Ciranda do Inglês

How to Create Your Own Curriculum Options abound for going off script

2012-02-16T07:53:00.000-08:00

BY ERIC HELLWEG

Eric Matez doesn't know what he'll do next. To put it euphemistically, he has been given the gift of time. To put it more bluntly, Matez, a 17-year elementary school teacher in Norfolk, Massachusetts, is out of a job, fired in January 2006 from the Freeman-Centennial School. His offense? Going off script.

Matez was let go from the school for not teaching the curriculum to specification and for phoning the parents of his students to explain why he might be suspended; the latter act added the charge of insubordination to his disciplinary filing. "There's magic in my classroom," he says. "Going by the book, I couldn't make that happen. I wasn't going to give up the magic."

This isn't a case of poor test scores ending a teacher's career -- after his dismissal, an online message board for the town was flooded by testimonials from parents and students alike: "You were very kind to my son and made him fit into your classroom, when in previous years he was always the odd kid out. We appreciate that," read one. "You also made learning fun for him at a time when he started to hate school."

"He also has an inspiring integrity that spills over into his students, and I, for one, am ever so grateful for that," read another.

Matez's success in connecting with students and the community, and the school district's unwillingness to retain him, speaks to a bigger problem facing the education system today. Teachers across the country are increasingly becoming fed up with the mandated curriculum of the No Child Left Behind Act, of being told what and how to teach.

At the same time, school systems are afraid of what might happen to their federal funding if they allow teachers to explore alternatives -- no matter how successful those may be.

In this sense, Matez and others like him who have been fired or have quit out of frustration over curricular restrictions may one day be looked on as forward sentries, the outliers who paved the way for teachers to think outside the test and begin to take back the classroom from the bureaucrats.

When frustration mounts within a confining system, two common reactions unfold: First, seek out fellow travelers. Second, search for alternatives. This situation has led many teachers to bond online and use the Internet to find encouragement and alternative lesson ideas.

Not surprisingly, a trove of educational materials, sites, and tools exists on the Internet, catering to teachers hoping to ditch the textbook and, instead, reach their students in new ways. Tapping into these resources can be an exhilarating experience for educators, renewing their love of teaching, says Jim Moulton, an independent educational-technology consultant in Bowdoin, Maine, and Edutopia.org blogger.

"Isolation is the great killer of teachers," he adds. "When they see there are other people out there providing resources, the receptivity shoots up. Teachers aren't looking at a script. They have plenty of scripts. The lights go on when they see tools."

Ingenious Instructables
Tools to help teachers breathe new life into their classrooms can be found all over the Internet. As with anything people create, however, some resources are better than others. Many of the alternative tools have been created to adhere to educational standards; others are simply the informal work of individuals or groups.

And, as Matez's example points out, teachers should be careful before abandoning district-mandated curriculum wholesale. But in most cases, these materials can be used to augment standardized lesson plans or for extracurricular activities.

Some of the most intriguing aids reside at Instructables, a site produced by Squid Labs, a silly-sounding but serious organization staffed in part by alums of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. Instructables, part of the group's Engineering for Good program, tackles projects that, according to its Web site, it hopes "will make a positive impact on the world," allowing anyone -- not just educators -- to upload detailed instructions on how to build or create a wide variety of projects. They're illustrated by photos or step-by-step drawings and include how to build a robot out of a computer mouse, how to craft a marshmallow gun, and how to create a helicopter toy.

"We're trying to create lesson-free learning, helping communities document their findings," Instructables cofounder Saul Griffith says. "People can show what they're building."

More than 600 "lesson-free lessons" are available free on the Instructables site, and Griffith hopes the number will grow as people in general -- and teachers especially -- discover project ideas as well as use the site to allow students to create their own Instructables.

"We live in an age when video games are dominant," he says. "It's important to make hands-on educational activities as fun as video games. We want to make projects mischievous and adventurous, and make learning about science and completing projects as fun as video games."

One of the highlights of the site is a section called Howtoons, which contains ingenious one-page paneled cartoons that offer instruction on topics such as how to make a flute from a turkey baster or how to create an underwater viewer using a 2-liter soda bottle. The cartoons (some of which will be published in hardcover), are licensed by the open-content organization Creative Commons, and interested teachers are encouraged to print them out and use them in their classrooms.

"The response to Howtoons has been very strong," says Griffith. "I've received a lot of email from teachers who are using them in classes. I assume that for every response, there are ten people using it and not telling you."

Do-It-Yourself Textbooks
Any teacher who doubts that students, given the chance, would endeavor to create an Instructable or share their knowledge through a similar site should talk to Shanel Kalicharan, a 17-year-old high school senior living in Mississauga, Ontario, near Toronto. Between sessions spent filling out her college applications, Kalicharan stumbled across Wikibooks, part of the Wikimedia Foundation, best known for the open-source encyclopedia Wikipedia.

The site came under fire in late 2005 when someone vandalized the article on journalist and political figure John Seigenthaler Sr., but it's generally a tremendous resource and a strong testament to what can happen when you pool the collective intellect of a large crowd. Nonetheless, teachers are strongly cautioned to verify material found here before using it in a substantive way in the classroom.

With Wikibooks, Wikimedia founder Jimmy Wales hopes to create online textbooks that can be used to supplement classroom learning; current books include those for algebra and general biology, plus a wealth of other subjects. Kalicharan discovered a project dealing with the solar system, one on dinosaurs, and one on ancient civilizations -- three topics of strong interest to her, so she set about contributing to the books.

"I've always loved reading, and I remember when I was younger I wanted to participate in making books," she says. "It's been great. The other contributors listen to your ideas, and we're working together to push everything along. I think others would benefit from doing it -- interacting with others, learning about other backgrounds and cultures, and learning more about themselves in the process."

Wales is known as a provocateur, and he displays it when asked about how the Wikibooks project got its start three years ago. "The academic system is stifling," he says. "It needs a breath of fresh air." At the same time, however, he's quick to point out the modest goals of the Wikibooks project in its current phase.

"It'll be a year or two before we can show something to teachers that they can use in the classroom setting as a textbook replacement," he says. "For K-12, teachers aren't given the flexibility to choose materials. They have to choose books from state-approved list. To get on the list, it's a process, and we're not there yet. Today, however, we can be used as a supplement, as a way to encourage students to contribute to a cool educational project."

New Sources, New Energy
Kathy Schrock, who runs the popular teacher-tech site Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators, a resource hosted by the Discovery Channel's DiscoverySchool.com, encourages teachers to breathe life into their standardized curriculum through the use of technology. Though Schrock cautions against using Wikibooks substantively in a classroom, she regularly hears from teachers desperate for additional resources.

"I get about 150 emails a day, and 99 percent of them are from teachers looking for help," she says. "There's so much teachers have to cover because of accountability and mandates. As a result, it's very hard to fit anything additional into the classroom."

On her site, Schrock points teachers to what she considers the best online resources. These sites and programs are broken up by subject matter, with links available for topics from Agricultural Education to World Languages and Regions. "There's so much out there," she says. "It has definitely piqued the interest of teachers."

Whether this interest is due to the realization that a lot of content exists online or increased frustration at the standardization effort is up for debate. Jim Moulton, however, knows one thing: Bringing alternative lesson ideas into the classroom electrifies the students.

"I just got back from consulting with a classroom in California, and once the teachers introduced the Web-based resources into the classroom, the energy in the room was tremendous," Moulton says. "It was amazing, actually."

Despite the tremendous feedback people such as Griffith, Schrock, and Moulton receive from teachers who turn to the Internet to infuse their classrooms with new materials, most teachers aren't taking advantage of the resource and reaching out to fellow educators, specifically by blogging or podcasting to create resources for one another. "Teachers are introverts," says Moulton. "Teaching is an act of intimacy, and teachers aren't ones who typically reach out."

Part of the problem, of course, is that educators who do reach out, that do upset the status quo -- even if their methods are successful -- are often the ones who are punished. "Schools don't treat innovators kindly," says Moulton. "Teachers of the Year don't come back. Standardization is sapping innovative platforms in elementary schools. In a knowledge-based economy, that's suicide."

Back in Massachusetts, Matez, inspired by a conversation with a former student's parent, originally decided to fight his dismissal. "A mom called me and said, 'You know, Eric, we're never going to get good, innovative teachers here in Norfolk if teachers think they're going to get fired for doing their job better'" he says. "Through this whole ordeal, she was the only person who made sense to me."

Since filing a grievance with the union, however, he has decided to avoid a drawn-out litigation and resign. He is now looking for work in another school district.

Eric Hellweg is a writer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who specializes in business, technology, and entertainment issues.

Source: http://www.edutopia.org/outlaw-educators

Think (and Meet People) Outside Your Box: Taking Education Beyond Your Comfort Zone

2012-02-15T07:30:00.001-08:00

BY DIANE DEMEE-BENOIT

I'm a firm believer that new ideas and innovations result from networking with people outside of your normal social and professional circles. I've found they offer new ways of envisioning the possibilities. Educators too often overlook the power of networking. We tend to frequent the same conferences (technology advocates go to NECC, principals go to NAESP or NASSP, staff developers go to NSDC, and so on). We network and hang out with people who think like us, year in and year out.

Once you start networking, you will be exposed to new ideas that will push you outside the box. However, taking an idea and shaping it into something that will work in a classroom or a school, and will be sustainable over time -- with changes in funding, leadership, policies, and so on -- is the challenge for many of the innovative school programs that spring up, and later wither because of change in leadership, direction, or whatever.

To reinvent schools for the twenty-first century, we need to take an entrepreneurial approach. I recently read "To Build Up Innovation, Break Down Your Networks" in Fast Company magazine. It offers some food for thought about change, opportunity, leadership, and strategies for school change. The author, Chris Trimble, is on the faculty of the Business School at Dartmouth College, with expertise in strategic innovation.

Here are some snippets from the article, which I found intriguing. Read the article and let me know what you think:

"Creating new networks is the only way for an organization to push innovation past the idea stage."

"Entrepreneurs believe in the power of networking. Many are very good at it. They become good because they recognize that most people with interesting notions usually only have one piece of a puzzle. Often unexpected combinations of ideas, or chance meetings of people with complimentary perspectives, ignite genuine breakthroughs."

"Too many innovation initiatives run amok because we celebrate ideas too much and understand execution too little."

"While enriching existing networks accelerates idea generation, breaking existing networks is often required to convert vision to reality... Breaking networks is the only way to prepare an organization to take innovation efforts beyond mere ideas."

"Managers are trained to operate through formal organizational structures, policies, and processes. This is effective for making a proven business ever more efficient, but not for driving innovation."

Source: http://www.edutopia.org/outlaw-educators

Outlaw Educators: Taking Education Outside the Box

2012-02-14T06:19:00.003-08:00

Creative teachers mix unconventional methods into their lesson plans.

BY GRACE RUBENSTEIN

On May 1, the ninth graders in Camsie Matis's South Bronx classroom were supposed to study how to graph and solve inequalities. The teens would need those skills to pass the state exit exam and, ultimately, secure a diploma.

But on that particular day, hundreds of thousands of people were marching in cities across the country to protest a pending federal immigration bill. Matis dropped her original lesson plan to launch a project in which students explored the impact of immigrants in the United States, sidestepping political spin for mathematical certainty.

Such spontaneity in the classroom is even bolder now than it would have been five years ago, before the No Child Left Behind Act accelerated the push toward what National Education Association (NEA) president Reg Weaver calls a "one-size-fits-all" approach to teaching. While some teachers tap the Web for unconventional, engaging lessons (see "Taking Back the Class: Teach to the Test? No Way!"), others prove there are myriad ways to break the mold -- as long as you have the courage and determination to try.

"The public school system doesn't motivate urban kids," Matis asserts. "The drill style of teaching to a test ends up defeating many kids who just can't keep up with the torrent of problems thrown at them. I find that kids will do more work, better work, if they care about what they are learning. And they care about what they can relate to."

Don't get Matis wrong; she respects the testing mandates. She recognizes that a public school's survival hangs on test scores, and she bases the content of her classes at the New Day Academy on the state math exam. But she grounds her lessons in problems of everyday life and insists there are some things her students must understand -- gas prices, buying on credit, compound interest -- whether or not they're tested on them.

Earlier this year, for example, she spent a full week with the teens pricing the most cost-effective phone plans for calling the Dominican Republic, where many of their families come from. More recently, she took her students to a car dealership as part of a project called So You Want to Buy a Hummer. Later, students calculated lease/purchase payments and gas, insurance, and maintenance costs.

Traditional math classes typically cover one skill at a time (for example, a day's lesson on denominators), but Matis finds that by engaging kids through exploration of real-life problems, she can pack three or four skills into one lesson. "That's how you can sell it," she adds, "if your principal says to you, 'This is not in the curriculum.'"

Eric Langhorst, who teaches eighth graders at South Valley Junior High School, in the Kansas City suburb of Liberty, Missouri, inspires his students' creativity through hands-on projects. For Langhorst's classes, learning social studies entails panning for gold with dirt from a South Dakota gold mine and putting Lansford Hastings, who recommended a deadly shortcut to the Donner Party, on mock trial for manslaughter. Each year, the students use a green screen and video software to create a "live" news broadcast at the Boston Massacre, complete with eyewitness reports and interviews from London.

Like Matis, Langhorst bases his curriculum on the content the state requires, yet he considers that only a starting point. "Tell me what you want me to get to, but let me get to that goal the way I want to," he says.

Matis insists that every teacher can think outside the test. Even where teachers must follow a strict scope and sequence of lessons, she says, "instead of just doing the textbooks or the worksheet, spend at least one period a week on a real-life problem, and then the kids will be hooked." Matis starts lessons this way so that when she shifts back into traditional instruction and practice problems, the germane application keeps her students going.

The key, Matis and Langhorst agree, is being able to justify what you're doing -- especially by demonstrating improved student performance, as both have. "How does playing with pans of dirt fit into what you're teaching?" Langhorst says. "If you can prove at the end that you're getting to the point, I think most administrators will let you do what you want."

For Eric Langhorst's eighth-grade students in Liberty, Missouri, social studies is more interactive than sitting through a lecture. Alexis Hansen finds some gold in dirt from a South Dakota gold mine. Credit: Eric Langhorst
Fueled by their passion, these teachers make their methods sound easy. But here's the rub: Teaching as creatively as Matis, Langhorst, and other mold breakers do is really hard. Martin Haberman, distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, has spent four decades researching what makes great educators. By his definition, only about 8 percent of teachers are what he calls "stars" -- those who hold themselves personally responsible for motivating and engaging students. He says, "It's the difference between brain surgery and a Band-Aid."

Natural innovators will innovate no matter what constraints they face, says Kate Nolan, chief officer of the Professional Services Group at Learning Point Associates and a specialist in professional development. But, she adds, they'll do it with more success and less strain if their principals support them.

Educators recommend a host of steps for encouraging innovation. Nolan and Weaver, the NEA president, both say it's crucial to nurture new teachers through programs such as mentoring (see "Teacher Preparation: Learn from the Masters"). Weaver adds that principals can help by allowing teachers to take risks. "A lot of the time, if you make a mistake, you're punished or penalized, so teachers go straight by the book," he explains. "If they are allowed to make mistakes while being creative, it sends a big message."

South Valley Junior High School students in Liberty, Missouri, become journalists to study the Boston Massacre. Rebecca Dillon (with microphone) interviews "eyewitnesses" Breanna Ormsby (left) and Brittany Ruechert.

Scott Painter, a physics teacher at Atlanta's South Atlanta High School who served as a commissioner with the nonprofit Teaching Commission, a three-year bipartisan project aimed at elevating the teaching profession, says schools can help by scheduling time for collaboration -- not just "meeting for meeting's sake," but real brainstorming to keep classrooms from being islands. Langhorst suggests connecting with fellow educators by any means possible: conferences, professional organizations, Google searches. "I'm teaching the same thing as literally thousands of other teachers," he says, "so it would be insane for me to think, even if I have great things going on in my classroom, that what I've done is the best way to do things."

Why go to the trouble? Langhorst admits creative lessons take more work than photocopying worksheets. The point, he explains, is to keep it interesting -- for students and teacher alike.

"The whole point of testing is really good," says Matis. "The problem is that kids are still getting left behind, and what do we do? I get them excited about math -- and I'm not going to get them excited about math by saying, 'We're on section three, problem ten, on Thursday, October 17.' I say, 'Hey, there were a million people marching for immigration. Let's look at the numbers.'"

Educationally speaking, that's brain surgery.

Grace Rubenstein is a senior producer at Edutopia.

Source: http://www.edutopia.org/outlaw-educators

Pieces of Water

2012-02-13T08:04:00.000-08:00

Filipe is talking about "Climbing". He is very passionate about it and talks and talks with a light in his yes and a thunder drumming in his chest as he is a bit nervous: he has an audience, people are watching and judging him as he talks about his greatest passion.

He is one of my learners

A natural risk taker, Filipe doesn't give up, never surrender and presents his topic while the audience starts learning about the techniques, equipments and all the chills regarding his passion

I am not sure if he could present this topic in public in Portuguese, but he does it quite well in English. Every now and then, he has some pronunciation mistakes, mixes up some grammar structures and lacks technical vocabulary, however, he keeps talking and showing people about all the risks and pleasures of his hobby.

He keeps stretching his English, knowing his communication boundaries and overcoming any doubt that people might have about his ability to describe in English such a complex topic.

Describing it!

Filipe doesn't translate a word that he doesn't remember, he describes it. In a certain moment, he wants to tell his class mates about the rain and he doesn't remember or doesn't know the word "rain drop" and instead of translating it ( all his audience can understand Portuguese and translate it would be the easiest way to keep moving) he says " pieces of water".

Pieces of Water?

Yes, pieces of water. The people laugh, I clap! He has done it, he has found the way to keep talking and using his own words and descriptions to tell a story. I couldn't be more proud of him.

In twenty minutes, Filipe has shown that he is learning how to be a real learner. English is not a barrier for him anymore, the second language has become another way of expressing his thoughts and experiences.

He still has a long way to go: there is grammar to be studied, vocabulary to be learned, but he has achieved the half way of his journey to the top of his communication mountain and if he keeps taking risks, very soon, he will become the speaker he is trying to reach.

Teacher Talk Time / Student Talk Time

2012-02-10T02:58:00.000-08:00

Most teachers readily agree that the students should receive as much opportunity to speak as is possible when learning English as a foreign language. This idea is especially true in the EFL classroom, where students don't live in an English-speaking country. In such cases, the students may only have the chance to practice English as a conversational tool during the sixty or ninety minutes of the lesson. But whatever the situation, the more students speak in English, the better English speakers they become.

But what should the balance be between teacher talk time and student talk time?

It's best to consider talk time in the following percentages. Students should speak for 70% of the lesson. Teachers should speak for 30% of the time. Of course, some lessons may require longer explanations on the part of the teacher. Or other lessons may only require a minimal amount of explanation, and 90% or more may be devoted to conversational activities. But this 70/30 figure works well as a goal in most classroom situations. Consider the following positive and negative examples as well:

Positive:

1. The teacher praises students.

2. The teacher provides feedback, correction, and possible guidance.

3. The teacher presents information or gives instructions.

4. The teacher sets up and/or demonstrates activities.

Negative:

1. The teacher offers personal anecdotes that don't connect to the lesson.

2. The teacher speaks too quickly (or slowly) for the level of students.

3. The teacher offers too much correction.

4. The teacher explains the target language for too much.

5. The teacher excessively uses slang and fillers.

How does the 70/30 figure get affected by specific activities?

Listening activities, examples from the teacher, demonstrating an activity... all can affect talk time. Let's look at some of the following examples to better highlight good use of talk time.

Effective:

1. The teacher reads a paragraph as part of a listening activity. The teacher speaks most of this time, as he reads the monologue several times and asks comprehension questions. However, his talk time can be deemed effective because the students get to practice their listening and comprehension skills. To increase the effectiveness, though, the listening activity could segue into another activity. Maybe the students could pick out idioms and try to use them in subsequent conversations. Maybe the students could imagine subsequent events from the monologue, or rewrite it as a dialogue. Maybe the students could summarize the monologue in their own words.

2. The teacher provides examples before eliciting a few more sentences from the class on a particularly difficult grammar point. Although his talk time is quite high here, the class can better use the form and function of the language. In other words, they know the structure of the target language, how to use it, and why to use it. This translates into better and more accurate usage both later in the lesson and out in the real world.

3. The teacher explains an activity's directions step by step, then demonstrates the activity with a student. Last, he checks confirmation with a few questions, such as "What will you do first?" and "How about after that?" Again, the talk time is high, but students can immediately begin the activity without confusion.

How about student talk time?

A lot has been said so far regarding the teacher's talk time. For students, the most effective use of their time occurs when they are actively using the target language. This can come in the form of drills early in the lesson or as part of a meaningful conversational activity later. Be careful of the following negatives, though.

Ineffective:

1. Students drill the target language throughout much of the lesson, and don't have the chance to use the new grammar or vocabulary with previously studied material. Drills are great to set the pattern of the target language, but students won't know how to use the language outside of these narrowly defined parameters. If students are still practicing with drills towards the end of the class, then the teacher may have introduced too much in the lesson. Retention will drop, and talk time will be rendered ineffective.

2. Students don't practice the target language enough in drills, and so make numerous mistakes with the grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and so on. If this continues during the whole class, then students may not understand how to correctly use the target language. They will continue to make the same mistakes outside of the class. Although the students may have spoken a lot during the lesson, they used the target language incorrectly. Again, this translates into ineffective talk time.

3. The teacher talks or calls on students one at a time. Although the talk time for the class may be roughly 70%, individual talk time is quite low. In a class of ten during a one-hour session, answering questions one by one translates to six minutes of talk time for each student. This isn't enough of an opportunity to speak and practice the material! A better course of action would be to pair up the students, have them practice in drills and free(r) activities throughout the lesson. Two students speaking in pairs for one hour would mean roughly thirty minutes each of talk time, which is a huge difference!

Source: http://cotterhue.hubpages.com/hub/talktime

Lack of Commitment

2012-02-09T01:08:00.000-08:00

Are you committed with the goals that you have set?

I am asking you that because most people say they are, but in fact, they are not. And Commitment is something that most people wish they had, but they do not.

If you are really committed with your goal-sets and learning English is one of those goals - why are you taking so long to learn it?

If you don't have an answer, I can give one for you: lack of commitment! Yes, you say you have it, but you don't practice it.

Commitment in a learning process means that we believe wholeheartedly in the power of taking responsibility for our progress and we believe also in our ability to work to improve any issues with our discipline, our self-study and the excuses we create to not get better.

Commitment is therefore about a willingness and determination to communicate and put all effort into it.

We must change our mindset from the assumption that our lack of commitment is due to learning deficiencies and the difficulty of the English language per si. Any judgments that we have about our learning process has to be related to the work we have done towards it. As we learn to drop our own self-judgment and stop creating excuses, we will feel more committed to the process and it will, naturally, improve our language skills.

Perversely and paradoxically the solution to a lack of commitment is to commit!

As you do so, your doubt will disappear and you will reveal the truth of the learning process. With this commitment, your learning process becomes deeper and more intense, making up for the perceived loss of free time that you believed was the price for commitment.

Commitment is a recognition of our state of connectedness to our goal-set and is built on our intention to remove any issues that prevent a realization of this.

