Pronoun

A pronoun is a word that stands in for a noun, often to avoid the need to repeat the same noun over and over.

For example, the usage ‘he’, so you don’t need to repeat Thor over and over and over.

Like nouns, pronouns can refer to people, things, concepts, and places. Most sentences contain at least one noun or pronoun.

Often used before another noun. “He,” “she,” and “it” are third person pronouns.

People tend to use “pronouns” to mean personal pronouns specifically, but there are many other kinds of pronouns that are just as important to English grammar. The words highlighted in bold below are all pronouns.

Examples: Pronouns

I asked her if the headphones were hers, but she said they belonged to someone else.

It might rain tomorrow, but there isn’t much we can do about that.

These are the days that I like best.

Which of them do you prefer? Help yourself to whichever you like.

English tidbits

Auxiliary verbs: are, was, has, could, would, etc.
Prepositions: at, on, to, near, etc.
Conjunctions: and, so, but, not, however, etc.
Determiners: a, an, the, some, any, etc.
Pronouns: I, you, she, him, us, ours, etc.

TESOL hm

ref – https://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/word-stress-rules.php

SLA – second language acquisition

Linguistic environment that serves as stages for learning the second language.
Speakers of the target language and their speech to the L2 learners provide linguistic input in the form of listening opportunities embedded in social/academic situations.

L1

L1 is used to refer to the student’s first language.

An L1 is your first language, your native language, or your mother tongue.

You are a native speaker of that language.

Every developmentally healthy human being has a first language. Often (but not always) this is the language that was learned during childhood—before puberty—and is the language that is most used and most comfortable for a given person.

First languages are generally maintained for life, with little overt effort on the part of the speaker. This is because first languages are often woven into the personal and sociocultural identities of the native speaker, and he or she uses the language to think and to interact with family and other members of their cultural or ethnic group.

L1s are learned through a process known as First Language Acquisition, or FLA.

First Language Acquisition is the process of gaining the capacity to use human language, where previously no such capacities existed.

L1s are acquired automatically, without conscious effort.
L1s are learned before puberty, typically during infancy.
An acquired L1 is known at native proficiency.

  • Appropriate use of idiomatic expressions
  • Correctness of language form
  • Natural pronunciation
  • Cultural context including “response cries”, swear words, and interjections
  • Above average sized vocabulary, collocations and other phraseological items
  • Metaphors – a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
    ex: Life is a highway. Her eyes were diamonds. He is a shining star. The snow is a white blanket.

    (also note the word simile – a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid

  • Frozen syntax, such as binomials or bi-verbials
  • Nonverbal cultural features

It is possible to have several “first languages”, so long as they are learned prior to puberty.

For example, children who grow up in households where two languages are spoken (typically in the case of parents of different linguistic backgrounds) may acquire each of those languages natively. These people are referred to as bilingual.

L2 or Second Language

while L2 is used in the same way to refer to their second language or the language they are currently learning.

How Are L2s Learned?

L2s are learned through a process known as second language acquisition, or SLA.

Like first language acquisition, second language acquisition is a complex field of linguistics. Though many of its theories and facets are constantly under debate, the general commonalities of SLA are:

  • Second language acquisition is the process of acquiring language capacity after another language (or languages) have already been learned natively.
  • Learning an L2 requires conscious effort.
  • L2s are not learned during infancy, and most often after puberty.
  • Theoretically, an acquired L2 can only be known at non-native proficiencies. Exactly how proficient a language learner can become in a second language can range widely, but the general scientific consensus is that an L2 cannot be mastered to the same level as an L1. Highly advanced L2 learners are often called near-native speakers.
  • Though capacity in both L1s and L2s can deteriorate from lack of use (through a process called attrition), L2 capacity is considered to decrease faster from misuse than their L1 counterparts.

As with the term L1 above, the use of the number two in “L2” or “second language” does not necessarily refer to the exact numerical order in which a language is acquired, but only that the language was learned non-natively. In nearly all cases, L2 can be used to refer to any number of languages learned after puberty.

