.

22. in assignment or attribution to: an appointment for the afternoon; That's for you to
decide.

23. such as to allow of or to require: too many for separate mention.

24. such as results in: his reason for going.

25. as affecting the interests or circumstances of: bad for one's health.

26. in proportion or with reference to: He is tall for his age.

27. in the character of; as being: to know a thing for a fact.

28. by reason of; because of: to shout for joy; a city famed for its beauty.

29. in spite of: He's a decent guy for all that.

30. to the extent or amount of: to walk for a mile.

31. (used to introduce a subject in an infinitive phrase): It's time for me to go.

32. (used to indicate the number of successes out of a specified number of attempts): The batter was 2 for 4 in the
 

The Irregular Verbs

Steven Pinker



 I  like  the  irregular verbs of English, all 180 of them, because of what they tell us about the history of  the  language  and  the  human  minds  that  have perpetuated it.  

The  irregulars  are defiantly quirky. Thousands of verbs monotonously take the -ed suffix for their past tense forms, but ring mutates to  rang,  not  ringed, catch  becomes  caught,  hit  doesn't  do  anything,  and  go is replaced by an entirely different word, went (a usurping of the old past  tense  of  to  wend, which  itself  once followed the pattern we see in send-sent and bend-bent). No wonder irregular verbs are  banned  in  "rationally  designed"  languages  like Esperanto  and  Orwell's  Newspeak  --  and why recently a woman in search of a nonconformist soul-mate wrote a personal ad that began, "Are you  an  irregular verb?"  

Since irregulars are unpredictable, people can't derive them on the fly as they talk, but have to have memorized them beforehand one by one, just  like  simple unconjugated  words, which are also unpredictable. (The word duck does not look like a duck, walk like a duck, or quack like a duck.)  Indeed,  the  irregulars are  all  good,  basic, English words:  Anglo-Saxon monosyllables. (The seeming exceptions are just monosyllables disguised by a prefix: became is be- +  came; understood is under- + stood; forgot is for- + got).  

There  are  tantalizing  patterns  among  the irregulars: ring-rang, sing-sang, spring-sprang, drink-drank, shrink-shrank,  sink-sank,  stink-stank;  blow-blew grow-grew, know-knew, throw-threw, draw-drew, fly-flew, slay-slew; swear-swore, wear-wore, bear-bore, tear-tore. But they still  resist  being  captured  by  a rule.   Next  to  sing-sang  we  find  not  cling-clang  but  cling-clung,  not think-thank but think-thought, not blink-blank but  blink-blinked.  In  between blow-blew  and  grow-grew  sits glow-glowed. Wear-wore may inspire swear-swore, but tear-tore does not inspire stare-store. This  chaos  is  a  legacy  of  the Indo-Europeans,  the remarkable prehistoric tribe whose language took over most of Europe and southwestern Asia. Their language formed tenses using rules  that regularly  replaced one vowel with another. But as pronunciation habits changed in their descendant tribes, the rules became opaque to children and  eventually died;  the  irregular past tense forms are their fossils.  So every time we use an irregular verb, we are continuing a game of Broken Telephone that  has  gone on for more than five thousand years.  

I especially like the way that irregular verbs graciously relinquish their past tense forms in special circumstances, giving rise to a set of quirks that  have puzzled  language mavens for decades but which follow an elegant principle that every speaker of the language -- every jock, every 4-year-old -- tacitly knows. In  baseball,  one  says  that a slugger has flied out; no mere mortal has ever "flown out" to center field.  When the designated goon on a hockey team is sent to  the penalty box for nearly decapitating the opposing team's finesse player, he has high-sticked, not high-stuck. Ross Perot has grandstanded,  but  he  has never  grandstood,  and the Serbs have ringed Sarajevo with artillery, but have never rung it. What these suddenly-regular verbs have in common  is  that  they are  based  on  nouns:  to  hit  a fly that gets caught, to clobber with a high stick, to play to the grandstand, to form a ring around. These are  verbs  with noun  roots,  and  a  noun  cannot have an irregular past tense connected to it because a noun cannot have a past tense at all -- what  would  it  mean  for  a hockey  stick to have a past tense? So the irregular form is sealed off and the regular "add -ed" rule fills the vacuum. One of the  wonderful  features  about this  law  is that it belies the accusations of self-appointed guardians of the language that modern speakers are slowly eroding the noun-verb  distinction  by cavalierly  turning  nouns  into  verbs (to parent, to input, to impact, and so on).  Verbing nouns makes the language more sophisticated, not less so:  people use  different kinds of past tense forms for plain old verbs and verbs based on nouns, so they must be keeping track of the difference between the two.  