As we commit, we see more and more beauty in our speech and we strength the bond with the school, teacher or any other way we are using to acquire it.

Why do we continue to isolate ourselves by only speaking English?

2012-02-08T07:51:00.000-08:00

Britain's future economic and political wellbeing is being hamstrung by our reluctance to learn foreign languages

It is a baleful sign of our times that one of Newt Gingrich's most effective attacks on Mitt Romney is that he is so un-American he dares to speak French. Ever since the Iraq war, France and the French are synonymous with European lack of martial spirit and solidarity with the US, but more is at work than that. Command of a foreign language shows the wrong priorities, according to this line: it shows a willingness to work hard at understanding another culture, its language and mores. Real Americans don't do that.

The British are infected by the same culture, but we don't have the excuse of being the globe's dominant power and of occupying a continent. We live on a large island in the North Sea whose economic power is rapidly waning; any conceivable viable future demands openness and exchange with the rest of the world. Even Eurosceptics preach that, as a country, we have to look globally to secure our future. In fact, Britain should pursue both its European and global ambitions. But whatever your position in this debate, a capacity to speak a foreign language – and to enthuse about doing so – is a vital competence.

However, last week's figures, revealing a steep decline in those applying to study non-European languages – down 21% – appear to suggest we are heading in the opposite direction. What does this say about our young people's interest in the other? Of their awareness of the growing importance of China, the Arab-speaking world and the rest? Or, indeed, of their willingness to subject themselves to the discipline of learning a foreign language? The picture with regard to European languages is no better – 57% of pupils now take no languages at GCSE, while there has been a marked drop in the numbers of candidates studying for languages at A-level.

Seventeen-year-olds applying for their choice of university course are the creation of a series of personal, family and school choices, which in turn reflect our wider cultural reflexes and dispositions. But if part of the explanation is that these 17-year-olds feel that acquiring a language will not be valued by the labour market, then their judgment is completely wrong. The unemployment rate for language graduates is extremely low. The labour market values them.

Perhaps the new fees regime in which students will leave university with average debt of around £45,000 has become a factor; we shall see. (Full declaration: I chair the newly established independent fees commission that aims to explore the impact of the new fee regime on applications.) But this would be a mistake. In sheer utilitarian terms, the economy needs more people who can speak foreign languages. This is a valuable skill, whether you're part of the global scientific community or the world trade system.

Learning a language is thus a double win. The brilliant translator Michael Hofmannhas written in these pages of the delight of mastering more than one language. To speak a single language, he argues, is to be enclosed in one cultural possibility – to be preordained to live in the linguistic and cultural cage into which you are born. "If you don't have another language, you are condemned to occupy the same positions, the same phrases all your life," he wrote. "It's harder to outwit yourself, harder to doubt yourself in just one language. It's harder to play." To acquire another language is to open yourself up to the world and to increase vastly your employability.

But such propositions are hard to get off the ground in a popular culture that can appear too shaped by insularity, distrust of foreigners and a jingoistic belief in British superiority. What's more, the initial years of studying a language are tough: there is no escape from the grind of learning how to conjugate verbs, construct sentences and to absorb enough words to begin to understand what is written and said.

To elect to do this, young boys and girls need to know that, like practising a musical instrument, designing clothes or playing a sport, the end-result will be worthwhile. They need teachers who can inspire them, classmates who encourage them and families who understand the value of the skill. In Britain, none of this exists to a sufficient degree.

It is not as though the situation is new. Successive education secretaries say how they deplore the trends. There are initiatives and campaigns galore, whether from the University Council of Modern Languages or the British Academy. But for all their good work, their efforts do not get much traction.

The deep problem is that neither Britain's popular culture nor its elite has yet to come to terms with the country's new international standing or what is implied by our economic position. The hangover from Empire and the legacy of great power, along with the comforting reality that the US is English-speaking, deludes us into still thinking that speaking a foreign language is a nice-to-have rather than a must-have asset.

Instead, in our eyes, the real traffic remains in foreigners learning our language and adjusting to our mores. Worse, there are floods of them beyond our borders anxious to live off our allegedly extraordinarily generous welfare state. The task is not to open ourselves to them as part of rebuilding our economy and remaking ourselves – it is to keep them out, pull up the drawbridge, make our welfare system as mean as possible and to balance our books. Foreigners are part of the problem, not the solution. Perhaps this is why so many of our children embarking on learning a foreign language are teased rather than praised and quickly give up on something that is so demanding.

The crisis in our foreign language studies is thus part of something much larger and why the coalition government's rhetoric and programme are so very, very misguided. There is a poverty of vision about what Britain needs to be – apart from a country that balances its public finances and says boo to foreigners. Without immigration, the European Union and the euro crisis, we would be just fine, or so runs this line, a cultural disposition fired up daily by our popular press.

But Britain has to build, has to trade and has to be open. It has to underwrite the risks faced by ordinary people in a ferociously competitive world, made more acute by the lost decade after the credit crunch. It has to be generous and inquiring, both of itself and of others. Empire and great power status have gone. We are starting over. It is when our elite and popular culture start talking in these terms that we will turn the corner.

Will Hutton is principal of Hertford College, Oxford

Source: http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/05/will-hutton-learn-foreign-languages?cat=commentisfree&type=article

Study: Gestures help language learning

2012-02-07T07:42:00.000-08:00

Published: Jan. 3, 2012 at 7:55 PM

LEIPZIG, Germany, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- People learn a new language more easily when words are accompanied by movement or gestures, European researchers say.

Twenty volunteers took part in a six-day course at Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, to learn "Vimmi," an artificial language designed to make study results easier to interpret, NewScientist.com reported Tuesday.

Half of the material presented was taught using spoken and written instructions and exercises. The other half was taught with body movements to accompany each word, which the students were asked to act out.

Researchers Manuela Macedonia and Thomas Knosche said participants recalled significantly more of the words taught with movement, and used them more readily when creating new sentences.

The researchers said this was true not only for words that have an intuitive physical counterpart, like "cut," but also with abstract words like "rather" that have no obvious gestural equivalent.

Macedonia and Knosche say they believe gestural enactment helps memory by creating a more complex representation of the word that makes it more easily retrieved.

The method "could really speed up foreign language learning in schools," Macedonia said.

Source: http://m.upi.com/m/story/UPI-98871325638501/

Grit

2012-02-06T08:16:00.000-08:00

Para produzir uma palavra, precisamos utilizar três importantes mecanismos da fala:

1. Vontade (Will): para querer comunicar algo e usar todos os recursos mentais e físicos para criar essa palavra;

2. Significado (meaning): como temos algo a dizer, precisamos revestir esse algo com o som adequado, a articulação correta e o signo apropriado que transmita seja lá o que for que quisermos dizer;

3. O outro (the other): alguém disposto a nos escutar e compreender ou re-significar aquilo que estamos dizendo.

Obtendo esses três passos, a linguagem acontece...

However, tudo começa com a vontade - The Will - e essa vontade pode ser revestida de preguiça - sluggish - ou de perseverança - grit - aquele desejo interno de que faremos tudo ao nosso alcance para comunicar o que queremos que o outro compreenda.

Há pessoas que nunca se esforçam o suficiente para alcançar seus objetivos. This is a fact! Nada mudará a vontade delas, pois mesmo antes de começar a jornada, elas já se decidiram que não estão dispostas a go further. It is a pitty, pois se essas pessoas usassem a mesma força de vontade towards seus objetivos, elas os alcançariam muito mais efetivamente. Essas pessoas possuem um tipo de preguiça - sluggish - que eu chamo de " Preguiça Zeca Pagodinho": deixa a vida me levar, vida leva eu!

Há outros, contudo, que desejam desenvolver o "grit", e mesmo com medo de errar e de se expor, seguem em frente e buscam a excelência. Vejam bem, eu disse "excelência", não mediocridade.

Mediocridade é ser mediano, nunca conseguir atingir todo o potencial que você pode desenvolver. Atingir a excelência é reconhecer que os erros e tropeços fazem parte da caminhada e alicerçam o sucesso da sua empreitada.

Alcançar a excelência não é meta de quem busca a perfeição. Pessoas assim já nasceram perfeitas, não precisam de ajuda. Provavelmente, por serem perfeitos, aprenderam perfeitamente sozinhos.

Não discorajo ninguém que busca a perfeição, apenas aviso que se toda criança ao começar a falar buscasse a perfeição, elas jamais conseguiriam passar do "gu gu da dá" para o " water".

É na experimentação que a comunicação se acerta e a linguagem ocorre. É na tentativa e erro que a fluência nasce.

Com "grit", esse processo fica mais fácil; sem "grit", leva-se mais tempo, sofre-se mais e as chances de desistirmos da jornada no meio do caminho aumentam.

Professor Frank.

Frases da Semana.

2012-02-03T09:38:00.000-08:00

" Successful learners see a failure as an opportunity to learn and improve, not a referendum on one's innate ability...” Carol Dweck's

“The idea of building grit and building self-control is that you get that through failure." Paul Tough

The possession of willpower and self discipline or their lack, play an important role in everyone's life. - Remez Sason

"São esses momentos que dizem para mim que eu estou no caminho certo e meus "learners" muito mais ainda."

Bom final de semana!

"True Grit" - the importance of learning how to overcome setbacks

2012-02-02T07:54:00.000-08:00

Paul Tough of The New York Times Magazine profiled private-school headmaster Dominic Randolph and his focus on instilling character into his students, in addition to the typical focus on academics and extracurriculars. Central to his efforts is a belief that students need to overcome setbacks - to try and fail at things - to develop character. Tough writes:

When I asked Randolph to explain just what he thought Riverdale students were missing out on, he told me the story of his own scholastic career. He did well in boarding school and was admitted to Harvard, but when he got to college, he felt lost, out of step with the power-tie careerism of the Reagan ’80s. After two years at Harvard, Randolph left for a year to work in a low-paying manual job, as a carpenter’s helper, trying to find himself. After college, he moved for a couple of years to Italy, where he worked odd jobs and studied opera. It was an uncertain and unsettled time in his life, filled with plenty of failed experiments and setbacks and struggles. Looking back on his life, though, Randolph says that the character strengths that enabled him to achieve the success that he has were not built in his years at Harvard or at the boarding schools he attended; they came out of those years of trial and error, of taking chances and living without a safety net. And it is precisely those kinds of experiences that he worries that his students aren’t having.

“The idea of building grit and building self-control is that you get that through failure,” Randolph explained. “And in most highly academic environments in the United States, no one fails anything.”

And one of the scholars who have influenced Randolph's thinking, Penn's Angela Duckworth, emphasizes that struggle is essential to success:

“The problem, I think, is not only the schools but also the students themselves,” she wrote. “Here’s why: learning is hard. True, learning is fun, exhilarating and gratifying — but it is also often daunting, exhausting and sometimes discouraging. . . . To help chronically low-performing but intelligent students, educators and parents must first recognize that character is at least as important as intellect.”

Duckworth’s early research showed that measures of self-control can be a more reliable predictor of students’ grade-point averages than their I.Q.’s. But while self-control seemed to be a critical ingredient in attaining basic success, Duckworth came to feel it wasn’t as relevant when it came to outstanding achievement. People who accomplished great things, she noticed, often combined a passion for a single mission with an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission, whatever the obstacles and however long it might take. She decided she needed to name this quality, and she chose the word “grit."

The idea of "grit" as a character trait vital to success is related to Carol Dweck's research showing the value of a learning versus a fixed mindset. To Dweck, successful learners see a failure as an opportunity to learn and improve, not a referendum on one's innate ability.

Some learn grit later in life. Others learn it early (Randolph is trying to teach it to his students). But in any event, if you don't learn it sooner or later, it's hard to be truly successful.

For more on grit, here's a TED Talk from Angela Duckworth:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/qaeFnxSfSC4&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Source: http://mistakebank.caddellinsightgroup.com/2011/09/true-grit-importance-of-learning-how-to.html

Will Power and Self Discipline

2012-02-01T07:34:00.000-08:00

By Remez Sason

The possession of willpower and self discipline or their lack, play an important role in everyone's life. For example, you wish to go for a walk, knowing how good it is for your health and how wonderful you feel afterwards, but you feel too lazy, and prefer to watch TV instead. You might be aware of the fact that you need to change your eating habits or stop smoking, but you don't have the inner power and persistence to change these habits.

Does this sound familiar? How many times have you said, "I wish I had will power and self discipline"? How many times have you started to do something, only to quit after a short while? We all have had experiences like these.

Everyone has a few habits they wish they could get rid of, such as smoking, excessive eating, laziness, procrastination or lack of assertiveness. To overcome these habits or addictions, one needs a certain degree of willpower and self discipline. Their possession makes a great difference in everyone's life, bringing to the fore inner strength, self mastery and decisiveness.

Definitions of Will Power and Self Discipline

Will power is the ability to overcome laziness and procrastination. It is the ability to control or reject unnecessary or harmful impulses. It is the ability to arrive at a decision and follow it with perseverance until its successful accomplishment. It is the inner power that overcomes the desire to indulge in unnecessary and useless habits, and the inner strength that overcomes inner emotional and mental resistance for taking action. It is one of the corner stones of success, both spiritual and material.

Self-discipline is the companion of will power. It endows the one possessing it with the stamina to persevere in whatever he or she does. It bestows the ability to withstand hardships and difficulties, whether physical, emotional or mental. It grants the ability to reject immediate satisfaction, in order to gain something better, but, which requires effort and time.

Everyone has inner, unconscious, or partly conscious impulses, making them say or do things they later regret saying or doing. On many occasions people do not think before they talk or act. By developing these two powers, one becomes conscious of the inner, subconscious impulses, and gains the ability to reject them when they are not for his/her own good.

These two powers help us to choose our behavior and reactions, instead of being ruled by them. Their possession won't make life dull or boring. On the contrary, you will feel more powerful, in charge of yourself and your surroundings, happy and satisfied.

How many times have you felt too weak, lazy or shy to do something you wanted to do? You can gain inner strength, initiative and the ability to make decisions and follow them. Believe me, it is not difficult to develop these two powers. If you are earnest and are willing to become stronger, you will certainly succeed.

In this article, you will find some exercises and techniques for developing these abilities. These simple, but effective exercises, can be performed everywhere and at any time. Go slowly and gradually, and you will see how you get stronger and your life start improving.

There is a misconception in the public mind regarding will power. It is erroneously thought to be something strenuous and difficult, and that one has to exert and tense the body and mind when expressing it. It is a completely wrong concept. This is one of the reasons why people avoid using it, though they are conscious of its benefits. They acknowledge the fact that the employment of will power in their life and affairs will greatly help them, and that they need to strengthen it, yet they do nothing about it.

Will power gets stronger by holding back and not allowing the expression of unimportant, unnecessary and unhealthy thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions. If this saved energy is not allowed expression, it is stored inside you like a battery, and it becomes available at the time of need. By practicing appropriate exercises, you develop your powers the same way, as a person who trains his/her muscles in order to strengthen them.

Developing Will Power and Self Discipline

An effective method for developing and improving these abilities is to perform certain actions or activities, which you would rather avoid doing due to laziness, procrastination, weakness, shyness, etc. Doing things that you usually do not like to do. or feel too lazy to do, you overcome your subconscious resistance, train your mind to obey you, strengthen your inner powers and gain inner strength. Muscles get stronger by resisting the power of the barbells. Inner strength is attained by overcoming inner resistance.

Remember, strengthening one of these abilities, automatically strengthens the other one.

Here are a few exercises:

1) You are sitting in a bus or train and an old man or woman, or a pregnant lady walks in. Stand up and give up your seat, even if you prefer to stay seated. Act so, not just because it is polite, but because you are doing something that you are reluctant to do. This is an exercise in overcoming the resistance of your body, mind and feelings.

2) There are dishes in the sink that need washing, and you postpone washing them for later. Get up and wash them now. Do not let your laziness overcome you. When you know that in this way you are developing your will power, and if you are convinced of the importance of will power in your life, it will be easier for you to do whatever you have to do.

3) You come home tired from work and sit in front of the T.V., because you feel too lazy and too tired to take a shower first. Do not succumb to the desire to sit in front of the T.V, and go and take a shower.

4) You may know your body needs some physical exercise, but instead you keep on sitting doing nothing or watching a movie. Get up and walk, run or do some other physical exercise.

5) Do you like your coffee with sugar? If you do, then for one whole week drink it without sugar. Do you drink three cups of coffee each day? If you do, then drink only two cups a day for one whole week.

6) Sometimes, when you want to say something that is not important, decide not to say it.

7) Don't read some unimportant gossip in the newspaper, even if you want to.

8) You have a desire to eat something not too healthy. For the sake of the exercise refuse the desire.

9) If you find yourself thinking unimportant, unnecessary, negative thoughts, try to develop a lack of interest in them, by thinking about their futility and uselessness.

10) Overcome your laziness. Convince yourself of the importance of what is to be done. Convince your mind that you gain inner strength when you act and do things, in spite of laziness, reluctance or senseless inner resistance.

Never say that you cannot follow the above exercises, because you certainly can. Be persistent no matter what. Motivate yourself by thinking about of the importance of performing the exercises, and the inner power and strength you will gain.

Attempting too many exercises when you are still a beginner, might end in disappointment. It is better to start with a few easy exercises at first, and then gradually increase their number and move to the more difficult exercises.

Most of these exercises can be practiced anywhere and at anytime, which means that you don't have to devote special times for them. They will help you develop your willpower and self discipline, enabling you to use them whenever you need them.

If you practice weight lifting, running or aerobics, you strengthen your muscles, so that when you need to move or carry something heavy, for example, you have the strength for it. By studying French each day, you will be able to speak French when you travel to France. It is the same with will power and self-discipline; by strengthening them, they become available for your use whenever you need them.

If for the sake of an exercise, you stop doing something that you usually do, and overcome the inner resistance concerning it, you may resume doing it, if it is not harmful. For example, if you love drinking orange juice, and for the sake of an exercise you switch to drinking apple juice, after doing so for some time, and after it makes no great difference to you, you may go back to drinking orange juice, if you still like it. The point here is to develop inner strength, not making life difficult for you or continue doing things you don't like to do.

Source: Source: http://www.successconsciousness.com/index_000006.htm

Grasping

2012-01-31T06:35:00.000-08:00

Learning is a very interesting process and also quite complex. Interesting due to all benefits we acquire during the process, besides the knowledge per si; complex due to the difficulties we create within.

Although you need to go further in grammar and increase your range of vocabulary to express your ideas in an utterance way, you don't need to make such a fuss regarding communication as it is, nothing more nothing less, than communicating an idea and you already know how to do it in Portuguese.

Most of the time, the students spend years and years trying to study more and more grammar and get as much vocabulary as they can, when the only thing they need to acquire is a better grasp of the language.

Grasping is something that tutors can not teach, but the students get it easily when they become learners. It is the best 'language acquisition device' and this involves grasping the connections between words and learning how to describe anything you want to say when you are having some trouble to remember.

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher and cognitive scientist, who believes that children are born with an inherited ability to learn any human language. He claims that certain linguistic structures which children use so accurately must be already imprinted on the child’s mind. As adults, we still have the same ability within us, the difference is that the children haven't got so many filters and barriers that we as adults create to avoid learning things we don't want to.

Adults learn as fast as children as long as they want to do so. I am sure you can remember the last time you had to learn something related to your job and you did so. You did so because you persuaded yourself to believe that it was worth learning and you did everything you could to grasp it.

Learning English is worth learning. If you really give it the proper effort, you will empower your " grasp" techniques and your communication will flow on and on and on.

Professor Frank.

Apropriação

2012-01-30T05:18:00.000-08:00

O Present Continuous é um dos assuntos mais fáceis para aprender na gramática inglesa e ao mesmo tempo, um dos mais difíceis.

É fácil compreender que usamos esse tempo para descrever coisas que fazemos agora, nesse momento; difícil é explicar que esse tense também se aplica para o futuro:

I am studying English now ( agora)

I am studying English tomorrow evening, so I can't go out ( amanhã)

Esse tipo de futuro com o Present Continuous se aplica para compromissos agendados e programados para um especifico dia no futuro; o que difere completamente do futuro com WILL ( intenção, previsão ou reação espontânea) e do futuro com GOING TO ( planos, decisões ou objetivos definidos).

Foi instruindo sobre esse tópico da gramática inglesa para duas learners ( Larissa e Lidiane) que eu ouvi a melhor explicação para ajudar a compreensão desse tempo no futuro em inglês.

As duas irmãs fazem a aula juntas e a cada encontro, aprendo mais com elas do que elas comigo. Na ultima aula, por exemplo, eu estava tentando explicar as mil e uma teorias sobre o uso do Present Continuous no futuro para Lidiane, quando Larissa disse:

- Lidi, o Present Continuous é um futuro tão certo, mais tão certo, que já está acontecendo.

Fiquei calado enquanto observava os olhos da Lidiane passando do sinal ? para !

- Ahhh!!! - Exclamou Lidiane com olhar de entendimento.

A melhor parte do meu trabalho é perceber quando momentos de apropriação - grasping - como esse acontece. Quando meus " learners" começam a aprender ou criar explicações independentemente do que eu explico. São esses momentos que dizem para mim que eu estou no caminho certo e meus "learners" muito mais ainda.

Professor Frank.

Frases da Semana.

2012-01-27T10:03:00.002-08:00

"...students will not believe in you until you first believe in them and in what you’re teaching them." - Joe Martin

“You may not always get what you want in life, but thank God you don’t always get what you deserve either.” Think about that for a moment.

"Speaking a language well is the ability to communicate properly your ideas..."

"Professor de idiomas não ensina; professor de verdade, deve te ajudar a aprender a aprender."

" Tua impotência não é mais do que preguiça em caminhar" Jacques Rancière

Bom final de semana!

Believe in What You Teach

2012-01-27T07:21:00.000-08:00

By Professor Joe Martin

As teachers, we know all too well how tough it is to get (or keep) our energy level up to teach students who sometimes don’t want to learn. I’ve even heard students describe us (teachers) as being “just a speed bump to a grade.”

It is true that more and more students are not mastering the necessary basic skills to succeed. It’s also true that more and more students are taking their education for granted and not respecting the process and institution of learning. However, these obstacles also offer us an opportunity to make a huge impact on our students.

One of the cardinal rules of teaching is that students will not believe in you until you first believe in them and in what you’re teaching them.

As discouraging as some students’ attitudes are, nothing should negate the fact that as teachers, we have an opportunity to take a closed mind and replace it with an open one. In essence, that's our number one priority…to get students to think.

Your class gives you a great opportunity to get students to open their minds and challenge themselves beyond their limits. You’re not only teaching them basic skills, you’re teaching them “life skills” – skills that will impact them well beyond the classroom. Unfortunately, if you don’t believe this is true, neither will your students.

To get yourself in the right mindset for teaching your class, skim through your learning objectives. Then ask yourself, “Would I have benefited from this material as a student?” If not, then you definitely should not be teaching the subject, because you will have no conviction in the classroom. And we’ve all heard the saying, “When it comes to children, you can’t kid a kid.” The same is true about students. Students can detect an insincere teacher faster than a fake I.D.

However, if you truly believe that the knowledge and information contained in your class has or would have proven to be beneficial to you as a student, then ask yourself, “How?” The rest is simple; simply take your conviction and passion, and then put it into the curriculum and class discussions.

