An Urgent Help!!!!

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 6:45 am

at I can not write or spell, then give me at least one correct sentence in Arabic ( following the proper Arabic grammer, spelling, and punctuation)?!

Once again, what language are you doing the research in? If it's English forget about it. If it's Arabic I can make a couple of suggestions.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 6:52 am

People like Stephen Jones give English speakers a bad name. English is undoubtedly one of --if not the-- most difficult languages to learn. I would hope that everyone here, minus obviously Stephen, would understand the complexities of it as ESL teachers.

You are being wilfully obtuse. The OP is apparently intending to carry out post-graduate research into the English Language, and is going to write a thesis in English, when her English skills are inadequate for a High School essay.

I'm not that great over where the different parts of the body are, and I would consider it rude of you of you mocked me for it; but I'm not intending to do post-graduate study into surgery.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:20 am

English is undoubtedly one of --if not the-- most difficult languages to learn.

Why do you say that? I'm not aware of any research that shows any language is intrinsically more difficult than any other. Every language I've ever tried to learn had certain aspects that were more difficult to get my head around, and a lot will also depend on an individual's language background.

It's good to see new people posting and I wouldn't want to scare anyone off by sounding obtuse, but I think you'll find most of us here expect people to back up what they say. You might find Stephen Jone's style a bit abrasive, but he certainly keeps people on their toes.

sara2 · Post by **sara2** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 12:49 pm

If it's Arabic I can make a couple of suggestions

Can you, please?

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 5:37 pm

I would suggest studying something about Systemic Functional Linguistics.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 6:03 pm

Can you, please?

I'm going to be a bit tantalizing. Google or research 'diglossia' and 'Ferguson'. Here you have a field that started from an observation of Arabic but which is of much wider significance. Post back to tell us what ideas you have got.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 6:51 pm

I would suggest studying something about Systemic Functional Linguistics.

You would

Incidentally, if you have time to waste/spare look at this thread.
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewt ... 9&start=60

sara2 · Post by **sara2** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:13 pm

Sally Olsen, thanks for your suggestion. I think it would be interesting to study something about Systemic Functional Linguistics.

sara2 · Post by **sara2** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:19 pm

Post back to tell us what ideas you have got.

Stephen Jones, what do you think about studying something related to learners' fossilized errors? I do appreciate your care and help. Thanks

sara2 · Post by **sara2** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:46 pm

if you have time to waste/spare look at this thread.

I could not log in by one way or another

Yet, could you give me the title of the topic and I'll be glade to read it.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 7:47 am

I could not log in by one way or another Sad Yet, could you give me the title of the topic and I'll be glade to read it.

It was Sally who was meant to read it as it deals with her specialization. It wouldn't be of so much interest to you.

Stephen Jones, what do you think about studying something related to learners' fossilized errors?

There's a lot of work been done on that. There is an excellent book on interference called Learner English. You should also read a basic introduction to comparative linguistics. Lado's 1957 book is a good start.

sara2 · Post by **sara2** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 1:26 pm

I've read Lado's book in relation to contrastive analysis and Jame's book on error analysis. Yet, I need to read more about fossilization in the Arab world.

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 4:20 pm

My friend, Zhaleh, did an honors study on fossilization. I will try to get her to get in touch with you. Many of my professors at Carleton didn't believe that there was something called fossilization though so it didn't have much respect. You might want to chose something that was more of a hot topic.

sara2 · Post by **sara2** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 10:35 pm

I will try to get her to get in touch with you.

I wish to contact her as soon as possible. Sally, I can provide Zhaleh with my e-mail address- if it's OK with her-.
By the way Sally, I think you are specialized in Systemic Functional Linguistics. Could you please informe me about the major domains of this branch, does it considered to be a branch of applied linguistcs or not, what are the major issues studied in this field. Unfortunatlly, I did not study in my college much about this field.
Thanks in advance.

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 5:57 pm

You can join our group study. We are going through Beverly Derewianka's course book, chapter by chapter. If you want me to send it to you, it costs me $20 Canadian to reprint it and some to mail it so you can send me a personal email. I will try to get Zhaleh to contact you but it seems there is terrible persecution of the Bahai in Iran and she might not be able to get through. Her basic study was to take adult students who had been in Canada for 20 years or more and tape record a conversation, transcribe the conversation for them with their mistakes and get to recognize what mistakes they were making. She had about four or more sessions with them doing this and then she taped recorded the final session to see if there was improvement which there was. However, I think that she also found that they made mistakes in one sentence (usually one they used often) and not in another sentence with the same word. It seems that people might just memorize a sentence as a whole and not be able to change it once they have it in their minds. Perhaps no one has commented on the error either because they can be easily understood despite the error.
Look up the thread below on SFL in Applied Linguistics for many ideas and websites.