Making Language Make Sense
Making Language Make Sense
By
Mouhammad Utmah
translingua@hotmail.com or utmah@udel.edu
Introduction:
Some people say that to learn another language it’s really important to learn it as you learnt the first one. Some ESL learners go and live in an English-speaking country to learn English by need. Yet, it's not easy to elicit the rules of ESL when learners speak and listen to English two hours a day only. Sometimes, they might start to speak fluently but not accurately. Eliciting takes babies years of hunger, thirst and misunderstanding to learn a language they listen to all the time. Moreover, babies are more teachable because the language structure in them is designed to absorb the first revelation.
On the other hand, teaching the rules directly for learners to practice is completely different from the way human beings learn their first language (the most fluent), so a second language is not going to be as fluent as a native one. Sometimes, it’s not accurate either, because the need for fluency certainly affects the process of transforming the studied rules into accurate sentences.
Therefore, it will be better if we can mix the two ways; the direct teaching of rules and the natural process of eliciting to achieve both accuracy and fluency. It’s all about quickening the process of language acquiring and language generating. Chomsky’s ideas of syntactical structures and generative grammar are extremely important here.
By
Mouhammad Utmah
translingua@hotmail.com or utmah@udel.edu
Introduction:
Some people say that to learn another language it’s really important to learn it as you learnt the first one. Some ESL learners go and live in an English-speaking country to learn English by need. Yet, it's not easy to elicit the rules of ESL when learners speak and listen to English two hours a day only. Sometimes, they might start to speak fluently but not accurately. Eliciting takes babies years of hunger, thirst and misunderstanding to learn a language they listen to all the time. Moreover, babies are more teachable because the language structure in them is designed to absorb the first revelation.
On the other hand, teaching the rules directly for learners to practice is completely different from the way human beings learn their first language (the most fluent), so a second language is not going to be as fluent as a native one. Sometimes, it’s not accurate either, because the need for fluency certainly affects the process of transforming the studied rules into accurate sentences.
Therefore, it will be better if we can mix the two ways; the direct teaching of rules and the natural process of eliciting to achieve both accuracy and fluency. It’s all about quickening the process of language acquiring and language generating. Chomsky’s ideas of syntactical structures and generative grammar are extremely important here.
Short-term Goal:
Learners will be able to understand the logic behind a second language rules (Language Mechanism) in a relatively short period of time but still through eliciting.
Long-term Goal:
Learners will be able to sculpt a mental cliché to produce consistently accurate sentences and eventually to accelerate this mechanical process. In future, they can work on decorating the outcome or even the cliché but not at the expense of accuracy.
Strategy:
To accomplish the above-mentioned goals, we should make language make sense either by figuring out the logical relationships or imposing them, which is how the second language acquisition is different from the first language acquisition. Learners can even use a physical cliché to start over with eliciting.
Techniques:
Different techniques will be used in making language make sense such as using drama, jazz chants, MS MovieMaker, story telling, using drawing …etc
Activities:
- A functional warming up activity: the trainer is going to ask a group to act out a grammatical structure, while the others will try to guess the sentence. Then, every group is going to name a grammatical structure and direct other trainees to mime this structure without telling the rest about it, while the others are going to guess what sentence it is and speak it out.
- The fruit basket of parts of speech. Trainees will make sentences by representing parts of speech instead of fruit. A part of speech is to be named and the trainees representing that part of speech are supposed to switch to form other correct sentences in 30 seconds.
- Trainees will listen to a story and then they will try to apply it to a grammatical structure. Finally they will pick another structure and try to write a story about it and tell it to the rest who are going to try to guess.
- Trainees will listen to a jazz chant and figure out what mistake was made depending on the story mentioned in the previous activity.
- A board is to be shown to trainees who are going to elicit the rules of that grammatical structure. Now, trainees are supposed to pick another grammatical structure and try to make a board for it.
- A drawing can be posted on the wall, so students has the chance to elicit the rules through applying the drawing to a grammatical structure.
A book that contains all these stories, activities or logical explanation of grammatical structures is to be published. Any trainee can send his story or explanation by e-mail to translingua@hotmail.com and get his name published with it.
Learners will be able to understand the logic behind a second language rules (Language Mechanism) in a relatively short period of time but still through eliciting.
Long-term Goal:
Learners will be able to sculpt a mental cliché to produce consistently accurate sentences and eventually to accelerate this mechanical process. In future, they can work on decorating the outcome or even the cliché but not at the expense of accuracy.
Strategy:
To accomplish the above-mentioned goals, we should make language make sense either by figuring out the logical relationships or imposing them, which is how the second language acquisition is different from the first language acquisition. Learners can even use a physical cliché to start over with eliciting.
Techniques:
Different techniques will be used in making language make sense such as using drama, jazz chants, MS MovieMaker, story telling, using drawing …etc
Activities:
- A functional warming up activity: the trainer is going to ask a group to act out a grammatical structure, while the others will try to guess the sentence. Then, every group is going to name a grammatical structure and direct other trainees to mime this structure without telling the rest about it, while the others are going to guess what sentence it is and speak it out.
- The fruit basket of parts of speech. Trainees will make sentences by representing parts of speech instead of fruit. A part of speech is to be named and the trainees representing that part of speech are supposed to switch to form other correct sentences in 30 seconds.
- Trainees will listen to a story and then they will try to apply it to a grammatical structure. Finally they will pick another structure and try to write a story about it and tell it to the rest who are going to try to guess.
- Trainees will listen to a jazz chant and figure out what mistake was made depending on the story mentioned in the previous activity.
- A board is to be shown to trainees who are going to elicit the rules of that grammatical structure. Now, trainees are supposed to pick another grammatical structure and try to make a board for it.
- A drawing can be posted on the wall, so students has the chance to elicit the rules through applying the drawing to a grammatical structure.
A book that contains all these stories, activities or logical explanation of grammatical structures is to be published. Any trainee can send his story or explanation by e-mail to translingua@hotmail.com and get his name published with it.
posted by Mouhammad Utmah @ 9:28 PM
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