The fact of the matter is, students will only care about your class to the degree to which you do. If you don’t care about a thing, that “thing” can and will become a burden on you. Likewise, if you do a “thing” for the wrong reasons, you become a burden on others. And quite frankly, if you don’t care, you shouldn’t teach. Ouch!

Joe Martin is an award-winning national speaker, author, professor, and educational consultant. His mission is to help students, teachers, and administrators learn, lead, and live with purpose and passion. To find out more visit his web site at http://www.NewTeacherUniversity.com.

Don’t Get Teacher Amnesia

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

By Professor Joe Martin

Maybe it’s just me, but does it seem like teaching can speed up the aging process sometimes? When people watch me interact with students, they typically ask, “How old are you?” My response is usually, do you want my age in years or “teaching years?”

Although teaching can put years on our body, I believe teaching also makes us young at heart. But it’s difficult to remember the “blessings” of teaching when you’re constantly bombarded with the “burdens” of teaching. I call this affliction, “teacher amnesia.”

It particularly attacks new and beginning teachers around their third or fourth year. The symptoms are usually restless nights, self doubt, insecurity, and flashes of depression. And unfortunately “Airborne” doesn’t cure it.

Though I’m somewhat making light of it, this illness is very serious, thus the reason I’m addressing it in this article. As you start or finish this school year, I want you to take a minute to “count” your blessings, instead of “dis-counting” them.

Before you go home, either to exhale some stress or inhale some food, ask yourself this question: When it comes to teaching, what can I be thankful for this year? And I don’t just want you to look at the good, I also want you to evaluate the “bad.” Sometimes there are hidden blessings in our burdens. So I want you to dig really deep.

It’s like my Mama always said, “You may not always get what you want in life, but thank God you don’t always get what you deserve either.” Think about that for a moment.

So as you continue this trek towards the “No Child Gets Left Behind Promise Land,” don’t forget the most important thing…the journey (and the lives you impact along the way). Remember to teach with passion and practice what you teach!

Utterance

2012-01-24T08:50:00.000-08:00

It is necessary more than a goal-set to achieve a good level of English, actually, if you really want to get the fluency you want, be prepared to accept that nobody has an UTTER English, not even native speakers. If an utter English is almost an impossible mission, get an UTTERANCE communication is achievable.

Speaking a language well is the ability to communicate properly your ideas, we called it in English: utterance message, which is nothing more, nothing less, than an intelligible speech. Not all native speakers can do it.

Do not go that farther, there are a lot of Brazilians, perhaps, one next to you, who can't express their ideas in an intelligent way. It doesn't matter if you have a fantastic passive knowledge; if you don't know how to articulate it well, people will never understand you.

During your journey to became a speaker, many will be the difficulties to master the language, and it has nothing to do with grammar and vocabulary. You will have to turn your student mind into a learner one and to do so, you will need to have GRIT and pass through all theses phases in order to cross to the other side:

Laziness phase: you will face a laziness period, when you won't feel the " will" to study by yourself, you won't even feel like going to the classes - Have the grit to keep moving is something that all leaners have to develop by themselves. No teacher can help you with that.

Fear phase: you will be afraid to speak with a native or any other person who ( you think) speaks better than you - knowing how to tune ( level up or down) will be the only way to face it.

Disappointment phase: you will be very disappointed with your progress, due to one or another experience where you couldn't remember a words or two - or perhaps due to a minor error that have made you think that you don't speak English at all - knowing that nobody has an utter English can help you to not push yourself too hard.

One can't be that naive to believe that learning a second language is something that you will achieve in a few weeks - effort, patience and grit are the best tools that you can use to face all those difficulties and many others more during your journey to become a good speaker.

Although there are so many barriers separating you from your utterance message; I can guarantee that if you could read until this point and understand the aim of this text, you are already half way there, therefore, don't surrender, don't give up and keep up.

Five Classes Per Week or " just" One?

2012-01-23T10:56:00.000-08:00

Once, fui conversar com uma estudante na empresa dela. Ela estava muito interessada em aprender inglês conosco, porém, tinha muita pressa em aprender rápido.

- Meu chefe é americano e só fala inglês - disse ela- Para mim, aprender é uma questão de manter ou não o meu emprego.

- I got that - respondi - Você esta preparada para estudar e conseguir isso?

- Claro! - ela respondeu com todo o entusiasmo temporário de quem deseja iniciar um curso de inglês - Se você tiver disponibilidade, quero ter aulas cinco vezes por semana. Como não estou na faculdade, vou ter tempo para me dedicar completamente.

- Well - gambitiei - Fico feliz com o seu entusiasmo. Contudo, você não precisa ter cinco aulas por semana comigo. Uma aula só basta!

- Como assim? - perguntou ela - Você não tem disponibilidade?

- Yes, eu tenho! - respondi - However, não quero que você gaste o seu dinheiro à toa. Se você quiser mesmo aprender, usará um dia da semana para receber as devidas instruções e os outros quatro para pesquisar, descobrir, ou seja, estudar por conta própria.

- Mas eu não tenho disciplina para estudar por conta própria - disse ela - Ter as aulas me dará a responsabilidade de comparecer, estudar e aprender.

- I don't think so! - respondi - Como você está entusiasmada, você vai começar com cinco aulas por semana, daí, assim que você perceber que não está aprendendo tão rápido assim, perderá o seu entusiasmo, começando a faltar, se atrasando e quando vir, e se vier, diminuirá para três, depois para duas aulas, e enfim, se manter uma, ainda assim, não estará aprendendo de fato.

Professor de idiomas não ensina; professor de verdade, deve te ajudar a aprender a aprender. Aprendemos para valer, sozinhos, ou devidamente instruídos em como fazer isso.

- Acho que estou perdendo o meu tempo - disse ela, desapontada - Obrigada!

- O tempo nunca é perdido quanto estamos recebendo instruções - respondi - Cuidado, porém, para não perder além do seu tempo com alguém tentando te ensinar, o seu dinheiro também.

Frases da Semana.

2012-01-20T09:52:00.001-08:00

"Focus 5% on the mistake and 95% on learning from it." - Joe Martin

"Every year, millions of students are graduating with a diplomas, but not receiving an education." - Joe Martin

"As always, teach with passion!" - Joe Martin

"Amplie sua leitura para além da obra."

"Um bom livro só pode ser sugerido para um aluno, depois que o professor conhece bem o ritmo e a dificuldade dele."

Bom final de semana!

You Get What You Focus On

2012-01-20T08:19:00.000-08:00

by Joe A. Martin, Ed.D.

Here’s some food for thought. If you want results, walk any problem you’re having through this scenario for better answers:

Focus 5% on what you fear and 95% on getting educated and skilled to face it.

Focus 5% on the problem and 95% on the spiritual solution.

Focus 5% on the mistake and 95% on learning from it.

Focus 5% on who to blame and 95% on making sure to heal.

Focus 5% on the conflict and 95% on a win-win resolution.

Focus 5% on what to do and 95% on enjoying the process.

Focus 5% on your prayers and 95% on your faith in God and yourself.

Focus 5% on reading this and 95% on applying it.

You get what you focus on. So be careful.

Getting Students to Commit to Learning

2012-01-19T08:18:00.000-08:00

By Joe Martim

I think one of the most tragic things to witness as a teacher is to see a student spend several years in school, only to “scratch” the surface of his or her potential.

Every year, millions of students are graduating with a diplomas, but not receiving an education. It’s also been reported in numerous studies that the average student only reads one book after college over the span of a lifetime. This is truly tragic.

One of the best things you can do for students is to turn them on to learning (as early as possible). In fact, you can’t afford to miss an opportunity to let your students know that learning is a lifelong process that should only stop when they do.

Unfortunately, education is having just the opposite effect on students. When students graduate, it’s common to hear, “I’m done with this education thing. I’ll never pick up another book as long as I live.” In a sense, they’re writing their own professional death certificate.

One way to reinforce the message of lifelong learning is through guest speakers who have successfully established themselves in their careers. Invite them to come to your class, and have them mention the importance of improving one’s self through learning and professional growth.

If repetition is the mother of skill, students who constantly and consistently hear the message about learning outside of the classroom will eventually get the point while they’re in the classroom.

Another way to reinforce the importance of independent, lifelong learning is to do class discussions on successful people. As we know, success does not encompass a common gender, nationality, religion, ethnic group, age, or height, but there are some glaring similarities.

Make sure you point out to your students the importance of lifelong learning as it relates to these individuals. Talk about it openly in class.When I was a college student, chasing my “dream job,” I asked a young, highly successful corporate executive, how did he become so successful at such a young age. He responded by asking me a series of questions:

Within the past year, how many books outside of school have you read?*

Within the past year, how many seminars/workshops have you attended (outside of class) to improve yourself?*

Within the past year, how many successful people in your field have you interviewed to discover their strategies for success?

After a long silence, I responded, “none” to each question. He proceeded to tell me that if I didn’t change the answer to those questions before I graduated from college, I would never achieve the success that he had. He continued, “However, if you do change those answers, you will significantly change the course of your life.” He was absolutely right.

Ever since my encounter with that young stranger, not only have I changed those answers, I now pose the same questions to all of my students (every semester).

Don’t let students pass through your class without convincing them of the power of lifelong learning; it’s an investment in their future.

by Professor Joe Martin

2012-01-18T07:55:00.000-08:00

by Professor Joe Martin

Teachers often ask me how I manage to stay so motivated as an educator. I used to find the question odd, until I realized all of the pressures, frustrations, and disappointments we face every week as teachers.

I often joke with new and beginning teachers that there are only two reasons why anyone would become a teacher, you’re either ‘called’ to teach or you’re just plain ‘crazy’ to teach.

Because my thinking was, who would choose to do this job (teach) if he or she wasn’t “called” to do it? Only a crazy person. They laugh, but I think there’s some real truth to that.

So what do I tell teachers who ask me about “my secret” to staying motivated in the classroom? I tell them to “get medicated.” Now before you panic, I don’t want you to think I’m condoning drug usage. I know we live in a country that’s already over-medicated, but what I’m referring to isn’t a prescription; it’s more of a philosophy. It’s my secret weapon I like to call “the medicine cabinet.” It’s one of the greatest teaching resources you can create for constant and never-ending motivation.

Ever since I first started teaching, I always saved every note, e-mail, card, gift, and letter I’ve ever received from a student or parent. I keep all of the letters and notes stored in a file cabinet near my desk. I call it my “medicine cabinet,” because every time I feel like I’m having a rough day (i.e., emotionally sick) – you know, one of those days when you feel like maybe teaching was a mistake – I simply reach over to open my file drawer, close my eyes, and blindly pick out a letter. After reading the letter, I feel better almost instantly. Each note or letter reminds me of my purpose for teaching and the difference I’m making in the lives of students – even if I’m not always aware of it.That medicine cabinet helps me hang in when I feel like letting go. So I challenge you to either create your own medicine cabinet or go back and read a few of those notes and letters. It’s guaranteed to put you on an emotional high for at least one full day (if not longer).So if you’re feeling a little under the emotional weather, just read a couple of student letters and call me in the morning. But I must warn you, this form of medication can become very addictive. As always, teach with passion!

-What do "recast" and "uptake" mean?

2012-01-17T08:16:00.001-08:00

What do "recast" and "uptake" mean? (answer from BB)

Uptake (Lyster and Ranta’s definition) refers to a learner’s observable immediate response to the corrective feedback in his/her utterances.

Recast is an implicit corrective feedback, for example, a repetition of a content in a grammatically correct way. In other words, it paraphrases of a learners incorrect utterances that involve replacing one or more of the incorrect components with a correct form while maintaining the meaning .

Roy Lyster and Leila Ranta (1997) developed an observation scheme which describes different types of feedback teachers give on errors. They also examined students’ uptake. They identified 6 types of feedback and one of them was recast:

S1 Why you don’t like Mark?
T Why don’t you like Marc?
S2 I don’t know. I don’t like him

They made observations in content-based classroom. Their results showed that recasts accounted for more than half of the total feedback provided in classes.

Uptakes were least likely to occur after recasts and more likely to occur after other types of feedback. More Uptake was a result of elicitations and metalinguistic feedback, which also proved to lead to the higher probability of corrected form of initial utterance.

In the content-based second language classrooms students are less likely to notice recast since they may assume that the teacher is responding to the content, rather than to the form.
Several other studies proved that recast is the most common form of corrective feedback and it appears to go unnoticed by the learner most of the time.

Other research found that learners are willing to answer to a recast when it is directed on somebody else’s speech. So even if they do not lead to the uptake of the error producer, they do get noticed by those who overhear.

Ideally recast leads to uptake. Further research findings demonstrate that recasts work in a language-focused class (as opposed to content-based) with adult learners, especially those who received a grammatical instructions prior to observation period. In the language-focused class students are more likely to perceive recasts as a feedback on the form of their utterances.
Pros “recasts”:

Indirect and polite way to correct errors
It doesn’t embarrass student
It doesn’t interrupt the flow of interaction
Adults are responsive
Opportunity for learning of those not speaking but listening

Cons of “recasts”

Recasts can stay unnoticed
They do not work in all contexts (content-based)
Shift center to the teacher
Children are least likely to recognize recast as feedback
Context-limited ( only advanced students can truly employ this kind of feedback)

Yes, I am pro-recast person. First, all what was mentioned in Pros are true and doesn’t take extra time. As far as my particular context is concerned, I see recast as the anxiety-free way of correcting errors that have to be corrected. Mu students want to have their errors corrected. I want them to become fluent. Recast seems to be the least interruptive path in speaking classes.
Before we start communicating I ask students to do me a favor. If I repeat something after them, they repeat the same exact thing after me. It makes them hear not only correct version, but saying it themselves, which is more important. Depending on our focus we can omit repetition. As I have mentioned, level of the language proficiency matters. With lower level students I would ask them to pay more attention to uptakes, while advanced would do it themselves and most of the time silently.

The idea of recast is similar to the idea of scaffolding in Conversation Theories.

Source: http://ows.edb.utexas.edu/site/teaching-russian-e-portfolio/what-do-recast-and-uptake-mean-answer-bb

The Book Is Not On The Table

2012-01-16T06:57:00.000-08:00

Todo começo de curso com um aluno novo, eu me deparo com a mesma cena:

- Teacher, qual livro usaremos? - asks the student - Esses são os livros que eu usei nos outros cursos que eu fiz - says the student, tirando da mochila, uns quinhentos livros, dos mais diversos.

- Qual deles te ajudou mais? - I ask

- Well... Não sei responder. Acho que todos...I mean... Cada professor usava um material didático diferente. Esse aqui custou-me R$ 2.000.

- Mas ele está novinho, parece que nunca foi usado...

- Well...

Todo professor de verdade sabe que o seu material didático está em toda parte: nos programas de TV, nos jornais e revistas, nos assuntos do dia ou em tudo o que o aluno diz para você. Actually, a linguagem e seus processos ocorrem em todo canto, e um bom professor sabe que para ajudar o seu aluno, nada pode ser desprezado ( o que incluo aí, também o livro didático).

Eu usei a palavra " também", porque muitas vezes um bom bate papo com um aluno pode ser mais produtivo do que páginas e páginas de exercícios de um livro. No doubt about it!!!

- Mas quando eu usava esse livro, eu era a primeira da turma - disse uma estudante, certa vez, quando eu disse que não usaríamos um livro.

- Entendo, mas do que adianta ser a primeira da classe e ao precisar se comunicar, você não conseguir usar o conteúdo que você estudou?

Silence...

Um bom livro só pode ser sugerido para um aluno, depois que o professor conhece bem o ritmo e a dificuldade dele. Como um médico pode sugerir um medicamento a um paciente sem examiná-lo? Como um mecânico pode concertar um carro sem verificar o que está funcionando e o que está not? Porém, mesmo quando sugerimos um livro, esse não pode ser a única ferramenta para auxiliar o aprendizado.

" Um bom livro ajuda o professor, auxilia o aluno na ordenação de conceitos e acompanhamento do que está sendo aprendido, mas esse mesmo livro não pode ser visto pelo estudante como referência única em seu crescimento", diz o livro Língua Estrangeira e Didática. Obra copilada e organizada por Celso Antunes, um dos mais importantes educadores brasileiros. Essa obra é uma grande referência para professores de idiomas, mas o próprio livro aconselha: " amplie a sua leitura para além dessa obra. O que você procura aqui para estudar o seu aluno está lá fora...com ele".

Como professor, não estou interessado que meus alunos memorizem informações only; minha jornada com eles é para auxiliá-los a fazer das informações uma ferramenta para a vida inteira.

That's why eu sempre digo que em minhas aulas, the book is not on the table; the book está em cada experiência comunicativa.

Frases da Semana.

2012-01-13T09:13:00.001-08:00

"Am I part of the problem or the solution?" Joe Martin

"One of the cardinal rules of teaching is that students will not believe in you until you first believe in them and what you’re teaching them"

" No momento que um professor está apaixonado pela sua disciplina, isso é contagioso." Fernando August

"... aprender é mudar formas de comportamento e compreensão de si e do outro..." Jan Dönges

Bom final de semana!

Teaching is Not About Us

2012-01-13T07:32:00.000-08:00

by Professor Joe Martin

If we ever have the pleasure of meeting each other, whether it be at an education conference, a teacher workshop, or in a classroom, other than my size (I stand only 5’-6”), you’ll notice that I will adorn two bright red bracelets – one on each wrist. I never take them off.

Both are bands I specifically created for a pre-determined purpose: to keep me focused on what’s most important when it comes to building my character as a teacher. One band reads “Integrity” and the other reads “It’s Not About Me.”

I started wearing these bands about two years ago, and I haven’t taken them off since. They serve as a constant reminder that...

1.) no matter how difficult my job as a teacher becomes, I must always be a man of my word; do the right thing when no one’s looking; and do things for God’s approval, not people; and

2.) I must always remember that I became a teacher to serve others, not myself, and to ALWAYS do what’s in the best interest of my students.

Why do I refuse to take off my bands, even in the shower (that’s probably too much information)? Because I think it’s so easy to compromise when things around us get a little uncomfortable. Personally, I believe a little compromise in character invites a little corrosion in character; and I believe a little corrosion of character leads to the corruption of character. And in our profession, I don’t believe we can afford neither corrosion or corruption of character; therefore, I try not to compromise my integrity.

I am well aware of the countless number of challenges we face as new and veteran teachers. I get dozens of requests to visit, speak, train, and consult with school districts all over the country each year, and sometimes the professional challenges of our job seem insurmountable.

But as I once told a good friend of mine, I’ve never faced a problem where humbling myself and honoring others have ever gotten me into trouble. And I believe that starts with teaching and working with integrity (at all cost) and taking the focus off of our problems and refocusing our attention on the future of our students. I know this is easier said than done in a school system that’s plagued with bureaucratic red tape, little or no support, sometimes incompetent leadership, and often apathetic parents.

However, I believe when we face our wonderful Creator when our time on earth has expired, and He asks, “What did you do with the children I placed under your care as a teacher”? I don’t believe God will accept ANY of the “logical” excuses we often use to justify less than a 100% commitment to excellence on our jobs and in the lives of our students.

So I want you to ask yourself some of the same tough questions I ask myself when it comes to my commitment to teaching:

1.) Am I part of the problem or the solution?
2.) Do I focus on the obstacles on my job or the opportunities?
3.) Do I make excuses or do I set a positive example for others?
4.) Do colleagues and students see me as being full of enthusiasm or full of something else?
5.) Do I brighten up my school when I enter it or when I leave it?

If we’re honest with ourselves, we know the true answers to these questions. That means either we can keep doing what we’re doing so we can keep getting the same results or we can choose to change our school by changing our approach and our attitude towards our job. The choice is yours.

Teach with passion, and remember to practice what you teach.

Teaching Students Who Don’t Want to Learn

2012-01-12T08:38:00.000-08:00

by Joe A. Martin, Jr., Ed.D.

As educators, we know all too well how tough it is to get (or keep) our energy level up to teach students who sometimes don’t want to learn. I’ve even heard students describe teachers as being “a speed bump to a grade.”

It’s true that more and more students are not graduating from high school with the necessary skills to succeed in college (or in life for that matter). It’s also true that more and more students are taking their education for granted and not respecting the process and the institution of learning.

However, these obstacles also offer us an opportunity to make a huge impact on our students.

One of the cardinal rules of teaching is that students will not believe in you until you first believe in them and what you’re teaching them.

As discouraging as some students’ attitudes are, nothing should negate the fact that as educators, we have an opportunity to take a closed mind and replace it with an open one.

In essence, that's our number one priority…to get students to think.

Our jobs give us a great opportunity to get students to open their minds and challenge themselves beyond their limits. You’re not only teaching them basic skills, you’re teaching them life skills – skills that will impact them well beyond the classroom.

Unfortunately, if you don’t believe this is true, neither will your students.To get yourself in the right mindset for teaching, skim through the class objectives. Then ask yourself, “How could a student benefit from this material, now and in the future?” Obviously, if you can’t think of a student benefit, then maybe you shouldn’t be teaching the subject. If your belief in the subject matter isn’t strong, then you will have no conviction in the classroom. And we’ve all heard the saying, “When it comes to children, you can’t kid a kid.” Students can detect an insincere teacher faster than a fake I.D.However, if you truly believe that the knowledge and information taught in your class will prove to be beneficial to your students, then take your conviction and passion and put it into class discussions, activities, and assignments.

The fact of the matter is, students will only care about your class to the degree to which you do (sometimes less, but never more). If you don’t care about a thing, that “thing” can and will become a burden on you. Likewise, if you teach that “thing” for the wrong reasons, you will become a burden on your students. And quite frankly, if a teacher doesn’t care, then that teacher shouldn’t teach.~

Source: http://www.newteacheruniversity.com/resources/teacher-articles/continued/teaching-students-who-don/

Atenção do aluno dura só 20 minutos

2012-01-11T08:41:00.000-08:00

Em conversa por telefone com Zero Hora, desde Quito (Equador), a educadora americana Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa, 47 anos, diz que o professor deve usar técnicas para prolongar o interesse dos alunos. A mais importante, entretanto, é se apaixonar pela disciplina que leciona.

Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa, educadora, especialista em educação e neurociências da Universidade San Francisco, de Quito, no Equador.

A entrevista é publicada pelo jornal Zero Hora, 18-07-2011.

Eis a entrevista.

A senhora afirma que a capacidade de atenção do aluno só dura entre 10 e 20 minutos. Como se chegou a essa conclusão?

A partir de três diferentes fontes de informação: educação, psicologia e neurociência. No viés da educação, era muito clara a observação dos professores de como perdem a atenção dos alunos. Isso foi documentado em estudos. Na parte da psicologia, houve muitas pesquisas relacionando o armazenamento de informações na memória, analisando quanto tempo alguém pode manter uma ideia em sua mente. Isso tudo, mesclado com estudos em neurociência, mostram o tempo máximo e mínimo que uma pessoa pode estar alerta, focada em diferentes informações.

Como o professor deve lidar com isso e agir em sala de aula?

Há técnicas como mudar o foco da pessoa que está em evidência na aula, do professor para o aluno, por exemplo. O professor pode fazer uma pergunta a um estudante, transferindo a atenção. Também se pode trocar o assunto ou a atividade, a fim de superar esse tempo limite de atenção de 10 ou 20 minutos. Como sabemos que não há nenhuma aula de apenas 20 minutos, é preciso trocar constantemente de tema. O professor também pode criar pequenos grupos, mudando a localização dos alunos na sala. É preciso usar essas técnicas de mudar a pessoa, o lugar ou o assunto continuamente, para que esse relógio que conta os 20 minutos recomece sempre, mantendo os estudantes atentos.