Do irregular verbs have a future? At first glance, the prospects  do  not  seem good.  Old  English had more than twice as many irregular verbs as we do today. As some of the verbs became less common, like  cleave-clove,  abide-abode,  and geld-gelt,  children  failed  to memorize their irregular forms and applied the -ed rule instead (just as today children are apt to say  winded  and  speaked). The  irregular  forms  were  doomed  for  these children's children and for all subsequent generations (though some of the dead irregulars have left  souvenirs among the English adjectives, like cloven, cleft, shod, gilt, and pent).  

Not only is the irregular class losing members by emigration, it is not gaining new ones by immigration. When new verbs  enter  English  via  onomatopoeia  (to ding,  to  ping),  borrowings  from  other  languages  (deride and succumb from Latin), and conversions from nouns (fly out), the regular rule has  first  dibs on  them.  The  language  ends  up with dinged, pinged, derided, succumbed, and flied out, not dang, pang, derode, succame, or flew out.  

But many of the irregulars can sleep securely, for  they  have  two  things  on their  side.  One  is  their sheer frequency in the language. The ten commonest verbs in English (be, have, do, say, make, go, take, come, see,  and  get)  are all  irregular,  and  about  70%  of the time we use a verb, it is an irregular verb. And children have a wondrous capacity for memorizing words; they pick  up a  new  one  every  two  hours,  accumulating  60,000  by  high  school. Eighty irregulars are common enough that children use them before they learn to  read, and I predict they will stay in the language indefinitely.  

And there is one small opportunity for growth. Irregulars have to be memorized, but human memory distills out any pattern it can find in the  memorized  items. People  occasionally  apply  a  pattern to a new verb in an attempt to be cool, funny, or distinctive.  Dizzy Dean slood into second base; a Boston eatery once sold  T-shirts  that  read  "I  got  schrod  at Legal Seafood," and many people occasionally report that they snoze, squoze, shat, or  have  tooken  something. Could  such  forms  ever  catch on and become standard? Perhaps. A century ago, some creative speaker must have been impressed by the  pattern  in  stick-stuck and strike-struck, and that is how our youngest irregular, snuck, sneaked in.  

Steven Pinker is Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, and the author of The Language Instinct (William Morrow & Co.,  New  York, 1994).  

quinta-feira, 26 de julho de 2012

"To" ou "for"? Como usar essas preposições?





Você fica na dúvida, às vezes, de como usar as preposições "to" e "for"?

Como você completaria os espaços abaixo?
 
"Last week I sent a letter _____ Jim.  He said ___ me, last month, that he had bought a present ____ me. But, in fact I haven't received anything yet, that's why I wrote a letter ___ him.  I also wrote a poem ____ him. I haven't sent it, yet. I will send the poem ___ Jim when I receive the present he sent ___ me. Because I know what the present is, and the poem is about the present. Jim does nice things ____ me, he is always thinking of me. He does lots of favors ___ me, too. When I was on vacation he paid the veterinarian's bill  ___ me - now I need to pay him back. I will send the money ___ his account, through the Internet.  ___ me, Jim is a great friend, because he is always there ___ me! I am always there ____  him, too!" 


Have you completed it?

Quanto mais você praticar inglês, melhor seu inglês vai ficar! That goes without saying, right?Aproveite esta oportunidade para fazer exercícios, checar as respostas e tirar dúvidas. Caso você não tenha ainda completado o exercício acima (já enviado a você por email, se você for um assinante LEP-Nuts), complete agora, estude as explicações abaixo, e depois confira suas respostas no final da página.


Now the explanation:

To é usado quando se expressa comunicação, ação direta, geralmente física. Enviei aquela carta para você - no sentido de que você é o destinatário e a carta vai chegar em suas mãos, é ação física direta a você - "I sent a letter to you."