Together, L1 and L2 are the major language categories by acquisition. In the large majority of situations, L1 will refer to native languages, while L2 will refer to non-native or target languages, regardless of the numbers of each.

Bottom-Up listening – decode

Process and comprehend smallest parts of the language. You start by listening for the individual sounds and then join these sounds together to make syllables and words. These words are then combined together to form phrases, clauses and sentences. Finally the sentences combine together to form texts or conversations.

Listening involves ‘bottom-up’ processing (in which listeners attend to data in the incoming speech signals)

Text based.
It is to know about the details and segments.
It concentrates on forms and structure.

Listener relies on the language (sound + words + grammar = meaning)

Text itself represents the main source of information.

(masculine)

Examples

Your English teacher asked you to read about a certain topic. Then he instructed you to listen to recorded material to find out if the same points are mentioned.

Friend tries to explain how you can go on a trip to Palawan for the first time. You make sure you do not miss any important details and instructions about the trip.

Top down – Processing and comprehension starts with background knowledge

Theory driven – Make use of what you already know.

  • Listen for the main idea (Context of the message)
  • Predicting
  • Drawing inferences
  • Summarizing

Example:

Korean guy tries to sell you shoes in Korean. No idea what he said. But can look at his body language, facial expression..etc.

Unknown person comes to shake your hand and say hi in another language…you’d have to guess from facial expression, and body language of holding hand out…this is example of top down.

If say horses, you can use your background knowledge about horses to understand its context.

Four fundamental properties of spoken language

This accessibility is made possible in part through accommodations made by native speakers to make language comprehension possible and in part through strategies the learner enacts to make the speech comprehensible.

Speech processing

syllable – a unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants,

A syllable is a part of a word that contains
a single vowel sound and that is pronounced as a unit.

So, for example, ‘book’ has one syllable, and ‘reading’ has two syllables. We children called her Oma, accenting both syllables.

Research in spoken-language recognition shows that each language has its own ‘preferred strategies’ for aural decoding, which are readily acquired by the LI child, but often only partially acquired by the L2 learner. Preferred strategies involve four fundamental properties of spoken language:

  • 1. the phonological system: the phonemes used in a particular language, typically only 30 or 40 out of hundreds of possible phonemes;

    note: A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in speech

    the letters that make up syllables, individual sounds.

    i.e ‘a’ in cat, or ‘a’ in kate. Sounds that make up syllables

  • 2. phonotactic rules:

    the sound sequences that a language allows to make up syllables;

    i.e. variations of what sounds can start or end syllables, whether the ‘peak’ of the syllable can be a simple or complex or lengthened vowel and whether the ending of the syllable can be a vowel or a consonant;

    RULES for adding groups of sounds (when/how the sounds) that get added to words.

    sixth –> sikst
    friendship –> frienship
    hamster –> hampster
    tomato –> tomado

  • 3. tone melodies: the characteristic variations in high, low, rising and falling tones to indicate lexical or discourse meanings;

    In other words, pitch that gives meaning to words.

    Example: If you end a sentence with a rising pitch, it typically means a question.

    Certain rules/laws of sounds that gives more meaning to the sentence.

  • 4. the stress system: the way in which lexical stress is fixed within an utterance

    emphasis certain words. Harder announcements on words to prove your point. It is concerned with how the inflections are applied to the sounds in words.

    example:

    For compound nouns, the stress is on the first part
    example: BLACKbird GREENhouse

    For compound adjectives, the stress is on the second part example: bad-TEMpered old-FASHioned

    For compound verbs, the stress is on the second part
    example: underSTAND overFLOW

How do we know which syllable to stress?