Qual é a reação do estudante a um professor que fala 50 minutos sem parar?

Certamente, ele dorme (risos). Há várias reações, não é igual para todos. Depende do interesse que o estudante tem pela matéria, sua motivação interna para estudar esse assunto, sua relação com o professor, com seus conhecimentos prévios. Tudo isso tem uma relação com o tempo que se pode prestar a atenção. Há pessoas que ficam atentas durante 40 minutos porque estão altamente motivadas. Mas há outras na mesma sala que não têm tanto interesse, e perdem a atenção em seguida. Estudos feitos nos anos 60, nos Estados Unidos, indicam que, quando um professor só fala, fala, fala, 24 horas depois, apenas 5% das informações são retidas pelos alunos adultos. É muito óbvio notar, dentro de uma sala de aula, que essa metodologia de ensinar não funciona.

Há uma relação entre a idade e a capacidade de atenção?

Sim, os alunos maiores têm mais capacidade de atenção. Mas o ponto mais importante é que não se pode precisar o tempo de atenção. Isso depende de pessoa para pessoa. Se o aluno está fascinado por um assunto, pode passar horas e horas debruçado sobre ele. Mas, em salas normais, em que os alunos não têm o poder de escolher o que estão estudando, temos de entender que nem todos terão esse nível de motivação. É preciso saber como lidar com as crianças menos interessadas.

E como o professor pode fascinar seus alunos?

Uma das descobertas da neurociência que eu acho mais bonita é uma que chamamos de neurônio-espelho, que tem a ver com empatia. São neurônios que disparam quando veem ou identificam coisas que outra pessoa está fazendo. No momento que um professor está apaixonado pela sua disciplina, isso é contagioso. Mesmo quando o estudante não está muito interessado na matéria, a energia e o entusiasmo do professor podem despertar seu interesse. Um problema que temos nas escolas é que há uma grande quantidade de professores ensinando coisas que não gostam. Os alunos percebem isso, e não vão se sentir inspirados. Professor que gosta do que faz é a chave para provocar interesse do aluno.

Qual o resultado da falta de atenção para a aprendizagem?

Há uma fórmula simples para explicar isso, com dois fatores fundamentais para a aprendizagem: atenção e memória. Se não se tem atenção, não se tem memória. Se não se tem memória, não se tem aprendizado. Se não mantivermos os alunos com um bom nível de atenção, não haverá aprendizagem. A consequência é grave.

Dicas aos professores

Educadora

"Se não se tem atenção, não se tem memória. Se não se tem memória, não se tem aprendizagem. Se não mantivermos os alunos com um bom nível de atenção, não haverá aprendizagem."

- Mude o foco da pessoa que está em evidência na aula, do professor para o aluno, por exemplo. O professor pode fazer uma pergunta a um estudante, transferindo a atenção.

- Crie pequenos grupos, mudando a localização dos alunos na sala de aula.

- Professor que gosta do que faz é a chave para provocar interesse do aluno. Mesmo quando o estudante não
está muito interessado na matéria, a energia e o entusiasmo do professor podem despertar seu interesse.

- É preciso trocar constantemente de assunto.

Enviado por Fernando August..., seg, 18/07/2011 - 09:40 Unisinos
Fonte: http://www.eeduca.com.br/vernoticia.php?id=57

Stages of Second Language Acquisition

2012-01-10T06:44:00.000-08:00

by Judie Haynes

All new learners of English progress through the same stages to acquire language. However, the length of time each students spends at a particular stage may vary greatly.

Stage I: Pre-production

This is the silent period. English language learners may have up to 500 words in their receptive vocabulary but they are not yet speaking. Some students will, however, repeat every thing you say. They are not really producing language but are parroting.

These new learners of English will listen attentively and they may even be able to copy words from the board. They will be able to respond to pictures and other visuals. They can understand and duplicate gestures and movements to show comprehension. Total Physical Response methods will work well with them. Teachers should focus attention on listening comprehension activities and on building a receptive vocabulary.

English language learners at this stage will need much repetition of English. They will benefit from a “buddy” who speaks their language. Remember that the school day is exhausting for these newcomers as they are overwhelmed with listening to English language all day long.

Stage II: Early production

This stage may last up to six months and students will develop a receptive and active vocabulary of about 1000 words. During this stage, students can usually speak in one- or two-word phrases. They can use short language chunks that have been memorized although these chunks may not always be used correctly.

Here are some suggestions for working with students in this stage of English language learning:

o Ask yes/no and either/or questions.

o Accept one or two word responses.

o Give students the opportunity to participate in some of the whole class activities.

o Use pictures and realia to support questions.

o Modify content information to the language level of ELLs.

o Build vocabulary using pictures.

o Provide listening activities.

o Simplify the content materials to be used. Focus on key vocabulary and concepts.

o When teaching elementary age ELLs, use simple books with predictable text.

o Support learning with graphic organizers, charts and graphs. Begin to foster writing in English through labeling and short sentences. Use a frame to scaffold writing.

Stage III: Speech emergence

Students have developed a vocabulary of about 3,000 words and can communicate with simple phrases and sentences. They will ask simple questions, that may or may not be grammatically correct, such as “ May I go to bathroom? ” ELLs will also initiate short conversations with classmates. They will understand easy stories read in class with the support of pictures. They will also be able to do some content work with teacher support. Here are some simple tasks they can complete:

• Sound out stories phonetically.

• Read short, modified texts in content area subjects.

• Complete graphic organizers with word banks.

• Understand and answer questions about charts and graphs.

• Match vocabulary words to definitions.

• Study flashcards with content area vocabulary.

• Participate in duet, pair and choral reading activities.

• Write and illustrate riddles.

• Understand teacher explanations and two-step directions.

• Compose brief stories based on personal experience.

• Write in dialogue journals.

Dialogue journals are a conversation between the teacher and the student. They are especially helpful with English language learners. Students can write about topics that interest them and proceed at their own level and pace. They have a place to express their thoughts and ideas.

Stage IV: Intermediate fluency

English language learners at the intermediate fluency stage have a vocabulary of 6000 active words. They are beginning to use more complex sentences when speaking and writing and are willing to express opinions and share their thoughts. They will ask questions to clarify what they are learning in class. These English language learners will be able to work in grade level math and science classes with some teacher support. Comprehension of English literature and social studies content is increasing. At this stage, students will use strategies from their native language to learn content in English.

Student writing at this stage will have many errors as ELLs try to master the complexity of English grammar and sentence structure. Many students may be translating written assignments from native language. They should be expected to synthesize what they have learned and to make inferences from that learning. This is the time for teachers to focus on learning strategies. Students in this stage will also be able to understand more complex concepts.

Stage V: Advanced Fluency

It takes students from 4-10 years to achieve cognitive academic language proficiency in a second language. Student at this stage will be near-native in their ability to perform in content area learning. Most ELLs at this stage have been exited from ESL and other support programs. At the beginning of this stage, however, they will need continued support from classroom teachers especially in content areas such as history/social studies and in writing.

Source:http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/language_stages.php

Para Aprender Outro Idioma

2012-01-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

Apesar das promessas de métodos “fáceis” de ensino de línguas para adultos, pesquisadores garantem: maioria dos casos é preciso dedicação e coragem de se arriscar a errar, pois esse tipo de aprendizagem requer a formação de novas redes neurais – o que requer tempo e treino...

por Jan Dönges

O domínio de uma língua estrangeira, em especial o inglês, é uma exigência cada vez mais frequente nas empresas. A maior parte dos candidatos às vagas, por sua vez, atesta no currículo que fez cursos – o que em geral é verdade. Mas, na prática, são poucos os que sustentam uma entrevista mais detalhada em outro idioma ou mantêm uma conversação em inglês sem grande esforço. Para muitos prevalece a sensação de só cometer um erro após outro. E o pior é que a insegurança quanto à gramática e o medo de cometer equívocos terminam por comprometer as possibilidades de acerto. Em muitos casos, nem mesmo anos de aula mudam essa situação.

Talvez por isso pareça, para tanta gente, tão sedutora a proposta de eliminar as antigas tradições no ensino de línguas estrangeiras e investir em novos métodos, mais rápidos eficazes.

Os livros, CDs e DVDs para autodidatas ou prospectos de escolas particulares sempre voltam a afirmar veementemente que tudo o que precisamos é uma abordagem correta. E o melhor: podemos nos livrar com certeza das horas de estudo em casa, das listas de vocabulário, do jargão linguístico! Verdade? Especialistas acreditam que não. Principalmente quando se trata de adultos, nada substitui o trabalho duro.

É claro que há o caso de crianças que crescem em um país estrangeiro e aprendem a língua de seu ambiente sem grandes dificuldades. E avanços na psicologia e linguística poderiam ajudar a transferir mecanismos de aprendizagem semelhantes para o mundo adulto. Por trás disso não está apenas o argumento promocional de poupar os alunos do grande trabalho de aprender gramática. Pesquisadores, por sua vez, reconhecem a necessidade de adoção de modelos mais eficazes e menos penosos, já que prevalece o consenso de que nada se ganha apenas com o ensino de regras.

EM ZIGUE ZAGUE

O que precisa ser transformado é o chamado método de gramática e tradução – pelo qual, ainda hoje, boa parte dos livros didáticos se orienta –, que vem dos tempos primordiais do ensino metódico de línguas. Ele é o consenso fundamental, o protótipo da aula de língua estrangeira de qualquer conceito pedagógico. A bem da verdade, em sua forma pura hoje é encontrado apenas em casos de exceção, mais provavelmente nas aulas de latim: devem-se construir frases na língua estrangeira ou traduzir textos para a língua materna com caneta e papel, pois os alunos só vão falar (se isso acontecer) bem mais tarde.

Obviamente o que ainda é sustentável no caso das línguas mortas certamente fracassará com o inglês ou o francês. “Nesse processo, os alunos não absorvem muito mais do que um conjunto de regras abstratas. Isso, porém, não ajuda em nada o uso da língua: dessa forma, os estudantes não conseguem transformar seu conhecimento linguístico em uma forma útil para a comunicação”, diz a pedagoga Susanne Even, da Universidade de Indiana em Bloomington.

Chovem críticas ao método de gramática e tradução – e elas não são recentes. Justamente por esse motivo,já em 1882 o professor Wilhelm Viëtor (1850-1918), em seu panfleto polêmico “A aula de línguas deve ser transformada!”, atacou a prática comum naquela época. Ele obteve grande apoio e, a partir de então, muitos educadores e linguistas passaram a dar mais valor ao domínio oral do idioma. A questão que os intrigava naquela época e de certa forma permanece até hoje é: como é possível ensinar as pessoas a falar outra língua corretamente sem que seja necessário dedicar anos a fio para isso?

A grande busca por alternativas que se iniciou desde então na didática se assemelha à tentativa de atirar em um objeto em movimento. Como quase não há pesquisas próprias e sistemáticas, qualquer mudança na tendência das “disciplinas de base” – psicologia, linguística e pedagogia – cedo ou tarde também culmina em um procedimento didático próprio, enquanto a subestrutura teórica acaba com os antigos conceitos de aprendizagem de línguas. O “método áudio-oral”, por exemplo, no qual frases e estruturas são treinadas à perfeição por meio de sua constante audição e repetição, foi celebrado como uma verdadeira revolução na metade do século XX, levando, entre outras coisas, à divulgação dos laboratórios de línguas. Como, no entanto, ele se apóia em uma psicologia do aprendizado hoje já ultrapassada, a maioria dos pesquisadores se distanciou dele.

Nos anos 70, o “método natural” do professor de espanhol Tracy Terrell e do linguista Stephen Krashen, da Universidade do Sul da Califórnia, fez sucesso. Eles se concentraram completamente na comunicação e tomaram como modelo de reflexão a seguinte questão: línguas estrangeiras devem ser aprendidas como foi aprendida um dia a língua materna por meio da fala – e, principalmente, pela audição. Krashen e Terrell partiram do princípio de que um mecanismo cerebral específico lhes permitia aprender a própria língua materna. A fim de ativá-lo novamente, o planejamento do curso deve se orientar exatamente pela ordem em que as crianças também adquirem novos conceitos linguísticos. Ou seja: segundo os estudiosos, os alunos expandem suas capacidades principalmente quando ouvem construções de frases que sempre estão um pouco acima de sua capacidade momentânea (como uma criança pequena que aprende a falar).

Seria esse então o modelo de um curso de língua mais próximo do ideal, capaz de proporcionar aprendizado fácil e ao mesmo tempo efetivo? Por mais plausível que pareça à primeira vista, o “método natural” de Krashen e Terre mostrou-se ingênuo demais: muitos professores de línguas que o seguiam logo deixavam totalmente de lado o cansativo ensino de regras gramaticais. “Muitas escolas e até universidades optaram por descartar a gramática, mas mesmo depois de anos vários estudantes ainda estavam no nível do 'eu vai'”, comenta Susanne Even.

A pesquisadora Claudia Riemer, que realiza estudos na Universidade de Bielefeld na área de didática de línguas estrangeiras, também reconhece o problema: “Aprender uma língua estrangeira é uma situação de enorme complexidade para o cérebro. Não é possível fazê-lo sem nenhuma atenção focada em determinadas regras”. Outros métodos não tiveram melhor destino. Assim, entre os pesquisadores foi se estabelecendo cada vez mais a idéia de que, infelizmente, praticamente todos os conceitos que deixavam explicações gramaticais de fora, em algum momento, se mostravam inadequados. Apenas sair falando funciona, no máximo, para os primeiros passos em uma nova língua.

Por enquanto, ninguém descobriu o método com o qual a aprendizagem de línguas finalmente se tornará uma agradável brincadeira de criança para qualquer pessoa. Mas sejamos sensatos: é bastante improvável que algum dia exista um truque assim, já que as pessoas têm formas diferentes de apreender informações e resolver problemas. As demandas também são diversas. Uns querem apenas falar e se comunicar sem grandes vexames, outros têm excelente memória para vocábulos, mas fracassam ao construir uma frase – e, por fim, há as pessoas que encontram prazer em folhear os livros de gramática, sentem-se mais seguras assim. Além disso, o aprendizado (e consideramos aqui que aprender é mudar formas de comportamento e compreensão de si e do outro) requer formação (ou ativação) de redes de neurônios. Adquirir conhecimento complexo, como um idioma, significa, portanto, alterações da anatomia cerebral.

Por isso, a didática de línguas estrangeiras tem se concentrado, nos últimos tempos, nos estilos pessoais de aprendizagem. E para não perder (tantos) alunos os cursos buscam, cada vez mais, atender a essa diversidade.

Os mais velhos, muitas vezes, já estão acostumados, desde crianças, a declinar e conjugar. “Após alguns anos de aulas na escola, a maioria tem pelo menos uma idéia bastante exata daquilo que constitui uma boa aula”, diz Riemer. Esses alunos não confiam apenas em exercícios de conversação e exercícios de grupo, preferem tentar sanar seus problemas orais com lições de gramática – e quase sempre acabam caindo em um círculo vicioso, diz Sylvia Fischer, da Universidade de Modena, que estudou o tema em seu doutorado e entrevistou estudantes italianos sobre a causa de sua inibição em aula. Ela percebeu que a fixação em regras linguísticas estimula uma postura mais dura em relação aos próprios erros. Uma aula que, em grande parte, se compõe de exercícios de conversação em grupo, é proveitosa quase que exclusivamente para pessoas com pouca dificuldade em conversação.

Como saída para esse dilema, existe uma estratégia dupla que associa abordagens especificamente comunicativas às formas clássicas, que valorizam a gramática. Alega-se que essa estratégia deixa espaço suficiente para ensinar todo o conhecimento teórico necessário e também ajuda a “soltar a língua” dos alunos e a eliminar o medo de se expor –e errar. A chamada aprendizagem voltada para situações práticas (como se comunicar com o garçom, conversar com funcionários do aeroporto, pedir informações sobre pontos turísticos etc.) segue esse princípio na medida em que – em cada situação relevante do cotidiano – é possível aprender. O conceito central aqui é deixar claro que as formas gramaticais não têm um fim em si é fundamental que tenham aplicação prática.

Susanne Even dá um passo à frente ao mandar seus alunos da Universidade de Indiana fazer teatro. O “gramaticodrama” se baseia na abordagem pedagógico-dramática desenvolvida por Manfred Schewe, da Universidade de Cork, na Irlanda. “Não apenas representamos, buscamos formas próprias e corretas de dizer 'o que o outro disse', trabalhamos com o discurso indireto e exercitamos as construções de frases em variadas situações.” A proposta privilegia também a experiência lúdica: os alunos se preocupam com vários aspectos como expressão corporal e a interação com os outros, deixando de lado a timidez. A pesquisadora ainda não tem dados comparativos sobre o método, mas tem esperança de que, de forma mais descontraída, os estudantes finalmente aprendam uma língua estrangeira de maneira prazerosa e efetiva.

Source: Revista Mente Cérebro

http://www2.uol.com.br/vivermente/reportagens/desafios_do_idioma_estrangeiro_imprimir.html

Verde?

2012-01-08T03:44:00.000-08:00

- De que cor é a árvore? - A professora pergunta para o Joãozinho.

- Depende! - Joãozinho responde.

- Como assim depende, Joãozinho. Todos nós sabemos que a árvore é verde.

- Depende! - Joãozinho torna a responder - Depende da parte da árvore, do tipo, da hora do dia e de como a luz incide sobre ela.

A Frank Experience está voltando nessa segunda-feira para os "learners" de 2012. Aprendizado com sentido e bagagem de experiência, sem decoreba e sem chatice!!!!

O Que Não Mata Fortalece

2012-01-06T05:00:00.000-08:00

Aprendi inglês by myself.

No! Não me considero uma autodidata, acho que sou mesmo teimoso. Como eu não tinha dinheiro para pagar curso ou professor, corri atrás do prejuízo com tudo aquilo que eu conseguia encontrar para estudar.

Tente imaginar uma época sem internet, sem Google translator ou smartphone; nem havia MP3, muito menos tanto curso assim na TV ou nas bancas de jornal. O que havia eram bibliotecas cheias de livros velhos e apostilas usadas que serviram para outras pessoas e deveriam servir para mim... Serviram até um certo ponto, eu conseguia ler, entender o que ouvia, mas não conseguia falar ou escrever direito. A partir dali, eu fiquei confuso sobre como prosseguir os meus estudos e um dia, recebi uma pequena ajuda que fez toda a diferença para mim.

Eu estava na biblioteca, com a mesa cheia de livros, revistas e artigos, sem saber aonde ir, quando uma senhora que me observava à distância veio falar comigo.

- Eu sempre te vejo por aqui – disse ela

Confesso que pensei em ser rude, estava frustrado, não queria conversar com ninguém, mas apenas respondi:

- Eu venho aqui para estudar inglês – Respondi

- Está conseguindo? – She asked me

- Eu pensei que estava... – I answered – mas acho que tenho que estudar mais.

- Qual é a sua maior dificuldade? – She asked again

Aquela conversa provavelmente demoraria forever. No mínimo, a velhinha queria puxar papo, pensei, e dali a pouco começaria a falar da cachorrinha, da netinha ou do bingo.

- Preciso estudar mais, e é só! – I said to her e ameacei me levantar

- Posso te dar uma dica? – She asked me – Eu sou professora, quero dizer, fui, pois estou aposentada, mas acho que posso te ajudar...

- Claro! – I told her – Toda ajuda é bem-vinda.

- Pelo que estou observando e desculpe, todo professor é xereta, adora bisbilhotar a maneira como as pessoas estudam; mas posso te dizer que o que te falta é uma estratégia para organizar os seus estudos.

Frankly, meu ego se sentiu um tanto ofendido, mas reconheci que ela tinha razão, pois eu sempre anotava as informações de qualquer jeito no caderno; o que levava um tempão para localizar as informações que eu precisava rever.

- Organização é a chave para aprender qualquer idioma – ela continuou - Reveja o que você aprendeu, revise. Se preciso for, passe a limpo todas as suas anotações e estabeleça pequenas metas para o que falta ser estudado. Estudar de qualquer jeito não ajuda o aprendizado. O nosso cérebro só guarda as informações que são inseridas de uma forma organizada, principalmente informação nova sobre uma língua estrangeira. Organizando o seu aprendizado e avançando pouco-a-pouco, você vai conseguir aprender o que falta para dominar melhor as habilidades que estão faltando.

- Parece fácil – I told her - mas diante de todo esse material e ao ver todos esses assuntos que não estudei ainda parece que nunca vou conseguir isso. Dá vontade de desistir...

- Calma! – She told me – Aprender exige coragem e aprender por conta própria requer mais coragem ainda. É quase como correr uma maratona, sozinho e com os pés descalços. Sozinho porque você precisa contar com a sua disciplina para continuar a aprender, e pés descalços para saber que é preciso ser humilde para aceitar que você não vai aprender tudo e terá que superar todas as dificuldades que encontrar. E não serão poucas... Porém, se você persistir e superar os auto-boicotes, você verá que o que não te mata fortalece.

- “O que não te mata fortalece” – repeti - Minha vó costumava usar outro final para essa frase...

- Provavelmente! Por isso, estudar línguas é tão fascinante. A língua é como um rio, meu jovem, apesar de contida em suas margens com todas as regras da gramática, ela está em eterno movimento na mente e na boca de seus falantes.

- Obrigado! – I told her, já me sentindo calmo e pronto para recomeçar.

- Fico contente em poder ajudar.

- Só uma pergunta – I said - A senhora era professora de inglês?

- Eu fui uma professora – She told me – O inglês foi só uma das ferramentas que usei para instruir meus alunos a aprender a aprender.

How to speak English like the Irish

2012-01-04T02:02:00.000-08:00

By Benny

Ready to learn how to speak with an Irish accent in English? You may also enjoy my article about how to speak Irish (Gaeilge). Check out the most popular posts on the right for other topics you

may find interesting, and subscribe to the blog for some unconventional language hacking

tips!
Ah English, you have such a wide range of dialects that can cause many hilarious confusions!

I nearly got fired once for innocently suggesting that my 13 year old Mathematics students in New York “openly share rubbers without asking permission” (Rubber to me is an eraser to them, but in USA it’s a condom). And, at first, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what my blogger friends were talking about when they said they wanted to dominate a “nitch”. Rather than being a really bad itch, it was actually a niche (“neesh” for me). And that’s just American vs non-American English differences!

In Ireland we are lucky enough to be exposed to quite a lot of different versions of English thanks to television/cinema/literature. As well as our own TV channels, we have BBC, lots of American series, Australian soap operas and loads more. However, the opposite just doesn’t seem to be as true (although Irish literature has indeed had a huge impact on the English speaking world).

Other than poorly imitated Irish accents in films, the Irish dialect of English seems to elude a lot of people. So today, I’m going to break it down for you! Maybe then you’ll understand us better, or at least not do such a terrible job when you try to mimic us

Why do the Irish speak like that?
Firstly, there’s no such thing as an Irish accent. Ireland may be a small island with a modest population, but the differences between regions and even within parts of cities like Dublin are vast and easy to pick up on. Of course, other countries also have the same phenomenon with dozens of English dialects within London alone and huge differences across America, but I’ll just focus on Ireland in this wee article

Despite there not being a ‘single’ accent, there are commonalities that stem from a combination of factors, the most important of which being that just a few generations ago, Irish (Gaeilge) was the dominant language of the country. Even though less people use it now in comparison, and there are even some people who don’t have any Irish, the influence of the language on their English is huge.