For é usado quando se expressa intenção, consideração, opinião. Quando algo é feito em nome de, ou no lugar de alguém,por alguém ou pela intenção de alguém ou de algo. Enviei aquela carta para você - no sentido de "por você", "em seu lugar" (fui ao Correio e enviei a carta por você, fiz algo por você) - "I sent that letter for you, so you don't need to go to the Post Office now."


Dica para memorizar: 


Fechei as portas para você = I closed the doors for  you  (intenção, fiz "por você") INTENÇÃO, CONSIDERAÇÃO
 
BUT :
I closed the doors to  you , significa que fechei as portas para você não entrar mais -- ('para você, as portas estão fechadas') --um ato direto a você.
   
 
More examples:

INTENÇÃO - I am preparing a LEP-Nuts for  you... = I am "thinking" of you, it's in "consideration" of you.

AÇÃO - And I am sending it to  you ... = Now there is action toward someone or something. There is movement.
 
First I think of you (consideration, and usefor) then I send something to you (direct action, use to).
  
INTENÇÃO - What else can LEP do for  you? = When LEP does things, LEP is considering you (o que LEP pode fazer por você?

AÇÃO - What can I provide to  my subscribers? =  I provide something directly to someone. I do something - it's action, not only intention.

INTENÇÃO - I can't speak for my neighbors, but I think this whole neighborhood needs some improvement.(não posso falar pelos meus vizinhos, em nome deles...)

AÇÃO - I can't speak to my neighbors about this... they don't care about the neighborhood. (não consigo falar com meus vizinhos sobre isso... ação direta de falar algo para alguém).
 

Now... check out your "to"s  and "for"s in the quiz above, and see how many you did right! 

How did you fill in the spaces below? ("to" or "for"?) 
 
 "Last week I sent a letter  to   Jim. (physical action toward someone) He said   to me, (physical action toward someone)  last month, that he had bought a present   for me. (consideration, he was thinking of me when he bought the present)  But, in fact I haven't received anything yet, that's why I wrote a letter   to him (physical actiontoward someone).  I also wrote a poem  for   him. (mental attitude, consideration, I was thinking of him when I wrote the poem). I haven't sent it, yet. I will send the poem    to Jim (physical actiontoward someone) when I receive the present he sent   to  me (physical action towardsomeone).  Because I know what the present is, and the poem is about the present. Jim does nice things   for  me, (thinking of me, in consideration of me) he is always thinking of me. He does lots of favors   to   me, too.(things he does are direct action toward me). When I was on vacation he paid the veterinarian's bill    for me - (he did it on my behalf, in consideration of me) now I need to pay him back. I will send the money    to his account, (physical action toward someone) through the Internet.   For me, ( in my opinion, abstract, not action) Jim is a great friend, because he is always there   for me!(consideration)  I am always there   for him, too!" (consideration, abstraction, not action)
 

Challenge yourself a little more, you can do it!

* What's the right job (for or to) you?
* These people are not good (for or to) me.
* This muffin is (for or to) you!
* (For or To) me, this is much easier now.

Remember:

  
Dúvidas de gramática, cultura, expressões idiomáticas em inglês?
Drop me a line at:   ask@liveenglishprogram.com     

 

quarta-feira, 25 de julho de 2012

Using " For" with the meaning of " Because"

 
By Grammar Girl

The grammar authorities are going to battle it out today. For they all have a different opinion about our topics: the merits of using the word “for” to mean “because,” and whether it’s OK to start a sentence with the word “for.”

Now, guest-writer Bonnie Trenga writes,
 
The experts' opinions range from,

1. yes, go ahead and put a “for” wherever you like—in the middle or at the beginning of a sentence; to
 
yes, but “for” belongs best at the beginning of an independent clause; to
 
2. no, no way—you’re not allowed to put “for” at the beginning of a sentence.
 
Who’s right? You’re going to upset someone no matter what you do.

Using “For” in the Middle of a Sentence
 
The experts do agree that you can use the word “for” as a conjunction to mean “because” or “since.” In fact, it's been used that way for more than a thousand years (1). No doubt you’ll come across sentences like

I was tired after my journey, for I had been forced to bike 20 miles.