1. For MOST two syllable nouns AND adjectives, stress the first syllable.

For example:

  • KNOWledge
  • TAble
  • ENtrance
  • PURple
  • SPAcious
  • PRESent
  • EXport
  • CHIna
  • TAble
  • PRESent
  • SLENder
  • CLEVer
  • HAPpy

2. For MOST two syllable verbs stress the second syllable.

For example:

  • conTROL
  • reBEL
  • proDUCE
  • preSENT
  • exPORT
  • deCIDE
  • beGIN

3. For words that end with the suffix -tion or -sion, stress the syllable before.

For example:

  • educAtion
  • situAtion
  • PENsion
  • exTENsion

Name and describe three examples of input sources used to teach listening

They all boil down to three main sources.
They are the:

  • speaker
  • spoken audio
  • music

Each of these three input sources activates different parts of the brain.

These audio or video sources can be live or recorded.

A live speaker is different than listening to recorded spoken audio and both of those are different than music.

Therefore, if a teacher uses a combination of the three of them, they will be able to teach listening to students.

Live Speaker

Having students listen to a live speaker is a great way to teach listening. They will learn how to pay attention and will get used to watching someone give a presentation. This is very important because they need to know how to behave when a live person is speaking to them.

Listening to a lecture is very different than conversing with friends.

In giving a lecture, a teacher is:

  • encouraging students to listen to him or her while presenting the information.
  • They are learning how to watch and listen at the same time.

Although this sounds like a basic skill it is something that students must learn. Knowing how to pay attention, and when, will be very important as life goes on.

A great way to encourage them to work on their listening skills is to:

  • have them write down a few things they learned during the presentation.
  • Encourage them to take some notes of things that stand out to them or make them think.
  • Maybe even give them a worksheet ahead of time so that they have some guidance on what they are looking for.

Weather Reports / Commercial

Climatic Clips

This especially rings true for clips when it has background music for accompaniment. When a scene is climatic, or very tender, or touching in storyline, and the music is just swaying in the background, the listener picks up on the language especially well.

In war movies, battle cries, war speeches, and phrases to rouse the viewer are especially well remembered.

Music

Music is perhaps the most popular form of auditory stimulus. In addition, it is one of the most effective ways to learn information. Songs are very easy to remember and the tunes often get stuck in people’s heads. As a result, they are learning how to listen. They are remembering the words in the song. Then all they have to do is think about what the song is about.

Of course, it is important to make sure that whatever songs you use in the classroom are songs that you want students to think about. In other words, they need to be clean.

Name and describe the four major processes of speech production

Initiation – is the moment when the air is expelled from the lungs

Phonation – vocal folds vibrate to make a sound. the production or utterance of speech sounds

Oro-nasal process – (The main articulators involved in speech production are the oral tract, the nasal tract and the upper portion of the pharynx, the nasopharyngeal port.),

articulation – The airflow from the lungs is then shaped by the articulators in the mouth and nose

What is pedagogy

Pedagogy, pronounced “peh-duh-gow-jee,” is a term that refers to the method of how teachers teach, in theory and in practice.

Pedagogy is formed by an educator’s teaching beliefs and concerns the interplay between culture and different ways to learn.

This can involve skills like writing clearly or knowing how to engage students in class so they pay better attention. Outside the classroom, your communication skills can be useful for talking to parents about their child’s progress and needs.

the teacher’s main role is to promote student learning. The teacher needs to be capable in terms of the content and student learning, be able to organize lessons, facilitate the interaction and solve challenges in classroom.

the constructivist approach – Constructivism is the theory that says learners construct knowledge rather than just passively take in information. As people experience the world and reflect upon those experiences, they build their own representations and incorporate new information into their pre-existing knowledge (schemas).

Allow pairs of students to teach each other. Learners pose their own questions and seek answers to their questions via research and direct observation. They present their supporting evidence to answer the questions.

the collaborative approach – A collaborative (or cooperative) learning approach involves pupils working together on activities or learning tasks in a group small enough to ensure that everyone participates.

the reflective approach – Reflective pedagogy is a teaching model where educators continually reflect upon their lessons and curriculum to improve future iterations of their course. Instructors who use the reflective pedagogy model regularly gather data on student satisfaction, engagement and belonging to help inform subsequent lessons.