For example, you’ll notice that I’ve just written have any Irish – it is more common in Ireland to say that you have a language rather than you speak it. This is originally due to Irish’s phrasing of Tá Gaeilge/Fraincis agam (“I have Irish/French”)

As well as this, there are some traits of old English (due to earlier English colonisation attempts than elsewhere) that we have maintained that have pretty much died out in other parts of the world. Shakespeare himself used the word mitch, a word still common in Ireland that the rest of the English speaking world would be confused to hear (it means to skip classes or “play hooky”).

However, the main differences are definitely due to influences from our own language, and they are what make Irish (or Hiberno) English so much more colourful!

Different grammar
English grammar is pretty consistent, but the standard spoken form in Ireland takes on a life of its own.

For example, rather than rely on “to have just done” for a recently completed action, we would say “to be after doing”. I’m after finding a euro on the road! You’re after stepping in dog sh*t! (This is due to tá mé tar éis / i ndiaidh… in Irish)

Another interesting influence from Irish is its absolute lack of the words yes or no, so when our ancestors were speaking English as a second language, they would translate how they would use such words originally in Irish.

Although international English influences mean young people do this way less nowadays, a lot of us Irish still simply don’t use these words. In the Irish language (and in other languages like Thai for example), this issue is resolved by simply repeating the verb of the question. Can you swim? I can! Do you like tomato juice? I don’t. Are you coming? I amn’t.

Yes you read that right: amn’t. This is one I’m surprised other English speakers don’t use! You say isn’t, don’t, aren’t… It’s logical if you ask me!

Also, come on rest-of-the-English-speaking-world. A single word for both singular and plural you?? What were yee thinking?? We can say yee, yez, or even yous (depending on the part of the country). Of course, Irish has tú and sibh… like pretty much every other language in the world! I’m pointing the finger at vi too, Esperanto!!

Some strange turns of phrase
Story? Don’t give out about your man! Where’s the yoke?

These are very common things you would hear from an Irish person, but sadly I’ve had to water down my English over the years to be understood when abroad and avoid such interesting words.

Story? or What’s the story? Is a translation of the Irish Aon scéal? / Cad é an scéal? – where “story” means “news”, i.e. What’s going on? / What’s up? Usually used as a greeting. The more rural of us prefer “How’s she cuttin?” (‘she’ being used in Ireland more than in other places for inanimate objects).

To give out has nothing to do with distributing leaflets. This is from the Irish tabhairt amach and means to complain. This is another one that Irish people are always surprised to hear isn’t international!!

Your man is a nice avoidance technique for not using someone’s name. It is usually clear from the context who you’re taking about, and the “your” definitely can’t be taken literally, he may have no connection whatsoever to you and even be a complete stranger (although close friend is just as likely). Your one is for women.

Yoke is a synonym for “thing” and usually refers to something that we may not be too familiar with and not know the actual name of. Think of thingamajig/watchamacallit, although it’s used way more often.

This is just a small sampling! There are a host of other words like Deadly, Desperate, Fair Play, Gas, Press, Shift that you may think you know the meaning of, but we would use them for things that are completely different, unrelated and unexpected. You can see loads of them (and a lot of things in this article) explained pretty well in the Wikipedia article on Hiberno English. Let’s see if I can give a few examples just to really confuse you…

Fair play to ya! You shifted your one, that was deadly! – The turnout was desperate last night. – I went to the press and found the yoke I had been looking for! … That’s gas!

Then, of course, there are originally Irish words that we use even when speaking English. The most famous of these is craic [Edit: this is an Irish word, but is actually borrowed from English], “fun” or enjoyment, but also used to ask how things are How’s the craic? Any craic?

The lovely accent
Once again, I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed in the rest of the Anglosphere. Frankly the way you form words just doesn’t sound nice! South Africans are pretty much the only ones that could keep me in my chair without squirming uncomfortably and constantly glancing at the exit; non-Irish English has actually driven me to avoid the language entirely for most of the last 7 years!!

For example, other English speakers have this strange thing they do where they put their tongue between their teeth and blow a buff of air over the tongue. They call it the th sound.

Why??

We do away with that hideous noise in Ireland! [Edit: less likely in the north] To us, the th sound is simply replaced with a t (unvoiced) or a d (voiced). So do ya see the tirty tree and a tird trees over dere? Dat’s right! Sounds way better, doesn’t it!

My friends across the pond (both the Atlantic and the Irish sea) seem to love putting consonants together that never belonged next to one another in the first place. l & m for example – how can you say these so quickly at the end of a word? It’s totally unnecessary! So to us Irish, a film is pronounced fill-um. The Irish name Colm has two syllables. This is because Irish, like Latin languages, gives vowels the glorious importance they deserve, while Germanic and Slavic languages seem to have a thing for squeezing as many consonants together as possible…

And continuing from this, you end words in hard consonants! It’s like an abrupt and unexpected car crash! Let’s take things easy shall we? The ‘t’ at the end of right is softened almost to a sh sound in the Emerald Isle (or even done away with altogether in North Dublin, and pronounced roy).

We also “ch” up our t’s and “j” up our d’s if they would have a ‘y’ incorporated in them in British English. So the second day of the week is Chooseday, a tube is a choob, and ‘due’ and ‘jew’ are pronounced the same. And if you are spelling words for us, instead of imitating a pirate when you get to the 18th letter (aaaarrrrgh!!), just say it like ‘or’ please

This post is only a small summary of the many differences, but hopefully it explains why us Irish sound so charming when we speak. So, soften up your consonants, “trow” away your ‘th’s, and stop giving out that you don’t understand us

—————————

If I’ve missed anything, feel free to add it in the comments! Next time some eejit says “Top of the morning to ya” or “Stay away from my lucky charms”, to try to imitate us, I’ll either punch them in the face… or link them to this article If you think someone else might enjoy this, share it through facebook, twitter and stumbleupon!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my brief series of posts related to Irish and Irish English while I was back home! On Monday, I continue my travels and will introduce the next 3 month language mission!

Cheers! (That means thank you or bye by the way; no drinks necessary! Although, that’s not just in Ireland! )

***********************

If you liked this post, you’ll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!

Want more language learning tips and cool links delivered to your inbox, as well as two free chapters of the Language Hacking Guide? Join the Language Hacking League by entering your e-mail on the top-right of the site!

This article was written by Benny Lewis

Comments: If you liked this post or have anything to say, please leave a comment! I love reading them You don’t even have to write in English! I will reply to all comments in any language listed on the right with the flags.
Just keep in mind that I’ll delete any comments that:
1. Are unnecessarily nasty and mean to me or any other commenter or otherwise totally inappropriate.
2. Are irrelevant to the particular post they follow, or leave a link to a site that is totally irrelevant or are clearly spam. If you have a general language learning question, please ask it in the forums.
3. Use a commenter name of a business or brand instead of a human being or a spammy temporary disposable e-mail service, or a clearly fake address.
But that’s not you, so don’t worry! Can’t wait to see what you have to write… don’t be shy!!

Source: http://www.fluentin3months.com/speak-like-the-irish/

Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition

2012-01-03T03:12:00.000-08:00

A Summary of Stephen Krashen's "Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition"

By Reid Wilson

Quote that captures the essense of the book:

"What theory implies, quite simply, is that language acquisition, first or second, occurs when comprehension of real messages occurs, and when the acquirer is not 'on the defensive'... Language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules, and does not require tedious drill. It does not occur overnight, however. Real language acquisition develops slowly, and speaking skills emerge significantly later than listening skills, even when conditions are perfect. The best methods are therefore those that supply 'comprehensible input' in low anxiety situations, containing messages that students really want to hear. These methods do not force early production in the second language, but allow students to produce when they are 'ready', recognizing that improvement comes from supplying communicative and comprehensible input, and not from forcing and correcting production." (6-7)

Summary of Part I. Introduction: The Relationship of Theory to Practice

In deciding how to develop language teaching methods and materials, one can take three approaches: make use of second language acquisition theory, make use of applied linguistics research, and make use of ideas and intuition from experience. These approaches should in fact support each other and lead to common conclusions. This book incorporates all three approaches, with a hope of reintroducing theory to language teachers. While "most current theory may still not be the final word on second language acquisition," it is hoped that teachers will use the ideas in this book as another source alongside of their classroom and language-learning experiences.

Summary of Part II. Second Language Acquisition Theory

There are five key hypotheses about second language acquisition:

1. THE ACQUISITION-LEARNING DISCTINCTION

Adults have two different ways to develop compentence in a language: language acquisition and language learning.

Language acquisition is a subconscious process not unlike the way a child learns language. Language acquirers are not consciously aware of the grammatical rules of the language, but rather develop a "feel" for correctness. "In non-technical language, acquisition is 'picking-up' a language."

Language learning, on the other hand, refers to the "concious knowledge of a second language, knowing the rules, being aware of them, and being able to talk about them." Thus language learning can be compared to learning about a language.

The acquistion-learning disctinction hypothesis claims that adults do not lose the ability to acquire languages the way that children do. Just as research shows that error correction has little effect on children learning a first language, so too error correction has little affect on language acquisition.

2. THE NATURAL ORDER HYPOTHESIS

The natural order hypothesis states that "the acquisition of grammatical structures proceeds in a predictable order." For a given language, some grammatical structures tend to be acquired early, others late, regardless of the first language of a speaker. However, as will be discussed later on in the book, this does not mean that grammar should be taught in this natural order of acquisition.

3. THE MONITOR HYPOTHESIS

The language that one has subconsciously acquired "initiates our utterances in a second language and is responsible for our fluency," whereas the language that we have consciously learned acts as an editor in situations where the learner has enough time to edit, is focused on form, and knows the rule, such as on a grammar test in a language classroom or when carefully writing a composition. This conscious editor is called the Monitor.

Different individuals use their monitors in different ways, with different degrees of success. Monitor Over-users try to always use their Monitor, and end up "so concerned with correctness that they cannot speak with any real fluency." Monitor Under-users either have not consciously learned or choose to not use their conscious knowledge of the language. Although error correction by others has little influence on them, they can often correct themelves based on a "feel" for correctness.

Teachers should aim to produce Optimal Monitor users, who "use the Monitor when it is appropriate and when it does not interfere with communication." They do not use their conscious knowledge of grammar in normal conversation, but will use it in writing and planned speech. "Optimal Monitor users can therefore use their learned competence as a supplement to their acquired competence."

4. THE INPUT HYPOTHESIS

The input hypothesis answers the question of how a language acquirer develops comptency over time. It states that a language acquirer who is at "level i" must receive comprehensible input that is at "level i+1." "We acquire, in other words, only when we understand language that contains structure that is 'a little beyond' where we are now." This understanding is possible due to using the context of the language we are hearing or reading and our knowledge of the world.

However, instead of aiming to receive input that is exactly at our i+1 level, or instead of having a teacher aim to teach us grammatical structure that is at our i+1 level, we should instead just focus on communication that is understandable. If we do this, and if we get enough of that kind of input, then we will in effect be receiving and thus acquiring out i+1. "Prduction ability emerges. It is not taught directly."

Evidences for the input hypothesis can be found in the effectiveness of caretaker speech from an adult to a child, of teacher-talk from a teacher to a language student, and of foreigner-talk from a sympathetic conversation partner to a language learner/acquirer.
One result of this hypothesis is that language students should be given a initial "silent period" where they are building up acquired competence in a language before they begin to produce it.

Whenever language acquirers try to produce language beyond what they have acquired, they tend to use the rules they have already acquired from their first language, thus allowing them to communicate but not really progress in the second language.

5. THE AFFECTIVE FILTER HYPOTHESIS

Motivation, self-confidence, and anxiety all affect language acquisition, in effect raising or lowering the "stickiness" or "penetration" of any comprehensible input that is received.

These five hypotheses of second language acquisition can be summarized: "1. Acquisition is more important than learning. 2. In order to acquire, two conditions are necessaary. The first is comprehensible (or even better, comprehended) input containing i+1, structures a bit beyond the acquier's current level, and second, a low or weak affective filter to allow the input 'in'."

In view of these findings, question is raised: does classroom language teaching help? Classroom teaching helps when it provides the necessary comprehensible input to those students who are not at a level yet which allows them to receive comprehensible input from "the real world" or who do not have access to "real world" language speakers. It can also help when it provides students communication tools to make better use of the outside world, and it can provide beneficial conscious learning for optimal Monitor users.

Various research studies have been done comparing the amount of language competance and the amount of exposure to the language either in classroom-years or length of residence, the age of the language acquirer, and the acculturation of the language acquirer. The results of these studies are consistent with the above acquisition hypotheses: the more comprehensible input one receives in low-stress situations, the more language competance that one will have.

Summary of Part III: Providing Input for Acquisition

Once it is realized that receiving comprehensible input is central to acquiring a second language, questions are immediately raised concerning the nature and sources of this type of input and the role of the second language classroom.

To what extent is the second language classroom beneficial? Classrooms help when they provide the comprehensible input that the acquirer is going to receive. If acquirers have access to real world input, and if their current ability allows them understand at least some of it, then the classroom is not nearly as significant. An informal, immersion environment has the opportunity to provide tons of input; however, that input is not always comprehensible to a beginner, and often for an adult beginner the classroom is better than the real world in providing comprehensible input.

However, for the intermediate level student and above, living and interacting in an environment in which the language is spoken will likely prove to be better for the student, especially considering the fact that a language classroom will not be able to reflect the broad range of language use that the real world provides. The classroom's goal is to prepare students to be able to understand the language used outside the classroom.

What role does speaking (output) play in second language acquisition? It has no direct role, since language is acquired by comprehensible input, and in fact someone who is not able to speak for physical reasons can still acquire the full ability to understand language. However, speaking does indirectly help in two ways: 1) speaking produces conversation, which produces comprehensible input, and 2) your speaking allows native speakers to judge what level you are at and then adjust their speak downward to you, providing you input that is more easily understood.

What kind of input is optimal for acquisition? The best input is comprehensible, which sometimes means that it needs to be slower and more carefully articulated, using common vocabulary, less slang, and shorter sentences. Optimal input is interesting and/or relevant and allows the acquirer to focus on the meaning of the message and not on the form of the message. Optimal input is not grammatically sequenced, and a grammatical syllabus should not be used in the language classroom, in part because all students will not be at exactly the same level and because each structure is often only introduced once before moving on to something else. Finally, optimal input must focus on quantity, although most language teachers have to date seriously underestimated how much comprehensible input is actually needed for an acquirer to progress.

In addition to receiving the right kind of input, students should have their affective filter kept low, meaning that classroom stress should be minimized and students "should not be put on the defensive." One result of this is that student's errors should not be corrected. Students should be taught how to gain more input from the outside world, including helping them acquire conversational competence, the means of managing conversation.

Summary of Part IV: The Role of Grammar, or Putting Grammar in its Place

"As should be apparent by now, the position taken in this book is that second language teaching should focus on encouraging acquisition, on providing input that stimulates the subconscious language acquisition potential all normal human beings have. This does not mean to say, however, that there is no room at all for conscious learning. Conscious learning does have a role, but it is no longer the lead actor in the play."

For starters, we must realize that learning does not turn into acquisition. While the idea that we first learn a grammar rule and then use it so much that it becomes internalized is common and may seem obvious to many, it is not supported by theory nor by the observation of second language acquirers, who often correctly use "rules" they have never been taught and don't even remember accurately the rules they have learned.

However, there is a place for grammar, or the conscious learning of the rules of a language. Its major role is in the use of the Monitor, which allows Monitor users to produce more correct output when they are given the right conditions to actually use their Monitor, as in some planned speech and writing. However, for correct Monitor use the users must know the rules they are applying, and these would need to be rules that are easy to remember and apply--a very small subset of all of the grammatical rules of a language. It is not worthwhile for language acquisition to teach difficult rules which are hard to learn, harder to remember, and sometimes almost impossible to correctly apply.

For many years there was controversy in language-teaching literature on whether grammar should be deductively or inductively taught. However, as both of these methods involve language learning and not language acquisition, this issue should not be central for language teaching practice. There has similarly been controversy as to whether or not errors should be corrected in language learners' speech. Second language acquisition theory suggests that errors in ordinary conversation and Monitor-free situations should not be corrected, and that errors should only be corrected when they apply to easy to apply and understand grammatical rules in situations where known Monitor-users are able to use their Monitor.

There is a second way in which the teaching of grammar in a classroom can be helpful, and that is when the students are interested in learning about the language they are acquiring. This language appreciation, or linguistics, however, will only result in language acquisition when grammar is taught in the language that is being acquired, and it is actually the comprehensible input that the students are receiving, not the content of the lecture itself, that is aiding acquisition. "This is a subtle point. In effect, both teachers and students are deceiving themselves. They believe that it is the subject matter itself, the study of grammar, that is responsible for the students' progress in second language acquisition, but in reality their progress is coming from the medium and not the message. And subject matter that held their interest would do just as well, so far as second language acquisition is concerned, as long as it required extensive use of the target language." And perhaps many students would be more interested in a different subject matter and would thus acquire more than they would in such a grammar-based classroom.

Summary of Part V: Approaches to Language Teaching

Popular language teaching methods today include grammar-translation, audio-lingualism, cognitive-code, the direct method, the natural approach, total physical response, and Suggestopedia. How do these methods fare when they are evaluated by Second Language Acquisition theory? Each method will be evaluated using the following criteria:

Requirements for optimal input -- comprehensible -- interesting/relevant -- not grammatically sequenced -- quantity -- low filter level -- provides tools for conversational management

Learning restricted to: -- Rules that are easily learned and applied, and not acquired yet -- Monitor users -- Situations when the learner has adequate time and a focus on form

1. GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION

Grammar-translation usually consists of an explanation of a grammatical rule, with some example sentences, a bilingual vocabulary list, a reading section exemplifying the grammatical rule and incorporating the vocabulary, and exercises to practice using the grammar and vocabulary. Most of these classes are taught in the student's first language. The grammar-translation method provides little opportunity for acquisition and relies too heavily on learning.

2. AUDIO-LINGUALISM

An audio-lingual lesson usually begins with a dialogue which contains the grammar and vocabulary to be focused on in the lesson. The students mimic the dialogue and eventually memorize it. After the dialogue comes pattern drills, in which the grammatical structure introduced in the dialogue is reinforced, with these drills focusing on simple repetition, substitution, transformation, and translation. While the audio-lingual method provides opportunity for some acquisition to occur, it cannot measure up to newer methods which provide much more comprehensible input in a low-filter environment.

3. COGNITIVE-CODE

Cognitive-code is similar to grammar-translation except that it focuses on developing all four skills of language: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Communicative competence is focused upon. Since the cognitive-code approach provides more comprehensible input than grammar-translation does, it should produce more acquisition, but other newer methods provide even more and have better results. Learning is overemphasized with this method.

4. THE DIRECT METHOD

Several approaches have been called the "direct method"; the approach evaluated here involves all discussion in the target language. The teacher uses examples of language in order to inductively teach grammar; students are to try to guess the rules of the language by the examples provided. Teachers interact with the students a lot, asking them questions about relevant topics and trying to use the grammatical structure of the day in the conversation. Accuracy is sought and errors are corrected. This method provides more comprehensible input than the methods discussed so far, but it still focuses too much on grammar.

5. THE NATURAL APPROACH

In the Natural Approach the teacher speaks only the target language and class time is committed to providing input for acquisition. Students may use either the language being taught or their first language. Errors in speech are not corrected, however homework may include grammar exercises that will be corrected. Goals for the class emphasize the students being able use the language "to talk about ideas, perform tasks, and solve problems." This approach aims to fulfill the requirements for learning and acquisition, and does a great job in doing it. Its main weakness is that all classroom teaching is to some degree limited in its ability to be interesting and relevant to all students.

6. TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE

Total Physical Response, or TPR, involves the students listening and responding to commands given by the teacher such as "sit down" and "walk," with the complexity of the commands growing over time as the class acquires more language. Student speech is delayed, and once students indicate a willingness to talk they initially give commands to other students. Theory predicts that TPR should result in substantial language acquisition. Its content may not be always interesting and relevant for the students, but should produce better results than the audio-lingual and grammar-translation methods.

7. SUGGESTOPEDIA

Suggestopedia classes are small and intensive, and focus on providing a very low-stress, attractive environment (partly involving active and passive "seances" complete with music and meditation) in which acquisition can occur. Some of the students' first language is used at the beginning, but most in the target language. The role of the teacher is very important in creating the right atmosphere and in acting out the dialogues that form the core of the content. Suggestopedia seems to provide close to optimal input while not giving too much emphasis to grammar.

What does applied linguistics research have to say about these methods? Applied research has examined the older methods of grammar-translation, audio-lingual, and cognitive-code much more than it has looked at the newer methods. There seems to be only small differences in the results of the older methods. While much research remains to be done, Total Physical Response and the other newer approaches "produce significantly better results than old approaches."

So what is better, the classroom or the real world? "Quite simply, the role of the second or foreign language classroom is to bring a student to a point where he can begin to use the outside would for further second language acquisition.... This means we have to provide students with enough comprehensible input to bring their second language competence to the point where they can begin to understand language heard 'on the outside'.... In other words, all second language classes are transitional."

In the real world, conversations with sympathetic native speakers who are willing to help the acquirer understand are very helpful. These native speakers engage in what is called "foreigner talk," not very different from the way that a parent would talk to a child.

Voluntary pleasure reading is also beneficial for second language acquisition, especially as the reader is free to choose reading material that is of interest and the proper level in order to be understood.

Taking content classes in the language that is being acquired can also be helpful to the more advanced learner, especially when the class is composed of students who are all acquiring the second language.

How does all of the above affect our views on achievement testing? As students will gear their studying to the type of tests they expect to take, the kinds of language tests that are given is very important. "Achievement tests...should meet this requirement: preparation for the test, or studying for the test, should obviously encourage the student to do things that will provide more comprehensible input and the tools to gain even more input when the class is over." With this in mind, general reading comprehension tests are helpful, as would be a test that would encourage students to participate in conversations and employ the tools of communicative competence.

Assuming that the conclusions in this book are correct, many new classroom language materials need to be developed. These materials should focus on providing much comprehensible input to beginning and intermediate students and should provide them with the means to gain even more input outside the classroom. Such materials should only focus on grammatical rules that are easy to learn and apply. Readers should have much more reading material in them and much fewer exercises and should have enough content that students can choose which topics to read about.

A quote from the conclusion:

"Even if the theory presented here is totally correct, and my suggestions for application are in fact the appropriate ones, there are some serious problems that need to be mentioned before concluding. These have to do with the acceptance, by teachers and students, of language acquisition as primary, and comprehensible input as the means of encouraging language acquisition. These problems are caused by the fact that acquisition differs from learning in two major ways: acquisition is slow and subtle, while learning is fast and, for some people, obvious.... I think that I have presented a conservative view of language acquisition theory and its applications, conservative in the sense that it attempts to be consistent with all empirical data that are known to me. It is consistent with the way thousands of people have acquired second languages throughout history, and in many cases acquired them very well. They acquired second languages while they were focused on something else, while they were gaining interesting or needed information, or interacting with people they liked to be with."