You could just as easily use the word “because” instead of “for.” No grammarian would gripe about either sentence.

When you do use “for” in the middle of a sentence in that manner, one authority (2) suggests you use punctuation—in our example sentence a comma—before your “for.”

I was tired after my journey, [comma] for I had been forced to bike 20 miles.
A comma here seems to make the sentence flow well and makes it easy for readers to follow.

Using “For” at the Beginning of a Sentence
 
Would any grammarians complain if you wanted to make the bicycle sentence two sentences, as in “I was tired after my journey. For I had been forced to ride my bike for 20 miles”? Yes, here’s where opinions definitely differ.
 
The most liberal view comes from the American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style and (3) tells us that “for” can be used in the middle of a sentence or to start a new one. It says, “All treatments are acceptable in standard usage.” So go ahead and write, “I used ‘for’ at the beginning of my sentence. For I felt like it.” This source does warn, though, that you won’t encounter “for” much in speech and informal writing because it “often lends a literary tone or note of formality to what is being said.”

The next two sources contradict each other: Garner's Modern American Usage (4) states, “‘For’ has always been proper at the beginning of an independent clause,” and it goes on to give three examples in which “for” begins a sentence, as in “For she certainly has worked very hard indeed.” The other source, the New Fowler’s Modern English Usage (5), says about “for,” “It cannot normally be placed at the beginning of a sentence. Its function is to introduce the ground or reason for something previously stated.”

Yes? No? Who knows?

The Fourth Source

To solve this conundrum, we need to look at a fourth source, which is the only one to bring up an issue that seems to be at the heart of this problem: incomplete sentences, which are sentences that are missing something. The well-respected website from the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (6) offers various examples of incomplete sentences to avoid, and this list includes a sentence that starts with “for.” As most grammarians will suggest, this site advises you to rewrite sentence fragments. And you should rework an incomplete sentence unless you are trying to make your sentence stand out.

We now need to explore whether sentences that start with “for” are fragments. So we’re going to return to Garner's, the source that liked “for” at the beginning of a sentence, and use “because” instead. Garner(7) complains about sentence fragments that start with “because.” He calls this sentence an “ill-advised fragment”: “Because the industry stands at a very serious crossroads.” He explains that this sentence causes a miscue, meaning that readers could logically think that something else was going to follow the “because” statement.

Now let’s go back to one of the “for” sentences that he liked: “For she certainly has worked very hard indeed.” What happens when we change “for” to “because”? We end up with a fragment: “Because she certainly has worked very hard indeed.” So why does he like the “for” sentence and not the “because” sentence? It seems they’re essentially the same grammatically, so are these grammarians confused? Well, they’re certainly conflicted, and it would be easy to argue that statements beginning with “for” are fragments and are perhaps ill-advised.

Maybe sentences that start with “for” don’t cause miscues as much as sentences that start with “because.” It’s something to think about. Do you do a double take when you encounter a sentence that starts with “for”? Perhaps it depends on the person.

Conclusion

To conclude, if you think there’s a chance your sentence might be confusing or misleading, it’s a good idea to fix it. Even if you like starting a sentence with the word “for,” remember that your readers might consider your sentence a formal-sounding fragment, so it's a good idea to use the style sparingly.

The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier

This podcast was written by Bonnie Trenga, author of The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier, who blogs at sentencesleuth.blogspot.com, and I'm Mignon Fogarty, the author of the paperback book Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

Stitcher

Finally, if you want to get Grammar Girl and other great shows from Quick and Dirty Tips streamed to your iPhone try Stitcher free today at stitcher.com.

References

1. American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005, pp. 187-8.
2. Burchfield, R. W, ed. The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage. Third edition. New York: Oxford, 1996, pp. 305-6.
3. American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005, pp. 187-8.
4. Garner, B. Garner's Modern American Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2003, p. 358.
5. Burchfield, R. W, ed. The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage. Third edition. New York: Oxford, 1996, pp. 305-6.
7. Garner, B. Garner's Modern American Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2003, p. 442.



terça-feira, 24 de julho de 2012

Howevers and Therefores

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I would like to introduce to you, two new and interesting words: however and therefore.