Reflective teaching is a process whereby teachers reflect on their teaching practices in order to examine the overall effectiveness of their instructive approaches. Improvement or change in teaching methods may be required, depending on the outcome of this analytical process, which is based on critical reflection.

the integrative approach – is an approach where the learner brings together prior knowledge and experiences to support new knowledge and experiences. By doing this, learners draw on their skills and apply them.

An example of an integrative learning project involving citizenship and community must first involve student interest. A teacher can encourage students to identify a problem in their community, such as an environmental issue or traffic problems that is important to the students.

Once the students find a problem that speaks to their interests, they can form a plan. Perhaps they will decide to write to editors of a local newspaper, or a congressman. If they become more interested in the problem, they can collect data and create an in-depth report with charts and graphs to display their findings. In order to see action taken in the community, they may become involved in the workings of local government by contacting the relevant departments or going to a city council meeting and presenting their findings. They may even sit on a committee to monitor progress on the problem over time. The learning that occurs is directly applicable to their lives, and will develop skills they will utilize as socially aware citizens.

the inquiry-based approach – a learning process that engages students by making real-world connections through exploration and high-level questioning. It is an approach to learning that encourages students to engage in problem-solving and experiential learning.
i.e experiments, field trips, classroom debates, projects, group works.

Name and describe techniques and methods that are successful in English L2 writing classrooms

  • careful needs analysis to plan curriculums
  • co-operative and group work (including collaborative writing) that strengthen the community of the class and offer writers authentic audiences
  • integration of language skills in class activities
  • learning style and strategy training to help students learn how to learn
  • and the use of relevant, authentic materials and tasks

One idea for English L2 writing teaching method is to use related vocabulary for students to create stories from the vocabulary lists.

The teacher can ask students in each group to brainstorm 10 vocabulary of the writing topic. Then, each group comes to the board and writes down the vocabulary. After that the whole class can discuss the vocabulary meaning together in class and ask each student to use the vocabulary to write an article of the topic with the vocabulary discussed on the board.

Another teaching method for English L2 writing classrooms is to use photos! The teacher can ask each student to bring 3 – 5 photos from a subject that the teacher is going to teaching for the next class. It can be travel photos, holiday photos, or other subject photos. Then, the teacher can ask students to work in pairs to exchange photos to tell each pair’s photo story and write the story down on a piece of paper. Then each student tells the story of his or her partner’s photo story in class.

Define: Grammar, Morphology and Syntax

Grammar seek to explain the same phenomena: how words are formed (morphology) and how words are combined (syntax).

A grammar does not describe the meaning of the strings or what can be done with them in whatever context—only their form.

Formal Grammar – A formal grammar is a set of rules for rewriting strings, along with a “start symbol” from which rewriting starts.

Formal grammar is a set of rules. It is used to identify correct or incorrect strings of tokens in a language. The formal grammar is represented as G. Formal grammar is used to generate all possible strings over the alphabet that is syntactically correct in the language.

At a high level, the definition of grammar is a system of rules that allow us to structure sentences. It includes several aspects of the English language, like: Parts of speech (verbs, adjectives, nouns, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, modifiers, etc.)

Morphology

Morphology is arrangement and relationships of the smallest units of the language.
Morpheme – smallest unit of a word with meaning. How word parts can be arranged.

Morphology is the study of how parts of words, called morphemes, create different meanings by combining with each other or standing alone. For example, if you take the morpheme cookie and add the suffix –s, you create a new word—cookies, a plural form with a slightly different meaning than the singular form.

Example:

Firehouse – Morphemes are the words fire and house. Putting them together creates a word.
Doghouse – dog and house.
Bathroom – bath and room.

For instance, the word “dogs” is composed of two morphemes: the stem word “dog” and the inflectional suffix “-s” to indicate the plural form of “dog”. The word “jumped” is composed of two morphemes: the stem word “jump” and the inflectional suffix “-ed” to indicate the past tense of “jump”.

Morphology deals with parts of words called morphemes. Morphological analysis looks at how morphemes can be combined or separated to make different words with different meanings.