Bibliographic information:

Krashen, Stephen D. 1981. Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. English Language Teaching series. London: Prentice-Hall International (UK) Ltd. 202 pages.

Source: http://www.languageimpact.com/articles/rw/krashenbk.htm

How to achieve a New year’s resolution to learn a language: turn it into a mission

2012-01-02T03:07:00.000-08:00

By Benny

Happy New Year!!

Four years ago I made a New Year’s resolution to never ever make New Year’s resolutions again, and I have stuck to it! The reason? I almost never kept to the resolution. I’d join the gym, and go just a few times and then get lazy, and stop, or I wouldn’t last a week past “giving up” TV etc. It just wasn’t working.

This doesn’t mean that I’ve remained stagnant in the last 4 years and not improved myself. Quite the contrary! I’ve found a method that works much better for me for achieving my goals, and of course I never limit it just to the first few weeks of the year.

So if you’ve made a new year’s resolution to learn French/Spanish etc. then maybe this approach may help you so that you actually achieve that goal...

To read his article, click on the link below:
http://www.fluentin3months.com/language-new-years-resolution/

The Best Tips of 2011

2011-12-30T13:33:00.000-08:00

Hello Everybody,

I would like to thank you all, the readers and the learners, for all the reading and comments throughout the year. Be sure that I will keep posting lots of hints about the English learning process and the the path that a real learner takes to master this language.

Until then, check out the best tips of 2011 ( copy and paste the links onto your browser):

1. Listening: A good way to learn English
http://cirandadoingles.blogspot.com/2011/03/listening-good-way-to-learn-english.html

2. Less is More
http://cirandadoingles.blogspot.com/2011/04/less-is-more.html

3. Porque não consigo aprender inglês!
http://cirandadoingles.blogspot.com/2011/05/porque-nao-consigo-aprender-ingles.html

4. Student or Learner?
http://cirandadoingles.blogspot.com/2011/05/student-or-learner.html

5. Are you WILLing to learn?
http://cirandadoingles.blogspot.com/2011/06/will.html

6. Brick by Brick
http://cirandadoingles.blogspot.com/2011/07/brick-by-brick-professor-vou-desistir.html

7. Do You have the guts?
http://cirandadoingles.blogspot.com/2011/10/do-you-have-guts.html

8. Input x Output
http://cirandadoingles.blogspot.com/2011/08/input-x-ouput.html

9. To be taught or to learn?
http://cirandadoingles.blogspot.com/2011/12/ensinar-ou-aprender.html

10. The stuff within
http://cirandadoingles.blogspot.com/2011/12/stuff-within.html

Good news for Scrooges: Why giving Christmas presents is pointless and bad for the economy

2011-12-25T06:45:00.000-08:00

By Hannah Roberts
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2078358/Why-giving-Christmas-presents-pointless-bad-economy.html

Most of us know what it's like to get a Christmas present we don't like or need.

But opening a novelty Billy the Singing Bass isn't just disappointing-it's also bad for the economy.

Christmas presents are a complete waste of money, and amount to global wealth destruction, a leading economist has claimed.

And much of this spending is in fact pointless- receivers value presents at on average 20 per cent less than what the giver paid, research by Joel Waldfogel, Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota shows.

So a present that you paid $10 for may only be worth $8 to the recipient, Fox Business reported. And if it is regifted, the new recipient may believe that the gift is worth only $6.

Of an estimated $70 billion Americans spend on holiday gift-giving, $14 billion is wasted, he said in a webcast sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
Around the world, that figure doubles to $28 billion flushed away on what Waldfogel calls 'vaporized satisfaction.'

Pointless: While people shop sensibly when it comes to choosing items for themselves, they are hopeless at picking out gifts that relatives they don't see often will value.

The reason for the disparity in how we value goods is that, while people shop sensibly when it comes to choosing items for themselves, they are hopeless at picking out gifts that relatives they don't see often will value.

Retailers have created a whole industry of novelty gifts and useless gadgets to take advantage of this dilemma.

In his 2009 book, Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays, Waldfogel wrote: 'If Christmas were a government program, the Citizens against Government Waste would classify the entire...annual expenditure as 'waste,' 'The bucket Santa uses...isn't just leaking, it's gushing.'

The solution to the problem is to give cash which allows gift recipients to efficiently find value and satisfaction, while stimulating the economy .

But as some cultures consider giving money vulgar, Waldfogel says we should give gift vouchers instead.

This solution is not perfect -about 10% of gift-card value is never claimed, and retailers can't claim the unclaimed cards as revenues for years.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2078358/Why-giving-Christmas-presents-pointless-bad-economy.html#ixzz1hYduZdxB

Resolution of New Year

2011-12-22T08:09:00.000-08:00

End of the year. Let's celebrate! Se você acabou esse ano e manteve seus estudos de inglês, congratulations! Não digo isso por vocês terem mantido suas aulas conosco da " Frank Experience"; refiro-me ao fato que 78% dos estudantes de inglês desistem dos seus cursos nessa época do ano. Por causa dessa alta desistência, a maioria das escolas cria cursos especiais ou intensivos para fazer dinheiro, pois os estudantes have just gone. Para comprovar isso, vejam os cartazes por aí.

Essa desistência ocorre por diversos motivos, não só pelo lado financeiro, mas também por insatisfação, fuga, medo de fracassar, etc, etc, etc.

A lista de razões é enorme, e demonstra para quem desiste o grau de importância que aprender inglês tinha em sua vida. Daí, culpar o professor e a escola por seu insucesso parece ser um tanto unfair; porém, nada mais natural e normal.

Nossa escola não fará intensivão nem cursos extras, pelo contrário, vamos parar duas semanas para estudar e planejar melhores caminhos para que você continue aprendendo bem conosco.

Moreover, para você que continuou, good tiddings we bring: você ficou muito mais inteligente. Sim, estudar um idioma estrangeiro melhorou a sua memória, desenvolveu o seu raciocínio lógico e ajudou a fortalecer suas " sinapses" - sim aquelas pontes que unem neurônios e que permitem que você possa juntar a palavra que veio antes com a palavra que veio depois e dar significado a elas.

Again, parabéns!

Qual foi a última vez que você fez um review do ano que passou e constatou que ficou mais inteligente?

Por isso, convido vocês, queridos learners, a preparar a sua lista de resolutions of new year. Sim, aquela lista cheia de coisas que prometemos fazer e não cumprimos nem half dela. However, coloque na lista também, as coisas que vocês gostariam de manter e no topo dela, escrevam:

" Eu vou continuar estudando e melhorando a minha inteligência"

Esses são os nossos votos para você e para toda a sua família.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year !!!

A Few Steps

2011-12-21T08:37:00.000-08:00

Gerson is not just my learner, he is also my friend - a brother. He called me around two years ago, asking me if I could help him with his English.

At the beginning, he had some difficulties, but after starting the exercises from the book I told him to buy, he got better. But it wasn't enough...

Although he has all the theory, it has been quite hard for him to remember it while trying to speak. He often forgets the tenses and still keeps translating to Portuguese the words he doesn't know.

The " forgotten words" is caused by the translation that he still does. It is clear that the dominance of the Portuguese language ( his mother language) is controlling his wish to speak the second language. The best solution is a continuous "describing" exercise to help him to avoid the use of translations.

Regarding his vocabulary, it is a matter of producing input. He needs to create the reading habit and practice self-study to increase his range of new vocabulary.

In other words, he might need a few more months of " Frank Experience" and it can be really effective if he keeps English as part of his routine of daily activities. Doing that he will train his brain to use both languages and diminish the dictatorship of his mother tongue.

Gerson is a few steps of his fluency, but now it is up to his behavior and attitude to achieve it. He has already the proper intonation and his Brazilian accent doesn't interfere with his English. As he already know all the tenses structure, it is just a matter of time for him to be able to get to the level he wants to get.

Keep up and Ultreya

Two Sisters - Aulas em Dupla

2011-12-21T06:16:00.000-08:00

Dar aulas de inglês para duas pessoas é always um desafio, ainda mais quando a dupla em questão vem junto com um bebê, um husband ( ex-aluno) e a very crazy dog: Bob!

Larissa and Lidiane, Lidiane e Larissa. I don't know onde começa uma e termina a outra. As I said, aulas em dupla é sempre difícil pois uma pessoa tende à competir com a outra ( naturally) e o progresso de ambas no aprendizado da língua é afetado por isso, tanto para o bem quanto para o mal. But isso não ocorre com as duas, quite the opposite, pois uma ajuda a outra, ambas se cobram e estudam juntas.

Lidiane tem hunger de aprendizado. Quando aprende algo novo e coloca em practice, seus olhos brilham e o entusiasmo cresce a cada aula. Se ela estudar por conta própria com afinco, soon, conseguirá se comunicar.

Larissa tem facilidade com o idioma. Apesar de esquecer alguns vocabulários ( Uma revisão diária das palavras novas que aprendeu faria muito bem for her vocabulary memory), she remembers quite well, as estruturas que já aprendeu e pronuncia properly. Ela está à alguns steps de dar o salto que ela quer, she just needs a bit more of patience and a lot more of "guts" para se arriscar com frases mais complexas, sem traduzir as palavras que não lembra ou não sabe.

Both of them are lawyers, o que implica um pensamento mais analítico, pragmático, sometimes, em relação ao aprendizado do inglês, but all in all, as duas estão progredindo muito bem.

Realizing que seus estudantes estão improving é uma das grandes recompensas para um professor, however, dinheiro no mundo paga, perceber que seus estudantes estão naturalmente se tornando " learners".

- Teacher - diz Lidiane - Estou brava comigo mesmo.

- Why? - pergunto.

- Because eu não consegui fazer o meu self-study essa semana. - diz ela, virtualmente chateada. But I promisse que essa semana, vou estudar em dobro.

Com " learners" assim, nossa missão de ajudá-los a aprender, fica muito mais fácil, leve e divertida.

Less is More ( Always)

2011-12-20T08:41:00.000-08:00

By The Drucker Institute

OK, admit it: You’re not just reading this blog right now. You’re probably also glancing at a few other applications on your desktop, maybe talking on the phone or perhaps even sitting in the middle of a meeting.
The latest issue of the McKinsey Quarterly has some advice for you: Stop it.
“Always on, multitasking work environments are killing productivity, dampening creativity and making us unhappy,” the piece declares.
While this warning is very timely in our highly interconnected world, authorsDerek Dean and Caroline Webb note that it is not at all new. Their article citesPeter Drucker’s 1967 book The Effective Executive, which warned of the looming dangers of attention fragmentation that can result from multitasking.
“There was Mozart, of course,” Drucker wrote. “He could, it seems, work on several compositions at the same time, all of them masterpieces. But he is the only known exception. The other prolific composers of the first rank – Bach, for instance, Handel, or Haydn, or Verdi – composed one work at a time. They did not begin the next until they had finished the preceding one, or until they had stopped work on it for the time being and put it away in the drawer. Executives can hardly assume that they are ‘executive Mozarts.’”
To preserve maximum effectiveness, Drucker advised, executives actually needed to embed solutions such as carving out blocks of calendar time, ignoring the phone, and returning calls in short bursts once or twice a day.
Drucker understood 40 years ago what science is now proving. One study mentioned by Dean and Webb describes the delay in the brain’s ability to complete tasks if they’re attempted simultaneously. Another study also suggests that the practice of multitasking can actually cause anxiety and addictive behavior due to the repetitive release of dopamine, similar to what happens when one uses drugs.
So, how guilty are you of multitasking?

Source:
http://thedx.druckerinstitute.com/2011/01/less-is-more/

To learn more about " delay in the brain", go:
http://www.psy.vanderbilt.edu/faculty/marois/Publications/Dux_et_al-2006.pdf

Minority Ethnic English

2011-12-19T07:45:00.000-08:00

English as a Global Language

For more than half a century, immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and the West Indies have added variety and diversity to the rich patchwork of accents and dialects spoken in the UK. British colonisers originally exported the language to all four corners of the globe and migration in the 1950s brought altered forms of English back to these shores. Since that time, especially in urban areas, speakers of Asian and Caribbean descent have blended their mother tongue speech patterns with existing local dialects producing wonderful new varieties of English, such as London Jamaican or Bradford Asian English. Standard British English has also been enriched by an explosion of new terms, such as balti (a dish invented in the West Midlands and defined by a word that would refer to a 'bucket' rather than food to most South Asians outside the UK) and bhangra (traditional Punjabi music mixed with reggae and hip-hop).

The recordings on this site of speakers from minority ethnic backgrounds include a range of speakers. You can hear speakers whose speech is heavily influenced by their racial background, alongside those whose speech reveals nothing of their family background and some who are ranged somewhere in between. There are also a set of audio clips that shed light on some of the more recognisable features of Asian English and Caribbean English.

Slang
As with the Anglo-Saxon and Norman settlers of centuries past, the languages spoken by today’s ethnic communities have begun to have an impact on the everyday spoken English of other communities. For instance, many young people, regardless of their ethnic background, now use the black slang terms, nang (‘cool,’) and diss (‘insult’ — from ‘disrespecting’) or words derived from Hindi and Urdu, such as chuddies (‘underpants’) or desi (‘typically Asian’). Many also use the all-purpose tag-question, innit — as in statements such as you’re weird, innit. This feature has been variously ascribed to the British Caribbean community or the British Asian community, although it is also part of a more native British tradition - in dialects in the West Country and Wales, for instance — which might explain why it appears to have spread so rapidly among young speakers everywhere.

Original influences from overseas
The English Language can be traced back to the mixture of Anglo-Saxon dialects that came to these shores 1500 years ago. Since then it has been played with, altered and transported around the world in many different forms. The language we now recognise as English first became the dominant language in Great Britain during the Middle Ages, and in Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From there it has been exported in the mouths of colonists and settlers to all four corners of the globe. ‘International English’, ‘World English’ or ‘Global English’ are terms used to describe a type of ‘General English’ that has, over the course of the twentieth century, become a worldwide means of communication.

American English
The first permanent English-speaking colony was established in North America in the early 1600s. The Americans soon developed a form of English that differed in a number of ways from the language spoken back in The British Isles. In some cases older forms were retained — the way most Americans pronounce the sound after a vowel in words like start, north, nurse and letter is probably very similar to pronunciation in 17th century England. Similarly, the distinction between past tense got and past participle gotten still exists in American English but has been lost in most dialects of the UK.

But the Americans also invented many new words to describe landscapes, wildlife, vegetation, food and lifestyles. Different pronunciations of existing words emerged as new settlers arrived from various parts of the UK and established settlements scattered along the East Coast and further inland. After the USA achieved independence from Great Britain in 1776 any sense of who ‘owned’ and set the ‘correct rules’ for the English Language became increasingly blurred. Different forces operating in the UK and in the USA influenced the emerging concept of a Standard English. The differences are perhaps first officially promoted in the spelling conventions proposed by Noah Webster in The American Spelling Book (1786) and subsequently adopted in his later work, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). Both of these publications were enormously successful and established spellings such as center and color and were therefore major steps towards scholarly acceptance that British English and American English were becoming distinct entities.

Influence of Empire
Meanwhile, elsewhere, the British Empire was expanding dramatically, and during the 1700s British English established footholds in parts of Africa, in India, Australia and New Zealand. The colonisation process in these countries varied. In Australia and New Zealand, European settlers quickly outnumbered the indigenous population and so English was established as the dominant language. In India and Africa, however, centuries of colonial rule saw English imposed as an administrative language, spoken as a mother tongue by colonial settlers from the UK, but in most cases as a second language by the local population.

English around the world
Like American English, English in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa has evolved such that they are distinct from British English. However, cultural and political ties have meant that until relatively recently British English has acted as the benchmark for representing ‘standardised’ English — spelling tends to adhere to British English conventions, for instance. Elsewhere in Africa and on the Indian subcontinent, English is still used as an official language in several countries, even though these countries are independent of British rule. However, English remains very much a second language for most people, used in administration, education and government and as a means of communicating between speakers of diverse languages. As with most of the Commonwealth, British English is the model on which, for instance, Indian English or Nigerian English is based. In the Caribbean and especially in Canada, however, historical links with the UK compete with geographical, cultural and economic ties with the USA, so that some aspects of the local varieties of English follow British norms and others reflect US usage.

An international language
English is also hugely important as an international language and plays an important part even in countries where the UK has historically had little influence. It is learnt as the principal foreign language in most schools in Western Europe. It is also an essential part of the curriculum in far-flung places like Japan and South Korea, and is increasingly seen as desirable by millions of speakers in China. Prior to WWII, most teaching of English as a foreign language used British English as its model, and textbooks and other educational resources were produced here in the UK for use overseas. This reflected the UK's cultural dominance and its perceived ‘ownership’ of the English Language. Since 1945, however, the increasing economic power of the USA and its unrivalled influence in popular culture has meant that American English has become the reference point for learners of English in places like Japan and even to a certain extent in some European countries. British English remains the model in most Commonwealth countries where English is learnt as a second language. However, as the history of English has shown, this situation may not last indefinitely. The increasing commercial and economic power of countries like India, for instance, might mean that Indian English will one day begin to have an impact beyond its own borders.

Source: http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/minority-ethnic/

Frases da Semana.

2011-12-16T06:03:00.001-08:00

"Há pessoas que nasceram para ser ensinadas e outras que nasceram para aprender."

"O mundo de hoje já não possui fronteiras e outra língua é ingresso garantido no futuro."

"Learning isn’t simply about reading information in a book, that is only the first step."

‎" O que ensinamos é o processo de aprender, palavra que deriva do latim "apprehendere", que significa apanhar, apropriar, adquirir conhecimento."

Bom final de semana!

Why France Is Pushing Its Students to Master English

2011-12-16T05:49:00.000-08:00

By BRUCE CRUMLEY / PARIS

The faces look a little nervous and the words are spoken a bit timidly — all rather normal for a group of French students learning to speak English. But the hesitant responses aren't coming in a classroom where foreign-language instruction is another obligatory grind in a long day of courses. Instead, these 18-to-25-year-olds are paying up to $6,000 annually to master a language they all took for six years in high school before earning their baccalaureate degrees and entering the job market.

"A lot of things in France have changed under globalization in order to keep us competitive, but teaching people English here has remained old-fashioned and inefficient," says Julien Petitpas, one of the 10 young adults who gather for 12 hours a week to improve their English at the Berlitz language school near the Paris Opera. "In school it's all structure, grammar and getting it right on paper and in your head before you ever speak — and even then, you don't do much of that. It just doesn't work."

L. "Pointing something that obvious out isn't futile in a country where Latin is an oral exam on the baccalaureate, while the leading modern language is evaluated in written form."

Compelling teachers in France's notoriously rigid education system to change their ways and encourage students to speak more in foreign-language classes will be one challenge to overcome. Another is confronting the contradiction that comes with promoting foreign-language study among students and continuing France's long-standing policies aimed at protecting and promoting the use of the French language at home. The Academie Française began its mission of purging the French language of impurities — often words taken from other languages — way back in 1635. The key objective of the country's 25-year-old exception culturelle is ensuring that French-language music, film and other cultural products are not dominated by English-language imports. And a law passed in 1994 requires that French translations accompany any foreign phrases in state documents, business contracts and even advertising.
(Read "The Class: A Year in the Blackboard Jungle.")

These efforts to trumpet the virtues of the French language may inadvertently decrease the allure of foreign tongues to many in France — especially among students who are made to feel they mustn't attempt to utter a word of what's often called la langue de Shakespeare until they've mastered it on paper. "I think a lot of French people are hesitant to speak another language at what could be considered the expense of French," says Karin Hull, who has taught English at Berlitz for four years. "The legacy of cultural protectionism is one factor, and the way foreign languages are taught in school is another. Students pass language exams only to discover they can't really speak [the language]."
(Read "Plagiarism Software Finds a New Shakespeare Play.")

Shifting the focus of foreign-language study from written to oral instruction is only one way of making classes more practical. Berlitz also offers First Jobs, an increasingly popular course in which students are taught business and financial English vocabulary and are given help improving their résumés and job-interviewing skills — in English. "These are students who've wanted to improve their English as part of many things they'll need in their careers," says Alain Nothern, the polyglot director of Berlitz's Opera center. "The focus is English, but it's a wider tool kit for the business world."

Becoming an Anglophone isn't cheap — but that's not stopping students from signing up. Laetitia Marcellesi says she had to get a job to pay for the course, while her classmate, Justine Boussin, took out a loan to finance a study-abroad trip to London. Only time will tell if future French students will start getting this type of practical training for free at school or whether they'll have to keep paying for it once they graduate.

Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1932422,00.html

Uma Crônica

2011-12-15T07:12:00.000-08:00

Contribuição:
Fabíola Maciel
Professora Coordenadora LEM (Inglês)
Oficina Pedagógica - DER Jacareí

UMA CRÔNICA PARA SE PENSAR O ENSINO DE LÍNGUA ESTRANGEIRA

- Vou dizer o que penso, Roberto. Acho que aprender Língua Inglesa, além de sacrifício, é uma enorme bobagem...

-Bobagem? Porque você pensa assim?Não acredita que a possibilidade profissional de quem domina uma segunda língua é muito maior de quem não a domina?

- É exatamente isso que eu quero justificar. Dominar uma segunda língua é, de fato, muito bom, vale muito. Mas, o que se aprende no Ensino Fundamental é muito pouco para que a pessoa domine bem essa segunda língua. Além disso...

- Além disso? Além disso, o quê? Que outros argumentos você tem contra as aulas de Língua Inglesa, que por sinal, estou adorando?

- Como eu dizia, aprender algumas poucas palavras não vai melhorar muito seu currículo e com exceção de atividade na área turística, essa aprendizagem somente leva a perder tempo. Hoje em dia, poucos vestibulares ou concursos de admissão requerem o domínio do inglês e grande parte dos textos necessários para o uso deste ou daquele produto importado já trazem versão para nossa língua ou, pelo menos, para o espanhol. Por isso, eu repito, acho que o inglês deve ser banido nas escolas públicas e, em seu lugar, seria interessante colocar mais aulas de Matemática, Ciências ou mesmo de Educação Física. Estou errado?

- Não há dúvida de que você está errado! Pense que possuindo um vocabulário linguístico maior ou um pouco maior ainda assim, o fato de aprender Inglês vai ajudar minha capacidade geral de compreensão oral, meus pensamentos e minhas habilidades. Aprendendo uma língua que não falo, esforço-me em comparar, analisar, explicar, aplicar e, mesmo que mal consiga, tudo isso é ganho para mim. Estou empolgado com as aulas do Prof. Nelson, não porque tenha esperanças que saia do Ensino Fundamental dominando inteiramente outra língua, mas para que pense coisas que não costumo pensar, procure respostas na internet, compreenda melhor a computação, tenha maior interesse na literatura e assim aprimore minha capacidade em me comunicar na minha língua materna. Penso, meu caro amigo, que mesmo não podendo ao final do curso me expressar com transparente clareza em inglês, com o pouco que posso aprender ganho novas lentes para meus velhos óculos.

- Novas lentes? Óculos? De que você está falando? Você nem usa óculos?