However is the king of contrast. We use it every time we want to say something different from what we said before or call people's attention, however, use "however" with moderation: too much " howevers" can make your presentation very boring. Therefore, if you don't want people to feel bored...ops...I used " therefore" already without introducing it properly. I do apologize for that.



Well, "therefore" is our second special word. We use " therefore" every time we want to conclude a topic or anticipate a climax. If "however" contrasts; "therefore" explains, defines and gives people insights about the topics, themes, issues or subjects that we are talking about.



However, don't use those two words right way. Be patient! Only with patience you will embody those two exciting words, therefore, feel them as part of your vocabulary before trying to use them indiscriminately.



However (have I said " however" again?), people who use " however" and " therefore" in their presentation are considered to be very sexy, specially because their audience feels turned on.


If you don't believe it, use " however" and " therefore" in your next presentation and you will see that my forecast will be very accurate.
 


 

Professor Frank

segunda-feira, 23 de julho de 2012

Self-Sabotage

 


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Uma aluna muito querida voltou a ter aula comigo depois de um longo tempo.

- Teacher, eu quero muito voltar a estudar - disse ela - Preciso realmente falar inglês e prometo que dessa vez vou até o fim.

Explico: ela desistiu anteriormente justamente quando ela estava melhorando. Isso é muito comum.

É comum o aluno desistir no meio do curso, pois o processo de desenvolver mentalmente o idioma exige naturalmente mais estudo por conta própria do aluno. Ao perceber que ele também é responsável pelo processo de adquirir a segunda língua, boa parte dos alunos entra em pânico diante da responsabilidade que tem pela frente e para manter seu controle e seu conforto, simplesmente desistem do curso.

- Não tenho tempo para estudar, Teacher!

- Estou com dificuldades financeira!

- Não gosto da sua metodologia!

- Vou me mudar para Marte!

São tantas as desculpas que apenas desejo boa sorte e deixo esses alunos partirem e terem seu "controle" de volta.

O problema é que o controle dura até o momento em que eles se dão conta que dominar o idioma é mais importante do que procrastinar o estudo com mil desculpas, daí, é só esperar algum tempo para receber o contato desses alunos novamente.

- Teacher, eu quero muito voltar a estudar - disse ela -Preciso realmente falar inglês e prometo que dessa vez vou até o fim.

Geralmente, eu não os recebo de volta porque sei que eles acabam desistindo novamente. Há exceções, of course, pelas quais vale a pena lutar e essa aluna que retomou as aulas comigo é alguém que precisa muito voltar a estudar e aprender inglês. However, eu sabia também que ela poderia eventualmente desistir e foi o que ela fez três semanas depois de recomeçar.

- Teacher, I am so sorry to let you down, but I need to cancel our course - disse ela via mensagem de celular, curiosamente em English.

Eu poderia deixar ela desistir, afinal, há outros tantos alunos esperando. However, havia uma luz nas entrelinhas da mensagem dela:

" Teacher, I am so sorry to let you down, but I need to cancel our course."

Se ela quisesse mesmo desistir, ela teria escrito a mensagem em português.

Eu liguei para ela de volta e falei:

- Deixo você se auto-boicotar ou impeço você de adiar novamente o inevitável?

Ela continuou.

Até quando? Isso não importa!

Continuar a estudar mais uma semana já é um progresso para quem o estudo auto-boicota.

Professor Frank

sexta-feira, 20 de julho de 2012

What Would You Like to Learn on Your Own?

 
 
 
 

After homework, extra curricular activities, social life and leisure, you may have little time to do anything else. But have you ever made an effort to learn about  something outside the classroom, not related to anything you’re studying in school? How would you use a daily “learning hour”?

