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The Voice Of Reason
Joined: 29 Jun 2004
Posts: 492
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 Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 3:40 am Post subject: A few things you must know |
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My understanding of English grammar and my spelling are certainly not perfect, and quite possibly worse than the average FT in China. I've felt embarrassed when I've spelt a word wrongly on the board or made a grammatical mistake, and dwelt on it after class. As an English Teacher I think it is right and fitting that I learn from such mistakes, and so it's in a friendly spirit that I post the following:
its = possessive adjective (possesive form of the pronoun it): The crab had an unusual growth on its shell.
it's = contraction for it is or it has (in a verb phrase): It's still raining; it's been raining for three days. (Pronouns have apostrophes only when two words are being shortened into one.)
Their = possessive pronoun: They got their books.
There = that place: My house is over there. (This is a place word, and so it contains the word here.)
They're = contraction for they are: They're making dinner. (Pronouns have apostrophes only when two words are being shortened into one.)
To = preposition, or first part of the infinitive form of a verb: They went to the lake to swim.
Too = very, also: I was too tired to continue. I was hungry, too.
Too can mean also or can be an intensifier, and you might say that it contains an extra o ("one too many")
We're = contraction for we are: We're glad to help. (Pronouns have apostrophes only when two words are being shortened into one.)
Where = location: Where are you going? (This is a place word, and so it contains the word here.)
Were = a past tense form of the verb be: They were walking side by side.
Your = possessive pronoun: Your shoes are untied.
You're = contraction for you are: You're walking around with your shoes untied. (Pronouns have apostrophes only when two words are being shortened into one.)
From: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_spelhomo.html |
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arioch36
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 3589
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| Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 4:26 am Post subject: |
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| I have found Perdue's OWL to have a lot of good resources. If you e-mail them with a question, they actually will try to answer/explain, and if you are using a media room, lots of downloadable stuff. Often use them for my writing class |
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jm21
Joined: 26 Feb 2008
Posts: 406
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| Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 4:56 am Post subject: |
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Everyone makes mistakes at one point or another.
My greatest problem has been that I'd learn words by reading but never bother look up the proper pronunciation.
I remember when I was in college, I didn't know the difference between "then" and "than." Didn't take long to learn, but I don't remember a teacher ever correcting me for it before college...
I've seen people say "you reap what you 'sew'" a surprising number of times. |
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arioch36
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 3589
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| Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 5:20 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| I've seen people say "you reap what you 'sew'" a surprising number of times |
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Seen them, or heard them ??
Actually the pronunciation for these two words, as far as I know is identical. I can't write it, but in IPA, both are "s" backwards "e" and "u"
someone please correct me if I am wrong
sow, the pig, is different, with the "a" sound, not backwards "e" |
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GeminiTiger
Joined: 15 Oct 2004
Posts: 999
Location: China, 2005--Present
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| Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 5:32 am Post subject: |
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Thank you for the helpful review and website link.
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jm21
Joined: 26 Feb 2008
Posts: 406
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| Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 6:22 am Post subject: |
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| arioch36 wrote: |
| Quote: |
| I've seen people say "you reap what you 'sew'" a surprising number of times |
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Seen them, or heard them ??
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Seen. In e-mails, on forums, in papers, that sort of thing. I don't know how you'd hear the difference when they're spoken...which is almost certainly the problem. I guess it would be I've seen people write? But say can be used to mean expressing something in writing...I usually use say when referencing what people wrote/said in e-mails, IMs, or on a forum. I've always thought those mediums were closer to oral communication than to writing.
A poster on X forum said...
Y said in an e-mail...
Z sent an IM to say...
We talked/chatted over MSN (rather than we wrote each other over MSN)
Ahhhh....grammar is my weakest subject, maybe I should have stayed out of this.... |
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vikuk
Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 1842
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| Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 6:50 am Post subject: |
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Seen. In e-mails, on forums, in papers, that sort of thing. I don't know how you'd hear the difference when they're spoken...which is almost certainly the problem. I guess it would be I've seen people write? But say can be used to mean expressing something in writing...I usually use say when referencing what people wrote/said in e-mails, IMs, or on a forum. I've always thought those mediums were closer to oral communication than to writing.
A poster on X forum said...
Y said in an e-mail...
Z sent an IM to say...
We talked/chatted over MSN (rather than we wrote each other over MSN)
Ahhhh....grammar is my weakest subject, maybe I should have stayed out of this.... |
No way stay out - your post gives well founded weight to an argument that goes....
Even though the posts in these forums originate from English teachers - sometimes they are not meant to be examples of grammar perfect literature - but communications that are closely related to verbal communicative styles.
A poster in another forum complained about grammar mistakes made in her students work - it went something like this -
students first write the way they speak and correct the grammar afterwards.
I think many of the mistakes we find in forum posts originate from the fact that the poster's message hasn't been checked for grammar - and can't necessarily be regarded as a symptom of illiteracy - maybe something more to do with making on-line communication as simple and easy as possible!!!!!! Some may feel that this style doesn't reflect so well on the authors position as English teacher - but that's a whole other argument.
But more to the point - this kind of info shows how closely verbal and written English is - and how quick snap written tests in the classroom - those type where the student hasn't got too much time to ponder on grammar/spelling - just going after that written English that's at "the tip of their tongues" - also gives certain indications regarding a student's oral English level.
When we talk about getting students to contribute in a class, then there are both oral and written routes for possible contributions. |
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arioch36
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 3589
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| Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 11:09 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Seen. In e-mails, on forums, in papers |
Ah, now I see said the blind man.
