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n�fara
Joined: 14 Jul 2007
Location: The Island
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 Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2008 7:49 pm Post subject: Reviewing "I am" vs "I have" x "I |
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I've found that some of my middle school students are either mixing up "I am" and "I have" or have been using the phrase "I am have," as in "I am have an older brother."
The feeling I get is that some of them are just unsure of which one to use, so they put in both hoping to cover all the bases.
I'd like to do a review, but I don't want to go too back to basics and have students complain that it is too easy, and they already know it (even though that might not be the case).
Any suggestions on the best way to approach this? |
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bogey666
Joined: 17 Mar 2008
Location: Korea, the ass free zone
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| Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2008 8:50 pm Post subject: Re: Reviewing "I am" vs "I have" x &quo |
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| n�fara wrote: |
I've found that some of my middle school students are either mixing up "I am" and "I have" or have been using the phrase "I am have," as in "I am have an older brother."
The feeling I get is that some of them are just unsure of which one to use, so they put in both hoping to cover all the bases.
I'd like to do a review, but I don't want to go too back to basics and have students complain that it is too easy, and they already know it (even though that might not be the case).
Any suggestions on the best way to approach this? |
just a shot in the dark, but perhaps they are translating it from Korean and perhaps in Korean it's stated in a way that's not exactly translateable to English.
I say this because in Spanish, for example... if you're hungry... you say "I have hunger"... or "I have fear" - that's what it would come out in English if exactly translated.
perhaps there is a similar issue in Korean which makes them make such a mistake (though I can't say I had my Spanish speaking students have too much of an issue with this)
I'd say go back and re-enforce the difference...do a quick review, since clearly they don't know the difference as well as they should. |
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n�fara
Joined: 14 Jul 2007
Location: The Island
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| Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 6:24 pm Post subject: |
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| You could be right with that, I think. Sometimes I get the feeling students don't know what "I am" really means, and it can sometimes be a difficult thing to explain in another language. |
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zorq
Joined: 12 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 10:54 pm Post subject: |
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I agree with bogey 666. His reasoning is exactly what I first thought of when you described the problem.
To use another example that involves Spanish, many English speakers can have a hard time deciding whether to use the verb "ser" or "estar." Both of those verbs take different roles in Spanish but in English, just about all of those roles are taken with the single verb "to be." |
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hugekebab
Joined: 05 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 11:17 pm Post subject: |
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| n�fara wrote: |
| You could be right with that, I think. Sometimes I get the feeling students don't know what "I am" really means, and it can sometimes be a difficult thing to explain in another language. |
they dont really have to the verb 'to be' they have an 'i exist' but none of the generally used variants (If I remember the article correctly, I may be wrong here) hence the misuse. All my students constantly have problems with 'to be'. |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 9:05 am Post subject: |
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| n�fara wrote: |
| You could be right with that, I think. Sometimes I get the feeling students don't know what "I am" really means, and it can sometimes be a difficult thing to explain in another language. |
Ever get the feeling they don't know what any of it really means? 
My theory is sentences like these:-
"I am have an older brother"
"He is go to school"
...which they construct naturally all by themselves to the great frustration of their teachers, are simple L1 interference. They are confusing 'I am' with '나는' and 'He is' with '그는', those being the expressions they would use in the equivalent Korean sentences. I'm guessing they feel a need for the topic particle, which doesn't exist in English and so the be verb gets roped in to do the job. They see 'I am' and '나는' paired together in translations all the time so it's natural albeit unfortunate to make a connection.
What to do about this? I wish I knew. I think it's pretty difficult for kids to understand abstractions like these. They're not really aware of their own grammar yet, let alone able to compare it to that of an alien language. Perhaps chants? Something to subconsciously reinforce the correct forms? |
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