Interesting, but ultimately distracting dichtomies

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 10:35 pm

Note that I didn't say "invalid dichotomies" (but I often wonder how much time is wasted - time that might be put to more productive use - in pondering the "truth" of them).

Anyway, let's have 'em/some/one/probably none!

Here are a few pet peeves of mine:

Competence vs Performance (this has to top the list, along with de Saussage's Langue and Parole. You're welcome to spill some ink over them, if you think enough hasn't been spilt already on Dave's):
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... .php?t=337

In that older post, Sunpower asked "does anyone feel that it is useful for EFL teachers to understand the concepts of competence and performance?". The answer, at least as far as RSA/Cambridge etc is concerned, seems to be "No" - these terms aren't really mentioned in initial training (thankfully?).

The following terms are, however:

Accuracy vs Fluency (we could probably just roll these into "Appropriateness" or "Effectiveness", and try to disregard the time it takes to form the utterance; that is, why are people who make loads of mistakes considered "fluent", and are there no accurate speakers who aren't fast with it?)

Bottom-up vs Top-down processing (only one type matters for avoiding mistakes of comprehension totally, and that is "Complete processing", based on enough knowledge. Communicative approaches go more for the latter "type" because they aren't serious, ambitious or "realistic" enough about teaching).

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 12:20 am

I agree with you. I got kicked off the Applied Linguistics MA course. Beware.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 12:26 am

Damn. And there I was on the "Applied Linguistics: MA programs online?" thread thinking I would be able to get through one.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 2:58 am

Actually it is "Saussage" and not "de Saussage" (I checked as I was writing that post, but forgot to delete the "de". I should've known anyway, on the basis of reading and saying e.g. Karajan [as in Herbert von] many times - I like classical music). Useful to remember if you plan on writing important papers towards, say, an MA in Applied Linguistics.