In the Education Life article “Renaissance Man,” Diana Kapp writes about Jeremy Gleick, a University of California, Los Angeles sopho more who takes an hour a day to learn something new — every day, no exceptions. Mr. Gleick’s main rule is that the subject matter can’t have anything to do with his school work. To date, he has spent more than 1,000 hours on his project:
 
It all began junior year at Berkeley High with the philosophizing that came with the run-up to college applications. “I was spending a lot of time asking, ‘Why are we here, and to what end?’” Mr. Gleick says. He concluded that learning was what mattered most. He sat down and watched a documentary on gamma ray bursts. A few days later, he did some reading on transhumanism, and then spent an hour two days in a row trying to become ambidextrous. After a month straight, he misseda day, which some how felt off. Since then he’s kept up a perfect streak.
 
The topics, neatly logged on an enormous spread sheet, organized by category and subcategories, jump from left brain to right, through civilizations, from astrophysics and alchemy to the Zulu. His chart tally reveals he has spent a total of 17 hours on art history, 39 on the Civil War period and 14 onweaponry. On the lighter side, he has tackled juggling,  glass blowing, banjo and mandolin.
 
Most material he finds, for free, on iTunes U, including full courses from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford lasting 20 to 30 days, though he doesn’t always do them consecutively. He often has no topic in mind, and trips over something on the home page. For how-to learning (card tricks, juggling), his go-to site is YouTube. He has used Internet Sacred Text Archive to source myths, and Fora for conference lectures on the Hubble Space Telescope and psychology of lying.
 
Students: Tell us about a time when you learned something not related to your studies in school. How did the experience compare with learning in the classroom? How would you use an hour a day to expand your horizons? What would you tackle, and why? Might you under take a self-directed learning project like this? Why or why not?
 



 

quinta-feira, 19 de julho de 2012

Get It Done: Learning to Be Your Own Homework Coach

 
 
 
Overview | What skills and strategies can help students become more efficient managers of their time and course work? In this lesson, students learn how to act as their own homework coaches by becoming familiar with various organization and time management tools. They then select a tool that appeals to them and track the impact that usage has on its effectiveness.


 
 
Warm-Up | Several days before you teach this lesson, have students keep a daily homework log that tracks their use of time.
On the day of the lesson, students share their homework logs and compare their behavioral habits. Ask: How much total time did you spend on homework and studying? Did you do everything at once, or did you work in blocks of time, with breaks in between? What did you do during your breaks? If time permits, you might create a simple pie chart that shows the breakdown of students’ use of time.
Continue: Did you shut out all distractions while you worked, or did you multitask? Did you listen to music, have the TV on or connect with friends while working? When did you do your work? How alert or tired were you? Were you in a rush at any point? How did you keep yourself motivated and focused? Did leisure activities like socializing or playing games eat up a lot of your study time?
Next, ask: What evidence do you have of the efficacy of how you spent your time? Have you had any quizzes or other assessments this week? Where do you think might be some room for improvement in your study and homework habits? If someone were to observe you studying, what do you think he or she would notice? What suggestions for improvement might your observer have for you? Students might answer these questions in their journals.
Related | In the article “Like a Monitor Morethan a Tutor,” Sarah Maslin Nir describes a new brand of student support service — “homework coaches” or “homework helpers”:
If a student finds French grammar or algebra incomprehensible, a tutor in those subjects can help. But if the problem is a child who will not budge from the X box, or pens doodles instead of topic sentences, some harried parents with cash to spare have been turning to homework helpers, who teach organization als kills and time management, or who sometimes just sit there until the work is finished.
As schools have piled on expectations and as career paths have sucked in both mothers and fathers, this niche industry is catering to “students who are capable of doing the work” but need someone “who can just be there with them to consistently do the work in a regular manner,” said Mike Wallach, who along with Ms. Kraglievich runs the service Central Park Tutors.

 
 
But it has also led some educators to question whether this trend might simply be a subcontracted form of “helicopter parenting,”depriving children of the self-reliance they will need later in life.
Read the entire article with your class, using the questions below.
Questions | For discussion and reading comprehension:
1. What is the difference between a tutor and a homework coach?
2. What are some of the criticisms of homework coaching?
3. What are the benefits?
4. What point of view do you agree with more, and why?
5. Why is the word “help” problematic and controversial?
Activity | Use the list below to introduce time and task management tools and strategies that can help students plan more effectively, become better organizers and manage their time more efficiently.
Some of these items are approaches, and others are existing online toolsthat might give students some perspective on their work habits. You might also add to the mix some of the ideas in our lesson plan “Learn Your Lesson:Using Effective Study Strategies.”
 
