L2 Acquisition Model

Spatial learners!

I developed this graphic, first as a sketch, throughout my second language acquisition course intending to simplify and connect the many theories of language learning and acquisition. The professor asked me to continue the model and present it to the class, so I threw it up on Google Docs. I think this is the final draft. Critiques and suggestions are more than welcomed.

L2 Learner's Teachers Survey

I've been fiddling with a teacher survey for my L2 acquisition course project and finally completed a Google Form to send out. This survey will be one of a set of observations that will be synthesized into an ESL learner ethnography, from which the intention is to draw some important conclusions on what activates the student's learning and what holds it back. For this survey I focused mostly on the interactions the student may or may not have within a class.

Assuming that you won't actually complete the survey, I'll provide the link to it for your and my own educational purposes.

New word: tautologous

I came across a new word today while doing research for my descriptive grammar project.

Many speakers find their [adverbs in relative clauses] use along with the corresponding antecedent somewhat tautologous...

From Merriam-Webster: True by virtue of it logical form alone.

Arabic IPA chart

I really had trouble finding a nice Arabic IPA chart online. All the ones I did find excluded the pharyngealized consonants (ض ص ظ ط). I'm not sure if there is a technical reason for that, but I figured I'd make one with all the segments. So my wife and I made this one on Excel and snapped a screenshot.

Good find: Reader Digest's American usage dictionary from 1983

While moving my grandmother's belongings during her relocation, my mother found this like-new Reader's Digest usage dictionary from 1983. It has more than just usage, though; it is also a neat linguistic resource that explains many linguistic concepts, groups English loan words under the languages from which they were borrowed, and lists unique words from different American dialects.

Rattray, D. (Ed.). (1983). Success with words. Pleasantville, NY: The Reader's Digest Association, Inc.

Fun with syntax trees: embedded clauses

A book for the reasonable and caring prescriptivist

From The Wall Street Journal...

Who decides whether it's acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition or to use the word "infer" as a synonym for "imply"? Who decides whether the phrase "free gift" is redundant and therefore incorrect, and whether it's proper to speak of a "mutual friend" since "mutual" refers to a relationship between two, not three? Most literate people still want these questions decided for them by some authority, whether H.W. Fowler, the usage notes in the American Heritage Dictionary or the guy in the next cubicle who knows a lot about grammar. This urge for clarity remains despite the best efforts of academic linguists and other "descriptivist" grammarians who dismiss the notion of grammatical "correctness" and insist that "rules" are wholly determined by usage.

The trouble with descriptivism—the idea that the grammarian's job is to describe the language, not to issue judgments about propriety—isn't that it's theoretically unsound. Rules really are just conventions. The trouble with descriptivism is that it's inhuman. People will always want to know the right way to say a thing. The secretary writing a letter or the corporate communications drone writing a press release doesn't care whether "impact" as a verb is "generally accepted," as modern usage manuals put it; he wants to know if using "impact" as a verb will make him sound stupid.

Henry Hitchings, in "The Language Wars," seems to appreciate the fact that propriety is part of human life, even if it's given no room in the lifeless principles of linguistics. He has plenty of criticisms for those "inveterate fusspots" who understand just enough English grammar to lord it over their supposed inferiors, but he isn't so naïve as to think we can be rid of "rules" in the old-fashioned sense of the word.

Read the full Wall Street Journal article here.

Marked word order choices in English

Some major points from the Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English chapter 12, from which are taken* the examples...

 

Discourse Factors
Inside the house Mr Summers found a family of cats shut in the bathroom.

 

Information flows from given (the house and Mr Summers) to new in a sentence. Typically, the focus is on the last lexical item (bathroom). But there are also techniques to front information to also make it the focus (the adverbial Inside the house). Another technique is to front the verb complement: Brilliant that was!

 

The end-weight principle prefers that the long and complex (i.e. heavier) elements placed toward the end ofthhe sentence. This is easier for readers and listeners to process. If placed at the beginning it would become a second focus of the sentence.

 

Word Order Techniques

• Fronting
• Inversion
• Existential there
• Dislocation
• Clefting

"Fronting means placing in intitial positiona a clause element that is normally found after the verb." One can front:

• object - This I do not understand.
• other nominals - Whether Nancy was there or not, she could not be certain.
• predicatives - Far more serious were the severe head injuries.
• non-finite constructions - I have said he would come down and come down he did.
• in dependent clauses using as or though - Try as she might ...

Inversion places the verb phrase (full) or the operator (partial) before the subject. This can also take place in a dependent clause.

• full inversion - Best of all would be to get a job in Wellingham.
• partial inversion - Not before in our history have so many strong influences united to produce so large a disaster.
• dependent clause - ...beside it was a wooden seat on which sat two men talking.