The most common examples are plural nouns. Usually a noun’s root word alone means the singular version; for example, for the morpheme cat, the root word cat means “one cat.” To talk about two or more cats, we take the morpheme cat and add an –s to the end; this is because spelling plurals with –s or –es is common in English. Understanding the relationship between cat, cats, and the suffix –s is all part of morphology.

How Morphology can help us improve our English

For one thing, morphology can improve your reading comprehension by helping you understand the meanings of words you’ve never seen before. Morphology can also answer a lot of frustrating questions, like why some words are spelled weirdly or why irregular words don’t follow the normal rules.

Moreover, studying morphology introduces you to new morphemes, which expands your vocabulary and teaches you brand-new words. This, along with other techniques from our writing guide, can only improve your writing.

There are two types of morphemes

1 Free morphemes are morphemes that can exist independently as individual words. These are typically root or base words, like the free morpheme comfort.

2 Bound morphemes are morphemes that cannot exist independently and must be used together with a base word. These are typically affixes—prefixes or suffixes—like the bound morphemes un- and –able in the word uncomfortable.

Let’s look at another morpheme example: deconstruction.

In this word, there are three morphemes: construct, de-, and –ion. Only construct is a free morpheme; on its own it is still a complete word. However, de– and –ion are bound morphemes; neither is a complete word that makes sense when used alone.

Morphemes vs. syllables

Morphemes are often confused with syllables because both are used to break up words into smaller parts. However, the two are not related.

While morphemes are parts of words broken up by meaning, syllables are parts of words broken up by sound.

Syllables are typically individual sounds in a word, almost always involving a vowel and usually with an additional consonant sound or two. For example, the word caterpillar has four syllables: cat–er–pil–lar.

However, morphemes aren’t based on sound, so a single morpheme can have more than one syllable. For example, the entire word caterpillar is still just one morpheme, even though it’s four syllables.

Lesson plan for beginner students

Go over a few words that rhythm. Then use them together to create a short passage. But first, I’d go over their meaning and examples on how to use them.

– smile
ex: I like to smile

– mile
ex: I walked one mile

– Kyle
ex: My name is Kyle

– pile
ex: I sat on a pile of leaves

– rile
ex: Please do not get riled up!

– vile
ex: That dish smells vile!

Then create a short story about it:

Kyle runs six miles every day. When he is running, he feels happy, so he smiles.
If Kyle does not run, he will feel riled and appear vile.

After his run, he will drink water and eat a pile of mashed potatoes.

Have my students read the passage and answer questions. They need to describe their answers like so.

Who is Kyle?

Kyle is a runner.

What happens when he is running and feeling happy?

He smiles.

What happens when he does not run?

He will feel riled, and look vile.

What does he like to drink after his run?

Water.

What does he like to eat after his run?

Mashed Potatoes.

I will keep repeating these questions and discuss students’ answers.
This will encourage them to use these words over and over. It will also improve their listening comprehension.

Define and describe the elements of pronunciation.

  • stress – defined as the degree of force or loudness with which a syllable is pronounced as to give it prominence.

    As you see, words contain syllables.

    One syllable words – as in chair, red, and, lost, live, etc.;

    Two syllables words – such as
    table (tay bull),
    little (li tol),
    risky (ris kee),
    sad-ness,
    final (Fi Null)

    three syllables or more words – such as beautiful, respective,
    photographer, unbearable, etc.

    When a word has more than one syllable, one
    of the syllables may be considered more important than the others, for
    example the word lazy'. The first syllable la’ is considered more important
    (and this often occur in two-syllable words, where first syllable is considered more important than the other one). Thus, the first syllable is stressed to indicate the condition. Then, you will see it written this way: ‘lazy. This happens in most two-syllable words. The first part is considered more important than the others so that the first syllable is mostly stressed.


  • rhythmRhythm is the sense of movement in speech, which is marked by stress, timing and quantity of syllables. Spoken English words with two or more syllables have different stress and length patterns.
    The rhythm of English is based on the contrast of stressed and unstressed syllables in regular intervals, with the stresses falling within content words.

