Job Discussion Forums

[rogerwallace]

I AM NOT A SCHOLAR OF ENGLISH. I am not a lingustic major and at a certian point I don't really care- but I do care to help my Chinese students as much as I can.
I do believe this all started in Northern India at one point, but...
I used root words and suff/prefix: word games on the board in front of the class with two small groups. split the chalk board in two, give one group a prefix(ex,pro) and the other group one prefix. Give them say,4 minutes to see how many words they can write using that prefix. Winner is the one with the most words. It worked great at university English Corners.

I don't expect them to "master" English in one semester or one year. It just gives them a lot more insight and understand so they can go farther with their language skills.
I found that too much was put on the useage rules and not on the being able to see the links between them... and oh yeah, have some fun doing it!

[rogerwallace]

Latin/Greek root words are found in horticulture for instance, legal terms, medicine and politicts. Which is what my university students wanted to know about at Harbin Enginerring University. So I used the Latin root word approach along with several great text in Chinese/English.
As someone who didn't take foreign language, as I have been told( I took Latin) I can't speak to other euro-centric languages.
I do know that the PHds/grads in China were overjoyed to find this type of text not only helpful but they were able (along with my copy of APA writers manual) to get their own white papers and research out of the country and be published/read.

I am still just an ol' teacher using whatever I can to help out my students with what meets their needs best.

[fluffyhamster]