 

One of my favs, the existential there helps to communicate the state of existence or occurance of something. The typical form is: there + be + noun phrase (+ adverbial). Note that this there is different from the adverbial there (i.e. here).
There's a bear sitting in the corner. 
There's still no water there or here or anywhere.

 

Spoken language also uses dislocation, which repeats a noun phrase with a proxy pronoun.
This little shop it's lovely.
I think he's getting hooked on the tast of Vaseline, that dog.

 

Clefting also breaks up a clause into two clauses each with its own verb.
It's a man I want. <compare: I want a man.>

 

 

 

The importance of teaching the distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses

The following is my (kind of) short answer reply to one of the questions on my graduate descriptive grammar exam. The question was:

Is the distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses important? Discuss implications for teaching these clauses for oral and written performance.

Relative clauses are finite dependent clauses found in the noun postmodifier position. Their general function is to add information about the noun, as adjectives do, and that may be why some call these forms adjective clauses. Relative clauses can be divided into two distinct functions: restrictive and non-restrictive. Teaching this distinction in an ESL context is important, at perhaps an intermediate level, because it relates to four relative clause rules that affect the clarity of communication.

To begin with, the most obvious difference between a restrictive and non-restrictive clause in writing is punctuation. Commas, em dashes, and parentheses are all orthographical methods that writers use to mark non-restrictive clauses. Yet restrictive clauses cannot be offset by punctuation. This is logical considering that restrictive clauses are strongly attached to the identity of the head noun. The punctuation considerations are important for learners to understand so that they can properly cue their readers. Second, accompanying the punctuation are intonation and pauses in speech. Just like commas in writing, the rising intonation toward the end of the relative clause and the initial and ending pauses in speech let the listener know that a non-restrictive clause is being communicated, and therefore the information is additional.

Third, as Biber et al. note, “The choice among relative pronouns is influenced by a number of other factors, including … restrictive vs. non-restrictive function.” By rule, the relativizer that cannot be used in a non-restrictive clause. Breaking this rule would result in a mixed message to the interlocutor; is the information necessary to identify the noun (restrictive) or additional information (non-restrictive)? Finally, for the learner to navigate the rules of relative clause reduction, or the zero relativizer, she must understand the difference between a restrictive and non-restrictive clause. Only restrictive clauses can be reduced.

In summary, the distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive clauses is not only important for the ESL learner on the semantic level, but the distinction also helps him to properly follow other rules concerning punctuation, intonation and pauses, relativizer choices, and clause reduction.

Biber, D., Conrad, S., Leech, G. (2002). Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English.

Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and TESOL International Association Join Efforts to Aid English Language Teaching Worldwide

The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in the U.S. Department of State and the TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) International Association are launching a joint effort to connect teachers of and resources for English language teaching (ELT) in the United States with parties or entities with ELT needs outside the United States. The goal of the partnership is to utilize the networks, expertise, and resources of both the State Department and TESOL to respond to the global demand for English language teaching and learning.
This initiative will build a public-private partnership with academic institutions, government and non-government organizations, professional associations, private sector businesses, and other U.S. government agencies to advance ELT worldwide. The goal is to:
· Provide quality information and networking opportunities for individuals and organizations in countries with growing needs for ELT and interest in accessing ELT expertise and cultural resources from the United States;
· Support foreign institutions with their strategies to promote effective English language learning and capacity building;
· Work in coordination with U.S. companies, universities, publishers, and other stakeholders to enhance their international outreach and operations; and
· Expand countries’ access to U.S.-based English language resources and expertise.
The U.S. Department of State and TESOL partnership debuted this week during International Education Week. In March 2012, the State Department will host an inaugural partnership roundtable at the TESOL conference.
The initiative will expand collaboration with the private sector to leverage resources in support of advancing English language teaching globally.
Source

From input to affordance

"Input to affordance" has been my favorite article so far in my second language acquisition course. It's too late (in the night) to make any enlightening comments about it, but I expect to use it as part of the theoretical framework in my SLA ethnography on an Arab ESL learner.

Van Lier, L. (2000). From input to affordance: Social-interactive learning from an ecological perspective. In Lantolf, J. P. Sociocultural theory and second language learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tutoring Ethics

Working and studying in a university ESL center presents extra freelance opportunities and their attending ethical issues. With a BS in magazine journalism, I love editing and coaching people's writing and the extra cash. But as I've found out, different cultures have different expectations about what a tutor or writing coach should do and what cheating is.

I suggest seeking guidelines from your own institution and creating a document to explain to your student from the beginning what type of work you as a tutor or writing coach are not able to do. I'll try to find some guidelines to post here.