Low Down

  One way of giving students practice in identifying word-division correctly is to ask them how many words there would be in the written form of a given utterance. For example, you say something like 'wotcha won ?', they recognize this as the spoken version of 'What do you want?'   Students can be asked to mark on a written text where they think the stressed or unstressed words are. It may be useful for them to try to do this at first without hearing the spoken text, and then check their conjectures against the latter afterwards. In short utterances it is fairly easy to mark stresses; what is more difficult, but no less important, is to indicate unstress.   Here is an example: Basic sentence: ü I'm terribly tired; I think I'll go and have a rest. Stress: ü I'm terribly tired; I think I'll go and have a rest. Unstress: (I'm) ter ( ribly) tired; (I) think (I'll) go (and have a) rest.   We are using longer sequences of sounds...

  At the early stages students need practice in hearing and saying the sounds of isolated words as they are ideally pronounced by a native speaker, without the distortions or blurs which commonly occur within the context of natural speech. At this level, the listener's main problem is simply to identify the right phoneme(s) and hence the right word.   The process of teaching them, therefore, is mostly based on a behaviorist model. The teacher demonstrates the sounds she wishes to teach and encourages students to imitate or identify them. When she feels they are hearing and reproducing them with a fair degree of accuracy, she gives them a series of tasks whose purpose it is simply to familiarize them with the new sounds to the point where they can identify, if not pronounce, them accurately, easily and without hesitation. It is important to remember that the object of such exercises is to train not to test: if students are consistently getting wrong answers, the teacher sho...

Some environmental, usually visual, accompaniment to heard discourse is a characteristic of most listening activities in and outside classroom. In the classroom these environmental clues will usually be represented by different kinds of visuals: ü pictures, ü sketches on the blackboard or overhead projector, ü flannel- or magnet-board cut-outs, ü objects.   The presence of such materials is of immense value in contextualizing and bringing to life the listening situation as well as in aiding comprehension of the language. I would go so far as to say that some kind of visual clue is essential in any language-learning activity based on face-to-face communication.   Visuals have an important function as aids to learning, simply because they attract students' attention and help and encourage them to focus on the subject in hand. It is relatively difficult to concentrate on spoken material that is heard 'blind', far easier if there is something relevant to l...

  What does the classroom instructor do when faced with a situation where a large ESL class has members of different skill levels progressing at different rates? Some will understand; others will just repeat without understanding while some may just sit and watch. Some may have had more exposure to the language than others; in addition, some students may be better able to employ learning strategies and appear to “pick up” languages quicker. acquisition. The language lessons need to be part of a larger lesson plan that actively involves the learners in a realistic situation where English is a tool for transmitting a message or solving a problem. Activities should allow a natural exchange of information either orally or in writing.   The point is to establish a language-rich environment that provides plenty of input and allows student output and participation. Vocabulary and syntax should be simplify ed to be accessible to all. High frequency words-money- are used rather tha...

  Most people who are considered “good” live their lives at various points along a broad spectrum between the extremes of good and bad. All of us, if we remained unsocialized, would act as bad men do—in antisocial ways. Feral children, those who have grown up in the wild, bereft of human warmth and care, behave more like animals than like human beings. That our nature is unregenerate is a tenet of many religions, reflected, for instance, in the concept of original sin. As Job sat on his dung heap, he observed, “Yet man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.”   Beyond the easy generalizations—money, sex, power, and the need to love and be loved—people are immensely complex in ways that have been unforeseeable to me as well as to themselves.     Sound mental health is inextricably bound to character. The character, it is a highly individual personality structure that expresses deeply held values and beliefs about oneself, others, and the world. It invol...