Teaching only that which will have permanency?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 9:11 am

If you had been a teacher in the 60's, would you have taught your students the expression "far-out"?

DECADE 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

PER MIL 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.79 12.08 2.80 1.00 0.53 0.59

http://corpus.byu.edu/time/

Lotus · Post by **Lotus** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 9:23 am

I was a student in the 1960's. Believe me, no teacher had to teach us "far out". We taught it to them!

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 9:41 am

The important thing I think is that the usage hasn't fallen "back" to '0.00' just yet (I guess we could then say the form was extinct enough to not be worth continuing to mention). Does 0.59 mean that only about half the sentence was uttered?

And any idea how many of the vanishing usages are ironic (that is, a deliberate use of a dated/marked/more noticeable form)?

It would be interesting to know what the average "steady, holding" rate is (for the majority of words - which would not necessarily be just the most frequent 3000 or whatever) - that would be a good indication of whether to teach something in the year(s) following the most recent data-crunch.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 9:49 am

Lotus wrote:I was a student in the 1960's. Believe me, no teacher had to teach us "far out". We taught it to them!

I was really referring to having to teach nonnative students. Are you a native speaker of English?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 9:56 am

The important thing I think is that the usage hasn't fallen "back" to '0.00' just yet (I guess we could then say the form was extinct enough to not be worth continuing to mention).

Old hippies die hard?

If you wait for it to become extinct, you'll have to wait till the swinging films of the sixties burn in Hell, copies of Roling Stone yellow into the ether, etc. There will alway be a few people, students n'all who will need to know the meaning of the term. Now, back to the 60s classroom...

Would you have taught it to NNES students during the 60s had you been a teacher?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 10:06 am

Well, I guess if I had been an ELT back then, I'd've joined Lotus and the revolution, smoked a spiffy spliffy or ten, and therefore hardly have been averse to having some 'far out' lessons, man!

In keeping with the flared trouser theme, I know it's 70's not 60's, but who's seen 'Anchorman'? Love that scene where Paul Rudd cracks out the banned cologne; and how about Will doing his bare-chested dumbell office workout too woo the new female colleague.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 11:27 am

If I had been teaching English to students who were going to study for some time in an English-speaking country in the 1960's, I would probably have taught "far out".

I this year I taught "survival English" to a group of students who are going to the UK or Ireland next semester. Since I'm not "down with the kids", I decided to tracked down some British and Irish Erasmus students in my university and got them to come to a couple of classes.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 1:07 pm

Well, I guess if I had been an ELT back then, I'd've joined Lotus and the revolution, smoked a spiffy spliffy or ten, and therefore hardly have been averse to having some 'far out' lessons, man!

I see. So your answer to "if you had been a teacher..." is "I wouldn't have been", right?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 2:51 pm

Yes - then.

Lotus · Post by **Lotus** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 4:40 pm

metal56 wrote:
Lotus wrote:I was a student in the 1960's. Believe me, no teacher had to teach us "far out". We taught it to them!
I was really referring to having to teach nonnative students. Are you a native speaker of English?

Yes, I am. I was born and raised in Georgia, USA. Okay, some folks don't consider Georgian to be English, but it really is. Honest.

If I had been teaching ESL or EFL in the '60's, "far out" would have been in my vocab charts, as well as "groovy", "drop out", "turn on", etc. Nowadays, students ask me to explain "scum-bag", "crack", "gay" - (try teaching classic lit without running into misunderstandings surrounding that fire bomb.) So, I guess I'm in favor of teaching lingo as well as standard English, especially if students are going to have to function in an English speaking country, rather than just having to perform on tests in their own culture. But, and this is a biggy for me, I teach lingo only when it comes up in the course of regular work.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 9:45 pm

But, and this is a biggy for me, I teach lingo only when it comes up in the course of regular work.

And why's that?

Lotus · Post by **Lotus** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:09 am

metal56 wrote:
But, and this is a biggy for me, I teach lingo only when it comes up in the course of regular work.
And why's that?

I'm a private tutor, and I'm usually hired to insure that Mama's little darling will get into some prestigious university somewhere in the English speaking world. Therefore, the bulk of my work is academic - reading comprehension and writing skills. When "outside issues" come up, I deal with them as fairly as possible. Since I require my students to do a lot of reading, and writing based on their reading, these issues come up regularly.