- Estou usando uma metáfora.As lentes de que falo são lentes de mentirinha, mas com o esforço para dominar palavras estrangeiras levo essa vontade em minhas paqueras, ao cinema, carrego comigo toda vez que assisto um filme na TV. Não vou aprender tudo, mas sei o quanto posso ajudar as lições de minha irmã, as letras musicais que meu primo canta sem saber as bobagens que diz, as pequenas dúvidas do meu pai e da minha mãe com o controle remoto e com o manual do DVD, a minha tia quando está navegando na internet. Novas lentes, porque cabeça que se envolve em domínio linguístico, maior é o cérebro com pensamentos mais amplos, com focos mais abrangentes, que por aprender mais outra fala ainda melhor a sua língua, inventa trocadilhos, reforça diálogos, cresce em sua autopercepção como ser humano. O mundo de ontem, meu amigo era um mundinho regional e uma só língua chegava; o mundo de hoje já não possui fronteiras e outra língua é ingresso garantido no futuro. Será que estou falando bobagem? Vamos aprender a pensar como o nosso Prof. Nelson!

Extraído e adaptado do Livro: Língua Estrangeira e
Didática – Coleção como Bem Ensinar – Editora Vozes

Aula de ponta-cabeça

2011-12-14T07:57:00.000-08:00

Domingo, Dezembro 11, 2011

CLAUDIO DE MOURA CASTRO

REVISTA VEJA

"Uma boa ideia que se captializa na existência de comunicadores brilhantes e dispostos a gravar aulas, na Conveniência e ubiquidade do YouTube, somando-se a insubstituível interação pessoa entre mestre e estudante"

De dois ou três séculos para cá, o jeito das aulas se fixou em uma fórmula clássica: o professor explica e depois, em casa, os alunos fazem o "dever", exercitando o que aprenderam. As variações sobre o tema têm sido mínimas, longe de, serem revoluções. Mas eis que pipoca uma novidade: quem sabe virar a rotina da aula de ponta-cabeça? O aluno aprende em casa e depois vai à aula. Nela, com a ajuda do professor, vai se exercitar no que estudou.

Essa possibilidade e suas muitas variantes sempre existiram, pois nada impede os alunos de abrir seus livros para aprender a lição em casa. Na prática, por ser bem mais árdua, jamais foi uma solução adotada amplamente.

Mas eis que um jovem graduado do MIT, Salman Khan, recebe um pedido de primos, para que explique passagens mais complicadas da matemática. Se estivessem pertinho; ele explicaria pessoalmente, mas, como moravam longe, usou o YouTube para gravar a preleção. Deu certo. Surpresa: deu mais certo do que esperava.

Logo Sal se vê produzindo aulas sobre variados temas de matemática e outros assuntos, conquistando uma freguesia cada vez maior. Bill Gates ficou sabendo e o presenteou com 1,5 milhão de dólares para criar a Khan Academy. O sucesso tem sido espantoso, com seu site (www1hanacademy.org) ultrapassando 60 milhões de acessos para suas 2700 aulinhas de vinte minutos.

O que Khan fez foi mostrar uma porta aberta, levando a muitas soluções no mesmo espírito e não apenas à sua. No YouTube, ou onde quer que seja, pode morar uma aula expositiva, mostrando a matéria, tal como apresentada por um bom professor. Mas, como está gravada, não depende do humor do mestre naquele dia ou da preparação, na véspera, além de poupá-lo da enfadonha repetição, dia após dia. Alguém no mundo deve ser o campeão de ensinar, por exemplo, regra de três. Por que contentar-se com uma aula pior? Faça um experimento. Faça um aluno de boa escola. assistir a uma aula do Telecurso sobre algum assunto que ele já viu ao vivo do próprio professor. Aposto que ele achará melhor e mais clara a do vídeo. Aliás, a fórmula do Telecurso tem essa peculiaridade, pois os alunos olham o vídeo e depois interagem com o professor da telessala.

Desemprego maciço de professores, se der certo? Sob tal cenário, seria fracasso assegurado. Mas não é nada disso. Pelas restrições de tempo de aula, explicar regra de três - ou o que seja - é um processo inevitavelmente unidirecional, só o professor fala. Se o aluno não entendeu a explicação, há pouco tempo para insistir. No YouTube, em casa, continua unidirecional, mas basta clicar para repetir, até entender. Ou seja, a tecnologia serve para congelar a melhor aula possível, sobre qualquer assunto. Quando precisar, está lá, pai-a ser instantaneamente descongelada, na tela do computador. O professor ao vivo é importante na hora de discutir o assunto e tirar as dúvidas. Isso porque na aula expositiva o aluno acha que entendeu. Só descobre que não havia entendido quando precisa aplicar o conhecimento. Sendo assim, se - o exercício vai ser feito na aula a dificuldade emerge justamente no momento em que o professor está presente para ajudá-lo e com amplo tempo para tal. De fato, a graça da fórmula é que o professor passa todo o tempo interagindo com os alunos onde é insubstituível, em vez de desperdiçar a aula repetindo uma preleção estacionada no YouTube, com direito a bis.

A história da educação é uma sequência de fórmulas mágicas que vão sendo anunciadas, com promessas redentoras. Livro, cinema, TV, vídeo, computador, CD e mais outras tantas novidades tiveram suas promessas e, mais adiante, esquecimento. Será esse o destino chocho da minirrevolução desencadeada pelas dificuldades dos primos do Khan? Depois de tantos fracassos, não há como ser excessivamente otimista. Mas a ideia é boa. Capitaliza-se na existência de comunicadores brilhantes e dispostos a gravar aulas, na conveniência e ubiquidade do YouTube, somando-se a isso a velha e insubstituível interação pessoal entre mestre e aprendiz, na hora de aplicar os conhecimentos. Finalmente, cada ingrediente do aprendizado pode ser usado no seu lugar certo.

To be taught or to learn?

2011-12-13T07:42:00.001-08:00

By Kylie

I have found it very interesting to note that there seem to be two different types of students. Those that want to be taught and those that want to learn. In the day of readily available information I wonder if we are becoming a little lazy. Many years ago some of the most influential people were self-educated and used projects in order to learn.

Amongst these were Abraham Lincoln, Walt Disney, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, to name but a few. These people were able to take the information they had to hand and build on it in order to make something of it. It seems today that the ability to self-educate is becoming a lost art when in reality it should be something we are embracing more and more.

Learning isn’t simply about reading information in a book, that is only the first step. In order to really learn you need to take the basic information you have been given and apply it in a practical way.

This involves research and the ability to think outside the normal confines of our minds. Take things a little further, stretch them, play with them and manipulate them until you have explored every part of them. It is the only way you will truly learn. People who want someone to show them exactly how to do something never actually get started.

Source: http://www.eventexperts.com.au/chit-chat/to-be-taught-or-to-learn/

Ensinar ou Aprender?

2011-12-12T07:31:00.000-08:00

- Você ensina inglês há quanto tempo? – ela perguntou.

- Na verdade, não ensino inglês – respondi.

- Deve ter ocorrido algum engano – ela diz – Eu chamei uma tal de “Frank Experience”, pois eu quero aprender inglês. Eles deveriam ter me enviado um professor de inglês.

- Eu sei – respondo – mas como falei, eu não ensino inglês. Ensinar vem do latin “insignīre”, verbo composto do prefixo "in" (dentro) + "signire" (significar) colocar alguma informação “signo” dentro da sua cabeça. Nós não fazemos isso. Como poderíamos? O que ensinamos é o processo de aprender, palavra que deriva do latim "apprehendere", que significa apanhar, apropriar, adquirir conhecimento. O verbo aprender deriva também de preensão, do latim "prehensio-onis", que designa o ato de segurar, agarrar e apanhar, prender, fazer entrar, apossar-se de. That´s why, não ensinamos inglês. Volto a dizer: como poderíamos?
Como poderíamos ensinar algo se não sabemos quem você é, como aprende, quais são os seus limites e como gosta de estudar? Você só vai conseguir falar inglês se aprender de verdade e nunca aprenderá realmente se eu apenas ensinar. O professor de línguas não deveria “ ensinar”, e sim, educar, palavra que vem do latim "educare" , por sua vez ligado a "educere", verbo composto do prefixo "ex" (fora) + "ducere" (conduzir, levar), que significa literalmente 'conduzir para fora', ou seja, preparar o indivíduo para usar seu conhecimento no mundo.

- Engraçado! – disse ela rindo – Pensei que você falaria de inglês e você está me dando uma aula de latin.

- Actually, você está tendo uma explicação sobre o inglês mesmo.
Cerca de 50% do inglês vem do latin, por influência da antiga dominação do império romano e porque o francês já foi a língua nacional da Inglaterra por quase três séculos.

- Aula de história agora! – ela ri.

- Perceba que sem compreender o que você está aprendendo, você jamais conseguirá falar inglês ou qualquer outra coisa que você queira aprender. Precisamos que você não apenas compreenda como aprende, mais também que faça parte do processo, assumindo a responsabilidade de aprender. Há muitas pessoas que nos procuram, pensando equivocadamente que temos alguma mágica lingüística ou pílula do idioma para fazê-los falar automaticamente. Isso não existe.

- Já sei, como é mesmo aquela frase do inglês...”No pain, no gain!”:
sem sofrer, não chegarei lá.

- Quite the opposite! – respondi – Para aprender, você precisa se divertir com o processo: “No fun, no gain!”. Toda informação que chega ao cérebro passa por alguns filtros que “censuram” o que deve ou não deve ser guardado em sua memória. Estes “filtros” defensores, ajudam a discriminar e colocar atenção no que realmente importa aprender. Esses filtros são conhecidos pela sigla RAD, ou seja, sistema radicular (R), amígdala (A) e a intervenção da dopamina (D).
Para que uma informação nova (uma palavra nova em inglês, por exemplo) consiga passar pelo primeiro filtro “R”, ela necessita se apresentar como novidade que seja, no mínimo, interessante. Toda informação que consideramos “chata” ou “sem graça” é imediatamente bloqueada por esse filtro. Se, ao contrário, a informação é sugestiva, saborosa (savoring), ela passa por esse filtro e enfrenta a amígdala, o segundo filtro “A” que também é conhecido por filtro “afetivo” ou “emocional”.
Fica claro, que se a informação que chega ao filtro “A” não for agradável ou emocionante, o segundo filtro vai bloqueá-la. Vencido o segundo filtro, a informação “banha-se” de “D”, a famosa dopamina, que é o neurotransmissor do prazer. E tudo que é bom, divertido e prazeroso fica com a gente para sempre.

- Aula de neuropsicologia? – ela pergunta – Nossa! Como é mesmo o seu nome?

- Frank!

- Olha, Frank! Não me interessa “aprender” isso aí que você está falando, não! Eu quero apenas falar inglês, sabe? Isso tudo aí é muito confuso e deve haver algum jeito melhor e mais rápido para eu fazer isto. Muito obrigado pelo seu tempo.

- Thank you pela oportunidade de conhecê-la e boa sorte em sua busca.

Moral da Crônica: há pessoas que nasceram para ser ensinadas e outras que nasceram para aprender. Qual delas é você?

Professor Frank.

Frases da Semana.

2011-12-09T05:35:00.000-08:00

"Ensinar inglês possibilita descobertas bem interessantes."

"...os gambits trabalham como sinalizadores de conversação, possibilitando a quem está falando uma maior fluência ..."

"The Stuff Within é basicamente, you know, um recurso da língua que, like, possibilita ao falante ganhar... a kind of tempo ..."

‎" Se o conteúdo que se pensa ensinar não está no cotidiano do aluno, se não se reflete em sua realidade e em suas emoções, existe conteúdo, mas não existe aprendizagem." Celso Antunes

‎"Quando caminhar, caminhe. Quando se sentar, fique sentado." Yun Men

Bom final de semana!

2010 Language Teaching Christopher Brumfit Award winner Dr Susy Macqueen discusses her award winning dissertation

2011-12-09T05:11:00.000-08:00

BY CAMBRIDGE EXTRA, ON OCTOBER 17TH, 2011

When we become highly proficient in a language, we tend to use it in chunks or patterns. For a native language especially, we learn and become adept at manipulating masses of word patterns such as absolutely not, as it were, in light of the fact that, curry favour, I think that, scattered showers, it’s worth –ing, just a sec, etc. Language patterns like these make communication efficient – we don’t need to spend time piecing together the smallest bits of language. Rather, we work with larger bits that are easily accessed in the memories of both the user and the receiver. However, the pervasiveness of patterning makes it quite a challenge to sound ‘natural’ in second languages. Grammatical rules themselves are patterns, but they are more broadly applicable. Beyond these general patterns, there are masses of idiosyncratic lexicogrammatical patterns that form the stuff of communication. I set out to find out how second language users deal with the massive task of learning such patterns. In order to do this, I traced the development of chunks in the writing of four ESL users as they prepared for university study and later once they were in their university courses.

Second language users embark on a program of chunk-making and chunk-breaking. That is, they build up a stock of formulae and at the same time, they start learning how these can be applied and manipulated. One way the students in my study did this was through experimentation with patterns they had seen or heard. For some language learners, receiving teacher feedback can be an opportunity to experiment with chunks of language. If it doesn’t ‘work’, the teacher will provide feedback. The feedback process is therefore a safe place where students can take risks with language. This is significant for language teachers who may think that their students always aim to produce language they believe to be nativelike. In fact, students may be trying something they suspect is not nativelike, even if they know a nativelike alternative.

The language users in my study also actively sought to imitate the language of expert users. Imitation has a troubled history in the field of second language learning; it has behaviourist overtones and, in university contexts, it is haunted by the spectre of plagiarism. Imitation is, however, central to language learning. Chunks have to come from somewhere. It isn’t necessarily a mindless copying activity, however. The process revealed in the writing of these language users was one of adaptive imitation – ‘the purposeful detection and imitation of lexicogrammatical patterns which are adapted in order to participate in a discourse community’. Over time, it was possible to see how the learners gained increasing control over the discipline-specific language patterns that they gleaned from expert sources. Since lessons, language textbooks and teacher feedback can only provide a small sample of the number of patterns required to operate in a university context, it is arguable that most pattern learning occurs through this transformative process of imitation-for-learning.

Dr Susy Macqueen

Find out more -http://languages.unimelb.edu.au/about/staff/profiles/macqueen.html

Stages of Second Language Acquisition

2011-12-08T07:40:00.000-08:00

by Judie Haynes

All new learners of English progress through the same stages to acquire language. However, the length of time each students spends at a particular stage may vary greatly.

Stage I: Pre-production

Stage II: Early production

Here are some suggestions for working with students in this stage of English language learning:

Ask yes/no and either/or questions.

Accept one or two word responses.

Give students the opportunity to participate in some of the whole class activities.

Use pictures and realia to support questions.

Modify content information to the language level of ELLs.

Build vocabulary using pictures.

Provide listening activities.

Simplify the content materials to be used. Focus on key vocabulary and concepts.

When teaching elementary age ELLs, use simple books with predictable text.

Support learning with graphic organizers, charts and graphs. Begin to foster writing in English through labeling and short sentences. Use a frame to scaffold writing.

Stage III: Speech emergence

Sound out stories phonetically.

Read short, modified texts in content area subjects.

Complete graphic organizers with word banks.

Understand and answer questions about charts and graphs.

Match vocabulary words to definitions.

Study flashcards with content area vocabulary.

Participate in duet, pair and choral reading activities.

Write and illustrate riddles.

Understand teacher explanations and two-step directions.

Compose brief stories based on personal experience.

Write in dialogue journals.

Stage IV: Intermediate fluency

Stage V: Advanced Fluency

Source: http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/language_stages.php

Chunking

2011-12-07T08:56:00.000-08:00

By BEN ZIMMER

Published: September 16, 2010

My ebullient 4-year-old son, Blake, is a big fan of the CDs and DVDs that the band They Might Be Giants recently produced for the kiddie market. He’ll gleefully sing along to “Seven,” a catchy tune from their 2008 album “Here Come the 123s” that tells of a house overrun by anthropomorphic number sevens. The first one is greeted at the door: “Oh, there’s the doorbell. Let’s see who’s out there. Oh, it’s a seven. Hello, Seven. Won’t you come in, Seven? Make yourself at home.”

Despite the song’s playful surrealism (more and more sevens arrive, filling up the living room), the opening lines are routine and formulaic. The polite ritual of answering the door and inviting a guest into your house relies on certain fixed phrases in English: “Won’t you come in?” “Make yourself at home.”

As Blake learned these pleasantries through the song and its video, I wondered how much — or how little — his grasp of basic linguistic etiquette is grounded in the syntactical rules that structure how words are combined in English. An idiom like “Make yourself at home” is rather tricky if you stop to think about it: the imperative verb “make” is followed by a second-person reflexive pronoun (“yourself”) and an adverbial phrase (“at home”), but it’s difficult to break the phrase into its components. Instead, we grasp the whole thing at once.

Ritualized moments of everyday communication — greeting someone, answering a telephone call, wishing someone a happy birthday — are full of these canned phrases that we learn to perform with rote precision at an early age. Words work as social lubricants in such situations, and a language learner like Blake is primarily getting a handle on the pragmatics of set phrases in English, or how they create concrete effects in real-life interactions. The abstract rules of sentence structure are secondary.

In recent decades, the study of language acquisition and instruction has increasingly focused on “chunking”: how children learn language not so much on a word-by-word basis but in larger “lexical chunks” or meaningful strings of words that are committed to memory. Chunks may consist of fixed idioms or conventional speech routines, but they can also simply be combinations of words that appear together frequently, in patterns that are known as “collocations.” In the 1960s, the linguist Michael Halliday pointed out that we tend to talk of “strong tea” instead of “powerful tea,” even though the phrases make equal sense. Rain, on the other hand, is much more likely to be described as “heavy” than “strong.”

A native speaker picks up thousands of chunks like “heavy rain” or “make yourself at home” in childhood, and psycholinguistic research suggests that these phrases are stored and processed in the brain as individual units. As the University of Nottingham linguist Norbert Schmitt has explained, it is much less taxing cognitively to have a set of ready-made lexical chunks at our disposal than to have to work through all the possibilities of word selection and sequencing every time we open our mouths.

Cognitive studies of chunking have been bolstered by computer-driven analysis of usage patterns in large databases of texts called “corpora.” As linguists and lexicographers build bigger and bigger corpora (a major-league corpus now contains billions of words, thanks to readily available online texts), it becomes clearer just how “chunky” the language is, with certain words showing undeniable attractions to certain others.

Many English-language teachers have been eager to apply corpus findings in the classroom to zero in on salient chunks rather than individual vocabulary words. This is especially so among teachers of English as a second language, since it’s mainly the knowledge of chunks that allows non-native speakers to advance toward nativelike fluency. In his 1993 book, “The Lexical Approach,” Michael Lewis set out a program of action, and the trend has continued in such recent works as “From Corpus to Classroom: Language Use and Language Teaching” and “Teaching Chunks of Language: From Noticing to Remembering.”

Not everyone is on board, however. Michael Swan, a British writer on language pedagogy, has emerged as a prominent critic of the lexical-chunk approach. Though he acknowledges, as he told me in an e-mail, that “high-priority chunks need to be taught,” he worries that “the ‘new toy’ effect can mean that formulaic expressions get more attention than they deserve, and other aspects of language — ordinary vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and skills — get sidelined.”

Swan also finds it unrealistic to expect that teaching chunks will produce nativelike proficiency in language learners. “Native English speakers have tens or hundreds of thousands — estimates vary — of these formulae at their command,” he says. “A student could learn 10 a day for years and still not approach native-speaker competence.”

Besides, Swan warns, “overemphasizing ‘scripts’ in our teaching can lead to a phrase-book approach, where formulaic learning is privileged and the more generative parts of language — in particular the grammatical system — are backgrounded.” Formulaic language is all well and good when talking about the familiar and the recurrent, he argues, but it is inadequate for dealing with novel ideas and situations, where the more open-ended aspects of language are paramount.

The methodology of the chunking approach is still open to this type of criticism, but data-driven reliance on corpus research will most likely dominate English instruction in coming years. Lexical chunks have entered the house of language teaching, and they’re making themselves at home.

Ben Zimmer will answer one reader question every other week. Send your queries to onlanguage@nytimes.com. You can follow Mr. Zimmer on Twitter at twitter.com/OnLanguage.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/magazine/19FOB-OnLanguage-Zimmer.html

A version of this article appeared in print on September 19, 2010, on page MM30 of the Sunday Magazine.

O que são os tais chunks of language?

2011-12-06T08:13:00.000-08:00

Por Denilso de Lima

Chunks of Language tem sido um assunto que ganhou notoriedade no ensino de língua inglesa no Brasil. No começo, tratava-se de algo misterioso e praticamente impossível de ser tratado em sala de aula. No Brasil, o assunto ainda é relativamente novo. Há sim um grande interesse por parte de professores em saber o que são os tais chunks of language e como ensiná-los. No blog Inglês na Ponta da Língua, já escrevi muito sobre o assunto. Porém, lá o foco sempre foi aprendizes de inglês. No entanto, aqui posso tratá-los com uma linguagem voltada especificamente para professores.

Antes de explicar o que são, quero informar a todos que tecnicamente falando os chunks of language são conhecidos como formulaic sequences ou formulaic language. Há ainda outros nomes: lexical chunks, lexical units, lexica items, chunks, multi-word units, ready-mades, prefabricated language, holophrases, entre outros. Independente do nome usado, saiba que todos se referem a uma coisa só.

Alison Wray, linguista inglesa e especialista no assunto, afirma que formulaic language é um “termo usado por muitos pesquisadores para se referir às grandes unidades de processamento – ou seja, unidades lexicais que são formadas por duas palavras ou mais” (Formulaic Language: Pushing the Boundaries, p. 3). Essa é a mesma definição dada por Scott Thornbury no livro An A-Z of ELT, página 85: “formulaic language refere-se àquelas sequências de duas ou mais palavras que operam como uma se fosse uma coisa só, uma unidade”.

Essas unidades – formulaic language – não são formadas e nem mesmo processadas palavra por palavra. Elas são armazenadas e puxadas da memória como se fossem um conjunto. Para facilitar a compreensão, seguem abaixo alguns exemplos de formulaic language bastante comuns na língua portuguesa:

“Por falar nisso…”; “Sinto muito!”; “Me desculpa!”; “Não foi essa a intenção”; “Foi sem querer!”; “Me dei mal!”; “Ai meu deus!”

“Bom dia!”; “Boa tarde!”; “Boa noite!”; “Tenha um bom dia!”; “Como vai?”; “Tudo bem?”; “E aí?”; “Tudo joia?”;

“Até amanhã!”; “Te vejo na (segunda)!”; “A gente se vê!”; Até mais (tarde)!”; “Até qualquer hora!”;

“Você quer…?”; “Que tal…?”; “Quer um pouquinho de…?”; “O lance é o seguinte…”

“Onde você quer chegar com isso?”; “O que você quer dizer com isso?”; “Para encurtar a conversar…”; “Essa é uma longa história…”; “Você não sabe da missa a metade…”; “Ajoelhou, agora tem de rezar…”;

“redondamente enganado”; “dar uma festa”; “tomar vergonha na cara”; “arrumar a mesa”; “lavar as mãos”; “escovar os dentes”; “distorcer a verdade”

“Agué mole em pedra dura…”; “A cavalo dado não se olha os dentes”; “passar dessa para melhor”; “chutar o pau da barraca”

Todas as expressões (sentenças) listadas acima são excelentes exemplos de chunks of language (formulaic language) em português. Nós aprendemos cada uma delas da forma como são. Ou seja, aprendemos a dizê-las e interpretá-las como se fossem um conjunto e não palavra por palavra. Ao batermos papo com alguém ou mesmo ao escrevermos um email, por exemplo, esses conjuntos saem da cabeça como se fossem uma única coisa. Nós não as formamos palavra por palavra.