Assign pairs or trios one of the methods or tools to explore how it can be best applied to their learning and working styles. They should prepare to present their ideas to the whole group.

· Homework buddies: Students pair up to motivate and encourage one another to get organized, meet deadlines and create to-do lists and schedules.
· Providing incentives like offering financial rewards foracademic improvement or punishing students for bad report cards.
· Minimizing multitasking, focusing on digital media consumption and taking into account how much multitasking might be affecting ability to focus and juggle tasks.
· Devising a work space designed for maximum efficiency and organization and finding other opportunities to study andwork.
· The Pomodoro Technique is a time management technique designed to “eliminate the anxiety of time,” named after a tomato-shaped kitchen timer. After creating a to-do list of tasks, users work in time blocks of 25 minutes, or “Pomodoros,” on one task at a time in order of priority, setting a timer for a three- to five-minute break. Once they hit their fourth Pomodoro, they take a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes. Suggestions for how to deal with interruptions are offered in the free e-book (see Pages 5 to 10) and cheat sheet. This method gives users — even a group working together on a project — a way to track how long a particular assignment takes.

· Getting Things Done is an organizational method that seeks to maximize productivity based on making it easy to store, track and retrieve all information related to the things that need to get done. For students, this means making lists of assignments, setting action goals, keeping a calendar and regularly reviewing goals and tasks. Strategies include streamlining in-boxes and using manila folders, a label maker and a garbagecan — all of which help users continually organize,identify or label important things and get rid of “stuff” that interferes with productivity.
· The Big Six is an approach to problem solving used at the K-12 level. It breaks tasks down into six steps: task definition, information-seeking strategies, location and access, use of information, synthesis and evaluation. It can be used to organize assignments and as a personal homeworkhelper.
· Slim Timer is an online tool that allows users to create “timesheets” with a list of tasks, then tracks amount of time spent on each one. It also provides an instant snapshot of how users are spending their time, and in turn provides ways to manage and improve how time is spent.
· Leech Block is a Firefox browser extension that acts as a “simple productivity tool” because it blocks time-wasting Web sites. Users just specify which sites to block and when to block them.
· HiTask is a free online time management tool that allows users to track their own personal to-do lists or to manage team projects in auser-friendly environment.
· StickK offers users the opportunity to create commitment contracts to achieve personal goals. A support team of peers, colleagues, friends and family is available to provide encouragement, and users can set up a reward or incentive system.

 
When the groups share their findings, the class should discuss and evaluate each approach or tool. Which ones seem particularly useful and why? Might any of them be combined effectively? Have students return to the notes they wrote during the warm-up activity on where they saw room for improvementin their own homework habits. Would any of these methods help them close the gap?
Going Further | Each student selects one or more methods to put into practice. The students should use this method for a week or longer, then compare its impact on their homework habits with their initial homework log.
Students share their findings with one another and evaluate ways in which they have been successful or unsuccessful in improving their homework habits. Ask: What obstacles did you overcome? What challenges remain?
Additionally, students investigate research on the value of homework through research studies and case studies from around the world. What value does homework have? How does that value compare with their school’s overall approachto homework? They then write homework manifestos outlining their perspective on whether and to what extent homework adds value to the learning process.
Behavioral Studies
3. Understands that interactions among learning, in heritance and physical development affect human behavior
Life Skills: Self-Regulation
1. Sets and manages goals
2. Performs self-appraisal
4. Demonstrates perseverance
 
 
 
Life Skills: Thinking and Reasoning
2. Understands and applies basic principles of logic and reasoning
3. Effectively uses mental processes that are based on identifying similarities and differences
4. Understands and applies basic principles of hypothesis testing and scientific inquiry
5. Applies basic trouble-shooting and problem-solving techniques
6. Applies decision-making techniques
Language Arts
1. Uses the general skills and strategies of the writing process
5. Uses the general skills and strategies of the reading process
6. Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of literary texts
7. Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of informational texts
8. Uses listening and speaking strategies for different purposes
9. Uses viewing skills and strategies to understand and interpret visual media