No, I was seriously unsure, that's all, I didn't think people were that bad. I am hardly one to talk. Often when I write at Dave's I am also doing homework, playing a computer game, and talking to the wife in my bd chinese, and the results are often akin to if I had been drinking too much, so I certainly won't offer myself as a good example of careful typing when using the internet |
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Anda
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Posts: 2199
Location: Jiangsu Province
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| Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 11:50 am Post subject: Um |
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I write short conversations for teaching and usually find some way of improving the script every time that I use it in class. I also use children's stories off the Net and find the same thing.
You must pay attention to what you write and read if you wish to improve. You will also find that by so doing you get more interest out of your work. Making mistakes in class actually takes the pressure off your students as they are more inclined to give things a go when they know that their teacher also makes mistakes.
Last edited by Anda on Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:44 am; edited 1 time in total |
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cj750s
Joined: 26 May 2007
Posts: 701
Location: Donghai Town, Beijng
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vikuk
Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 1842
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| Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:07 pm Post subject: |
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| I've always thought those mediums were closer to oral communication than to writing. |
I suppose you could describe these new forms of written communication as "close to speech writing".
Thinking in these terms one would think that internet chatting, via a keyboard, could be an excellent way for students to practice English - one that gives a lot of scope to find an English language partner, and one that avoids the face to face confidence problems sometimes encountered by the learner. Another plus arises from the fact that this form of quickfire writing so closely tries to mirror inter-active transactional speech, that it also could be seen as a route for practicing "oral" English (type speech patterns).
If nothing else it can certainly provide a "refreshing" break from dry-bones book study!!! |
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jm21
Joined: 26 Feb 2008
Posts: 406
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| Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 8:06 pm Post subject: |
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| vikuk wrote: |
| Quote: |
| I've always thought those mediums were closer to oral communication than to writing. |
I suppose you could describe these new forms of written communication as "close to speech writing".
Thinking in these terms one would think that internet chatting, via a keyboard, could be an excellent way for students to practice English - one that gives a lot of scope to find an English language partner, and one that avoids the face to face confidence problems sometimes encountered by the learner. Another plus arises from the fact that this form of quickfire writing so closely tries to mirror inter-active transactional speech, that it also could be seen as a route for practicing "oral" English (type speech patterns).
If nothing else it can certainly provide a "refreshing" break from dry-bones book study!!! |
I've helped a few friends and penpals practice their English over IM. The problem is that the crap many people type/say when IMing is barely English ("r u up 4 english practice?") so even though it would be easy to find a partner, I don't know how easy it would be to find a good partner.
Also, correcting grammar over IM never really worked well for me. I personally feel uncomfortable correcting people on their IMs because I think it's more conversational and relaxed, and they aren't thinking much about what they're writing...seems kind of rude to correct for small errors. As long as it's comprehensible I don't bother. It's a little awkward to pause and correct their grammar too, a bit time-consuming even for a fast typer...and if they write a long message that needs several corrections, you hit the character limit on most messengers which can be a PITA. |
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vikuk
Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 1842
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 4:37 am Post subject: |
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| Also, correcting grammar over IM never really worked well for me. I personally feel uncomfortable correcting people on their IMs because I think it's more conversational and relaxed, and they aren't thinking much about what they're writing...seems kind of rude to correct for small errors. As long as it's comprehensible I don't bother. It's a little awkward to pause and correct their grammar too, a bit time-consuming even for a fast typer...and if they write a long message that needs several corrections, you hit the character limit on most messengers which can be a PITA. |
IM isn't really the media for correcting the learner - but more a practice place for acquiring something that could be labeled as - language internalization - having the ability to make a near automatic response during inter-active communication.
To understand this concept, think about your own trials in learning an L2 - those words are up in your head but getting them out and using them - its like your going through a mental translation process. Internalization is when you can seemingly "automatically" switch from one language to another - the bilingual fluency goal. (those who have learnt an L2 as a foreign language will fully understand this term)
One way learners can achieve this is to find speech partners - which can be difficult for our Chinese students. An alternative is IM (because of the quickfire "close to speech" nature of this communication type) - and yes it does have its limitations in the traditional sense of English learning - and the standard of language used in this type of communication is questionable (no pronunciation practice, syntax/grammar issues).
However - and a completely different argument again - with a view to modern English communication methods, then learning from IM touches another target. In a globalized business world where E commerce is dominated by communication in English I could even make an argument for why its its important for certain learners to understand the meaning of the type of communication that's illustrated by -
| Quote: |
| r u up 4 english practice? |
after all in their latter professional lives - some of our students may well be making a lot of their English communications by one or another form of real-time digital text media  |
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jwbhomer
Joined: 14 Dec 2003
Posts: 876
Location: CANADA
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 2:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Excellent work, OP. You should request a sticky for this thread. And thanks to all others who have contributed without descending into a rant about grammar and spelling not being important. |
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bearcanada
Joined: 04 Sep 2005
Posts: 312
Location: Calgary, Canada
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:41 am Post subject: |
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This is probably the most astonishing thread I have ever read on this board, and the first post wins the prize.
People, we're discussing Grade IV grammar here, with the originator of this thread being thanked for bringing the information to the attention of ENGLISH TEACHERS! My God.
vikuk's comment about typos is unconditionally incorrect. It requires no brains to recognise the difference between those who make typing errors and those who are functionally illiterate - and proud of it.
Maybe many of the posters here should of stood in school.
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