Random Quote
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
---- Albert Einstein
The voodoo priest and all his powders were as nothing compared to espresso, cappuccino, and mocha, which are stronger than all the religions of the world combined, and perhaps stronger than the human soul itself.
---- Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case, 1995
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
---- Doug Larson
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
---- Evan Esar
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.
---- Pablo Picasso
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?"
---- Kelvin Throop III
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
---- Isaac Newton
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
---- Gail Godwin
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
---- Edward R. Murrow
Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.
---- Leonardo DaVinci (1452-1519)
Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation.
---- Kin Hubbard
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
---- Jack Lynch
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
---- Edward Abbey
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
---- George Orwell
A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.
---- anonymous
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett
"It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.'"
---- Sam Levenson
This may be the most interesting blog theme I've ever seen. http://eflgeek.com/index.php Definitely in my top 5 at least.
---- Steve Dembo
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
---- Thomas A. Edison
To have another language is to possess a second soul.
---- Charlemagne
Learners Errors
I’ve just read The Significance of Learners’ Errors by S.P. Corder (1967) as one of the articles required for my SLA class. I found this article particularly interesting as the issues it raises, almost 40 years ago, are still highly relevant today. It is quite clear that this article is heavily influenced by Chomsky, not just because it mentions chomsky but also that it was written in the period when Universal Grammar was the pre-eminent explanation of language acquisition. While UG is not exactly the most applicable theory to the classroom this article delves into other areas of interest to the classroom teacher.
What I find interesting is that Corder posits that:
given motivation, it is inevitable that a human being will learn a second language if he is exposed to the langage data… a working hypothesis that some at least of the strategies adopted by the learner of a second langauge are substantially the same as those by which a first language is acquired.
I had never really considered that a child would employ language learning strategies. Even with my daughter, only 2 years old (today), I don’t really see strategies in use. But then, her vocabulary is still very limited.
Thinking about how to use this in the classroom brings to something that I hear regularly from others. It is impossible to learn a language once you are too old. If that is the case, which I don’t believe it to be, then learners should behave more like children. If students can see that and then we show them that their errors are the same as children perhaps it would be possible to lessen their anxiety about mistakes.
Mistakes. the main cause of anxiety and inhibition in the part of L2 speakers are always seen as wrong, at least by the learners themselves. But without mistakes they cannot improve. It is also important to see the difference between mistakes and errors which Corder defines as:
The errors of performance will characteristacally be unsystematic and the errors of competence, systematic…
...Mistakes are of no significance ot the process of language learning. However the problem of determining what is a learner’s mistake and what a learners error is one of some difficulty
How then is one to know the difference.. that is the question. Correcting every mistake or error is obviously the wrong thing to do and as Corder suggests it may be better for the learner to discover the correct form on their own, giving them more confidence and deomonstrating for the instructor what they truly have acquired in the L2.