Em inglês, os exemplos de formulaic language são inúmeros também. Aliás, no ensino de inglês somos expostos a formulaic language desde o primeiro momento que começamos a aprender a língua inglesa:

“How old are you?”; “Where are you from?”; “What’s your name?”; “How are you?”

“I’m sorry!”; “Excuse me!”; “I beg your pardon!”; “Thank you!”; “You’re welcome!”; “Never mind!”; “No problem!”

“The thing is…”; “Would you like…”; “What’s … like?”; “What does … look like?”; “By the way”; “So to speak”

“What’s up?”; “What’ve you been up to?”; “What’ve you been doing lately?”; “Where’ve you been?”

“Get up early”; “Get up late”; “flag down a taxi”; “run out of (money, gas, sugar, coffee, etc.)”;

“Very much mistaken”; “set the table”; “throw a party”; “brush your teeth”; “send an email”; “stretch the truth”

“Water dripping day by day…”; “Kick the bucket”; “Go by the book”;

Como você pode ver a ideia representada pelo chunks of language (formulaic language) não é nada complicada. Observe que qualquer conjunto de duas palavras ou mais que possui um significado próprio e só pode ser interpretado em conjunto é um chunk of language.

Em termos de ensino de vocabulário (ensino lexical), você pode dizer que de um lado temos as palavras isoladas e de outro os chunks of language. Ou seja, podemos ensinar as palavras isoladas (casa, carro, vermelho, por, falar, nisso, como, você, está, o, que, você, acha, disso, etc.); como podemos ensinar também os chunks of language do modo como eles são usados em inglês.

De modo simples e prático, essa é a explicação para o que são os tais chunks of language. Espero ter esclarecido o assunto. Caso você tenha algum comentário ou dúvida deixe um comentário. Em um post futuro, falarei sobre os tipos de chunks (a classificação que fazemos) e também como eles podem mudar o modo como você ensina inglês (a aplicação deles no ensino de inglês). For now, that’s all! Take care!

Source: http://www.denilsodelima.com/por-que-ensinar-chunks-of-language/

The Stuff Within

2011-12-05T08:07:00.000-08:00

Ensinar inglês possibilita descobertas bem interessantes. Na escola para professores, somos ensinados que para que um aluno possa falar bem uma língua estrangeira, tudo o que ele precisa é aprender gramática, ter um bom vocabulário e com uma pitada de prática: Shazam! Inglês fluente. Na vida real, não ocorre assim. Com a exceção de alguns poucos estudantes dotados de uma facilidade única para absorver e usar qualquer informação, os outros ( a grande maioria) patina na fluência. Por mais que esses consigam, muitas vezes, escrever, ler e até escutar muito bem; na hora de falar: nothing.

O que falta para esses estudantes conseguirem deslanchar? "The Stuff Within" parece ser a resposta.

The Stuff Within é basicamente, you know, um recurso da língua que, like, possibilita ao falante ganhar... a kind of tempo para que ele consiga, you know, lembrar de uma palavra, (what else?) pensar em como descrever algo or apenas ganhar tempo numa conversação. Do you know what I mean?

Aparentemente, when it comes to learn how to speak a second language, levamos mais tempo para conectar idéias, por mais que saibamos o que dizer e como dizer. Muitos estudantes pagam uma fortuna em imersões ou viajam para diversos países, tentando resolver esse problema de comunicação, mas tudo o que conseguem é mais frustração. Observando meus estudantes e suas dificuldades para expressarem seus pensamentos e idéias, percebi que havia " gaps " - espaços e silêncios em sua fala e quando eles conseguiam emitir algum som, saia um " humm" ou um " hamm" que não os ajudava a finalizar aquilo que eles queriam dizer. Daí, conheci a mágica dos " gambits".

Os Gambits são expressões em inglês que não querem dizer lá muita coisa, mas é usado, entre outras coisas, para chamar a atenção ( Right? Did you get it?) ou para introduzir um assunto ( Well, as far as I know, in my opinion, etc) que, de alguma forma, ajuda a conectar idéias e construir melhor a fala. Como marcadores conversacionais, os gambits trabalham como sinalizadores de conversação, possibilitando a quem está falando uma maior fluência e para quem está ouvindo, uma impressão natural de conversação.

Comecei a trabalhar com gambits nas aulas e o resultado começou a aparecer: alunos que eram monossilábicos, passaram a se arriscar em construções vocais mais complexas, querendo finalizar a sua fala e expressar bem as suas opiniões. Os gambits ajudam a dar confiança durante o ato da fala, possibilitando ao aluno, uma ferramenta útil e eficaz para que eles puxem uma idéia depois da outra, possibilitando, finalmente a comunicação na língua estudada.

Alguns exemplos:

Oh, I almost forgot...Já ia me esquecendo...

Just a small point...Só mais uma coisa [coisinha]

Not only that but…Não somente isso, mas…

And besides…E ainda… / além disso…

I’ve no idea who told you that but…Não tenho a menor ideia de quem lhe disse isso, mas…

My Goodness where did you get that idea form?Meu Deus, de onde tirou essa ideia?

Because of that…Por causa disso…

Absolutely! Com certeza!

So do I. Eu também.

I don´t know. Eu não sei.

Oh, it’s slipped my mind. Oh… Esqueci!

I haven’t a clue. Não tenho a menor ideia.

I don’t believe. Não acredito!

I’m not sure. Não tenho certeza.

And so on... e por ai vai.

Essas expressões ao serem colocadas no meio das frases - The Stuff Within- no lugar das pausas e silêncio tem sido uma das melhores práticas para estudantes com bloqueios não só nos níveis mais avançados, mais também nos níveis mais básicos do idioma, onde o aluno, percebe que mesmo com poucos recursos da língua, a comunicação flui naturalmente.

As simple as that.

Professor Frank.

Frases da Semana.

2011-12-02T05:43:00.000-08:00

"Quando um aprendizado de um novo idioma começa, o professor tenta criar um laço - a bond - com o estudante."

"... o estudante sem comprometimento só vai a aula quando quer e só estuda quando pode. E depois reclama que nunca conseguiu aprender..."

"Ensinar ou Educar? - in+signo: pôr um sinal em alguém, fora para dentro, implantar alguma coisa, input /// ex+duco: trazer para fora, tirar de, dar à luz, output. Então, ensinar ou educar?"

"Nem tudo o que se escreve se pronuncia...Nem tudo o que se pronuncia se escreve."

"Muita gente "erra" quando tenta "acertar" demais..."

Bom final de semana!

Bilingual Benefits Reach Beyond Communication

2011-12-02T04:24:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Nov. 9, 2010) — Speaking two languages can be handy when traveling abroad, applying for jobs, and working with international colleagues, but how does bilingualism influence the way we think?

In the current issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Ellen Bialystok (York University), Fergus I.M. Craik (Rotman Research Institute), David W. Green (University College London), and Tamar H. Gollan (University of California, San Diego) review the latest research on bilingualism and ways in which knowing two languages can change brain function, even affecting brain areas not directly involved in communication.

Children learning two languages from birth achieve the same basic milestones (e.g., their first word) as monolinguals do, but they may use different strategies for language acquisition. Although bilinguals tend to have smaller vocabularies in each language than do children who know one language, bilinguals may have an advantage when it comes to certain nonverbal cognitive tasks. Bilinguals tend to perform better than monolinguals on exercises that require blocking out distractions and switching between two or more different tasks.

The authors note that “when a bilingual speaks two languages regularly, speaking in just one of these languages requires use of the control network to limit interference from the other language and to ensure the continued dominance of the intended language.” The bilingual advantage in attention and cognitive control may have important, long-term benefits. Preliminary evidence even suggests that their increased use of these systems may protect bilinguals against Alzheimer’s.

The differences between monolinguals and bilinguals have important clinical implications. For example, vocabulary tests are commonly used in psychologists’ offices and bilinguals’ scores may not accurately reflect their language ability. According to the authors, “Bilinguals who score below average may be inaccurately diagnosed with impairment when none is present, or could be diagnosed as ‘normal for a bilingual’ even though impairment is in fact present and treatment is needed.” Clinicians need to be aware of the potential to misinterpret bilinguals’ test scores. Developing tests that specifically target bilingual populations may result in better outcomes for these patients.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101109113028.htm

Bilingual Babies' Vocabulary Linked to Early Brain Differentiation

2011-12-01T08:30:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Aug. 29, 2011) — Babies and children are whizzes at learning a second language, but that ability begins to fade as early as their first birthdays.

Researchers at the University of Washington's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences are investigating the brain mechanisms that contribute to infants' prowess at learning languages, with the hope that the findings could boost bilingualism in adults, too.

In a new study, the researchers report that the brains of babies raised in bilingual households show a longer period of being flexible to different languages, especially if they hear a lot of language at home. The researchers also show that the relative amount of each language -- English and Spanish -- babies were exposed to affected their vocabulary as toddlers.

The study, published online Aug. 17 in Journal of Phonetics, is the first to measure brain activity throughout infancy and relate it to language exposure and speaking ability.

"The bilingual brain is fascinating because it reflects humans' abilities for flexible thinking -- bilingual babies learn that objects and events in the world have two names, and flexibly switch between these labels, giving the brain lots of good exercise," said Patricia Kuhl, co-author of the study and co-director of the UW's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences.

Kuhl's previous studies show that between 8 and 10 months of age, monolingual babies become increasingly able to distinguish speech sounds of their native language, while at the same time their ability to distinguish sounds from a foreign language declines. For instance, between 8 and 10 months of age babies exposed to English become better at detecting the difference between "r" and "l" sounds, which are prevalent in the English language. This is the same age when Japanese babies, who are not exposed to as many "r" and "l" sounds, decline in their ability to detect them.

"The infant brain tunes itself to the sounds of the language during this sensitive period in development, and we're trying to figure out exactly how that happens," said Kuhl, who's also a UW professor of speech and hearing sciences. "But almost nothing is known about how bilingual babies do this for two languages. Knowing how experience sculpts the brain will tell us something that goes way beyond language development."

In the current study, babies from monolingual (English or Spanish) and bilingual (English and Spanish) households wore caps fitted with electrodes to measure brain activity with an electroencephalogram, or EEG, a device that records the flow of energy in the brain. Babies heard background speech sounds in one language, and then a contrasting sound in the other language occurred occasionally.

For example, a sound that is used in both Spanish and English served as the background sound and then a Spanish "da" and an English "ta" each randomly occurred 10 percent of the time as contrasting sounds. If the brain can detect the contrasting sound, there is a signature pattern called the mismatch response that can be detected with the EEG.

Monolingual babies at 6-9 months of age showed the mismatch response for both the Spanish and English contrasting sounds, indicating that they noticed the change in both languages. But at 10-12 months of age, monolingual babies only responded to the English contrasting sound.

Bilingual babies showed a different pattern. At 6-9 months, bilinguals did not show the mismatch response, but at 10-12 months they showed the mismatch for both sounds.

This suggests that the bilingual brain remains flexible to languages for a longer period of time, possibly because bilingual infants are exposed to a greater variety of speech sounds at home.

This difference in development suggests that the bilingual babies "may have a different timetable for neurally committing to a language" compared with monolingual babies, said Adrian Garcia-Sierra, lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at UW's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences.

"When the brain is exposed to two languages rather than only one, the most adaptive response is to stay open longer before showing the perceptual narrowing that monolingual infants typically show at the end of the first year of life," Garcia-Sierra said.

To see if those brain responses at 10-12 months related to later speaking skills, the researchers followed up with the parents when the babies were about 15 months old to see how many Spanish and English words the children knew. They found that early brain responses to language could predict infants' word learning ability. That is, the size of the bilingual children's vocabulary was associated with the strength of their brain responses in discriminating languages at 10-12 months of age.

Early exposure to language also made a difference: Bilingual babies exposed to more English at home, including from their parents, other relatives and family friends, subsequently produced more words in English. The pattern held true for Spanish.

The researchers say the best way for children to learn a second language is through social interactions and daily exposure to the language.
"Learning a second language is like learning a sport," said Garcia-Sierra, who is raising his two young children as bilingual. "The more you play the better you get."

Co-authors are Maritza Rivera-Gaxiola, formerly a UW research scientist; Cherie Percaccio, a postdoctoral researcher and Lindsay Klarman, a research technician at the UW Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences; Barbara Conboy, a speech-language pathologist at the University of Redlands; and Harriett Romo, director, and Sophia Ortiz, assistant director, of the Child & Adolescent Policy Research Center at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
The National Science Foundation Science of Learning Program grant to the UW's LIFE Center, a multi-institutional program, funded the study.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110829070559.htm

How Does Language Exist In The Brain?

2011-11-30T08:18:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (June 30, 2008) — The “La Mente Bilingüe” research team that doctor Itziar Laka leads in the Faculty of Arts at the University of the Basque Country analyses bilingual processing of language. The aim is to find out how the brain acquires and manages languages and to discover in what way languages being similar or different is influential in this process.

In order to understand how we become fluent in a language and to better comprehend bilingualism, the La Mente Bilingüe (“the bilingual brain”) research team at the Faculty of Arts of the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU analysed the acquisition process for languages. As Doctor Itziar Laka, Director of the team, explained, “language is not something that circulates out there somewhere; although we have ways of representing it, language exists in the brain”.

In October 2007 they began the BRAINGLOT project, focusing on bilingualism, in collaboration with numerous research teams and under the coordinating leadership of Dr. Nuria Sebastián from the University of Barcelona. This project links neurosciences and linguistics and, within this, “we respond to the questions most concerning linguistics: How are languages organised in the brain? Does there exist some interchange of influences between them? Is it important that the languages are similar or not? When is a second language learnt?”

Acquisition of language
Despite much research on acquisition of languages amongst monolingual persons, scientists still have to ask themselves basic questions about bilingual acquisition: How do babies realise that they are in a bilingual environment? What are the clues for them in discovering this? How is discrimination between languages produced in infants? “We have just begun research in this line and working with children requires taking it slowly, the prior preparation period being very long”, explained Ms Laka.

For the moment, work is being carried out with small children of four, five and six and the aim is to undertake the study with even younger children. In fact, we start to be fluent in a language before birth; if we wait for a child to say its first words in order to study the acquisition process for or the initiation of a language, it is too late”.

The acquisition of languages amongst bilingual persons is a theme that is as complex as it is mysterious “For example, if we analyse two syllables that sound the same with a machine that measures sound frequencies, we will see that they are not exactly the same; so, how does the baby know it is hearing the same syllable? What is – for him or her – “the same” or “different”? The Mente Bilingüe team aims to respond to these questions by means of an experimental methodology and, to this end, the researchers are preparing specific material based on their investigations in the field of phonology.

Different ways of processing the language

“We do not know how bilingual persons represent and manage their languages and it is in the monolingual situation that we understand the processing mechanisms better - bilingualism being much less understood”, explained Ms Laka. As regards the structure of the language, the order of words is a good example for studying bilingualism. “Basque has a free order of words, but something we linguists call neutral or canonical order exists, i.e. that which requires less effort from the brain”, she explained.
According to the terminology of linguistic typology, Basque is a SOV (subject-object-verb) language, and Spanish or English are, on the other hand, SVO type. In the Mente Bilingüe team we want to find answers to questions such as: “For those persons whose mother language is Spanish and then learn Basque after the age of five, which of these typologies or word orders do they use in language processing? Do they use the same mechanisms for processing word order as do native Basque speakers who have subsequently learnt Spanish?”

The Mente Bilingüe researchers employ two methodologies, amongst others, to investigate the order of words: one analysed the behaviour of word order processing and the other the electrophysiology involved in the processing (the electric signals produced in the brain). This last technique is known as ERP (Evoked Response Potential). In the behavioural methodology the experimental individuals were sat in front of the computers of the Elebilab laboratory at the Faculty of Arts.

Either written or auditory cues were provided by the computers with sentences of various structures and the time measured for the individuals to read/listen and respond to the prompts. “For example, the brain needs much less time for processing the Basque sentence, ‘otsoak ardiak jan ditu’ (the wolf has eaten the sheep) than to understand ‘ardiak otsoak jan ditu’ (the wolf has eaten the sheep), although both are grammatically correct”.

The ERP technique is useful for analysing how we process the language. The subjects wear a cap fitted with 60 electrodes, with the aim of measuring the electricity generated by the brain. “This is very valuable information for us as it enables us to measure with precision the effort made by the brain given certain structures”, Dr Laka explained. The first research work undertaken in the Basque Country using the ERP technique was published in 2006 by the member of Mente Bilingüe, Mr Kepa Erdozia.

Apart from questions of syntactic processing, they are also analysing the effect of age on the bilingual brain with respect to phonology, vocabulary and grammar, amongst other phenomena. “To date, we know the age of acquisition of a language influences the phonology, given that those learning a language at infancy do not have an accent when speaking; those learning at an adult age may or may not”, explained Ms Laka. In the same way, it is well known that the age of acquisition of a language does not have an influence on vocabulary. “As regards grammar, our research shows that it should not be understood as a whole but that inside it there are some phenomena that do show effects of acquisition and others that do not”, she added.

Bilingual control

The researchers at the University of Barcelona who have collaborated with the UPV/EHU team have concluded that highly proficient bilingual individuals and those less competent in one of their two languages do not employ the same mechanisms to change from one to the other. Also, the fact of having to control two languages with frequency trains the brain and this training may slow down the loss of certain cognitive features that appear with ageing. “We are investigating to see if these effects found amongst bilingual persons who speak Catalan and Spanish are replicated in those who speak Basque and Spanish, in order to judge if the distance between languages has any effect”, states Dr. Laka.

For scientists this is of great interest – analysing and comparing two bilingual populations who share one of their two languages. Moreover, Catalan and Spanish are very similar syntactically, while Basque and Spanish are highly dissimilar in this respect. As regards phonology, the reverse is the case, Spanish differs more from Catalan than it does from Basque. Thanks to this, researchers can better distinguish the effects in the brain that distance has between languages.

source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080630093618.htm

Moral da história: Tropeçando em uma nova língua

2011-11-29T08:12:00.000-08:00

Entenda como os neurônios do Ptix ajudaram-no a entender o que a professora estava dizendo

Por: Roberto Lent, professor do Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas,, da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)

Quando aprendemos a falar (e a compreender) uma língua, utilizamos uma grande região do cérebro cheia de neurônios especializados em ouvir e reconhecer os sons falados e outros que procuram saber o que esses sons querem dizer (como se fossem uma espécie de dicionário). Aí, a pessoa pode guardar na memória, só pensando, ou então falar alguma coisa em resposta ao som que ouviu: um comentário curto, uma resposta comprida ou um palavrão (epa!). Só os seres humanos conseguem isso – os outros animais não. E mais: para isso, só usamos a metade esquerda do cérebro!

Você deve estar pensando: o que é que a outra metade faz? Bem, a parte direita do cérebro participa da linguagem também, através de neurônios que controlam a mímica. É como naquela brincadeira na qual temos que adivinhar uma palavra ou o título de um filme só fazendo gestos. Da mesma forma, sempre que a gente fala, o rosto faz mímica junto, expressando as emoções correspondentes ao assunto: alegria, tristeza, raiva e assim por diante. E as mãos e braços participam também, gesticulando. São os neurônios do lado direito do cérebro que comandam a mímica, sempre conversando com os do lado esquerdo para sair tudo certo. Se não fosse assim, a pessoa poderia rir quando tirasse uma nota ruim na escola e chorar quando ganhasse um presente de Natal. É mole?

Source: http://chc.cienciahoje.uol.com.br/a-turma-do-ze-neurim/tropecando-em-uma-nova-lingua/moral-da-historia-tropecando-em-uma-nova-lingua

A Bond

2011-11-28T07:14:00.000-08:00

Júlia começou a fazer inglês comigo há alguns meses. Ela é inteligente, aprende rápido e mostrou um grande avanço em pouco tempo. Se ela estudasse por conta própria, já estaria falando inglês há tempos, o problema é que nem nas aulas ela aparece. Ela falta em quase todas as classes e quando aparece ( ela estuda com um grupo), fica perdida e reclama que não está entendendo nada. Falta " bond" com o aprendizado dela.

- Você sumiu, Júlia? What happened? - pergunto.

- Estou trabalhando muito, teacher. - ela responde.

- Você já pensou, alguma vez, que talvez eu esteja te esperando para aula e faltar sem avisar é uma tremenda falta de respeito comigo, e com o seu próprio aprendizado? - eu digo mentalmente, permanecendo calado, afinal, isso é o tipo de maturidade que se tem ou não se tem e pronto. Difícil ensinar sobre respeito, por isso tenho esperança que meus alunos aprendam. E aprender algo novo requer uma mudança de comportamento.

Quando um aprendizado de um novo idioma começa, o professor tenta criar um laço - a bond - com o estudante, no intuito de facilitar o processo de aprendizagem e que o aluno possa assumir uma responsabilidade, junto ao professor, pelo processo de aquisição desse idioma. O que nem sempre é fácil, uma vez que a maioria dos estudantes transfere para o professor a responsabilidade de ensinar, esquecendo-se que é ele que vai aprender.

Para aprender bem inglês, além das aulas assistidas e o obvious "self-study", bons learners sabem que respeitar esse bond com o professor é importante para criar uma seriedade e uma disciplina, que tendo o professor como " seta", os levará à sonhada fluência.

Esse respeitar inclui, entre outras coisas, não faltar as aulas, fazer seu self-study e chegar no horário. Of course, todos temos nossos issues, compromissos, problemas que impossibilitam que estejamos presentes, mas quanto tempo leva para um estudante enviar um e-mail ou um message text para o professor dizendo:

" Teach, I am afraid I wont be able to go to the class today. Sorry!"

O que acontece é que o estudante sem comprometimento só vai a aula quando quer e só estuda quando pode. E depois reclama que nunca conseguiu aprender...

- Teacher, I am sorry! Eu tive outro compromisso - dizem eles.

" Outro" compromisso? - me pergunto em silêncio. Se estudar inglês fosse um compromisso, at the first place, eles teriam, at least, se preocupado em desmarcar o " compromisso" que já tinham agendado previously com o seu aprendizado.

A minha sorte é que Júlia é uma exceção à regra. A maioria dos meus estudantes já se tornaram learners e me enviam e-mails como esse que recebi do meu learner Leandro Sena:

" Hi Frank,

How are you?

As Beatles have sung: "Its been a hard days night, I've been working like a dog" rsrs...

This week I have had another opportunity to represent my company with some guys from an American company... What I wanna share with you is that even being absent from the classes, I'm talking and writing in English every day.

Thanks God and thanks you for all tips and lessons that I've learned from you.

I Can speak English wherever I go,It is amazing.

I am now in Rio, waiting for my flight... as always, it is late.

Bye!

Leandro"

Frases da Semana.

2011-11-25T05:46:00.001-08:00

"Take every chance you get to use your English!"

"You don't want to be completely silent, but you need time to find the words: "Well…", "OK…", "So…"

"Ao invés de se preocupar em soar americano ou britânico, você deveria estar se esforçando para aprender a se comunicar bem."

"Definitivamente, não é fácil ser criança..."

Bom final de semana!