    The stressed syllables of the sentence create beats. The beats of the following sentence fall on the words ‘like’ and the second syllable of ‘Colombia’: “I like Colombia”.

  • ref – https://owlcation.com/humanities/Pitch-Definition-And-Examples-Of-Pitch-In-English-Pronunciation

    pitch – In contrast, a high pitch range indicates an informational contrast as shown in example (a). Because high pitch range implies a contrast even when one is not explicitly present in the discourse, it can be used to single out individual words for special attention as in example (b).

    a) I’m going to Harvard, not Yale!

    b) I’d never do that.

    Low pitch range is used when the speaker wants to assert that two items in successive tone units are in some sense equivalent, as in example (c):

    I told you already, dummy.

  • intonation

Vowels

Vowels are open sounds, which means the voice flows freely through the mouth without being blocked or obstructed in any way. The mouth is like a tunnel, and as the voice flows through it, we change the shape of the tunnel with our jaw, tongue, and lips to form the sound of each vowel.

In English there are two primary types of vowels, pure vowels, made by one mouth position that produces one vowel sound, and diphthong vowels, which move from one vowel sound to another as the mouth position changes.

Examples of diphthong:

aw – straw, law, cause
oy – toy boy, coin, noise
ow – cow, now, flower, cloud

The English alphabet has five written vowels, A-E-I-O-U, but quite a few more spoken vowels, so written English cannot be an accurate guide to pronunciation.

For example, the English letter “O” is pronounced five different ways, as in hot, love, soft, home, do.

To speak English well, it’s essential to use a phonetic alphabet guide, which provides a different written symbol for every vowel and consonant sound, giving you a way to learn and notate the correct pronunciation of any word.

Some languages don’t require a great deal of movement in certain areas of the mouth; the jaw may not open wide, or the lips don’t move very much. Good sounding English, however, requires flexibility, control, and precise articulation of the muscles in and around the mouth. Our exercises are designed to bring consciousness and control to all areas of the mouth required to pronounce English well.

Consonants

Whereas vowels are open sounds, consonants are closed sounds, produced by various kinds of contact between the “articulators” (tongue, teeth, and lips) that block and release the flow of breath and voice, or restrict them to create friction.

Some languages are constructed from fixed consonant-vowel units, so there’s no reason to separate them, but English consonants and vowels combine in many different ways, so we have to learn each one separately.

There are twenty-four consonants in English. Sixteen consonants form eight pairs called “cognates,” each pair made with the same physical technique, the difference being that one consonant is made with the breath alone (unvoiced), and the other is made with the voice (voiced).

Let’s talk about voicing. Voiced and unvoiced pairs.

The first 8 boxes below show the consonant sounds IPA symbols for voiced and unvoiced consonant pairs.
English consonants can be unvoiced and voiced.

An unvoiced consonant means that there is is no vibration or voice coming from the voicebox when the sound is pronounced. Examples of unvoiced consonant sounds are /s/, /p/ and /t/.

A voiced consonant means that there is voice or vibration coming from the voicebox when the sound is pronounced. Examples of voiced consonant sounds are /v/, /b/ and /g/.

A consonant pair is when the mouth position required to make two sounds is the same, but one sound in unvoiced and one sound is voiced.

We have put the voiced and unvoiced pairs in the box together. Remember that the mouth position for the pair is exactly the same, the only difference is that one is voiced and one isn’t.

For example, the mouth position required to make the sounds /p/ and /b/ is exactly the same, /p/ has no voice and /b/ is voiced.

/f/ and /v/ require exactly the same mouth position, /f/ is unvoiced and /v/ is voiced.

What learning materials/teaching aids will you utilize in the TESOL classroom?

Flash Cards for students to recall words and their meaning.
Pictures so students can write about what’s happening in it.
Songs for students to learn and model their pronunciation after.

Name and describe 5 language learning strategies for TESOL

The first step of teaching is learning the different techniques and methods TESOL teachers utilize.

Techniques and methods that are successful in English L2 writing classrooms include:

  • careful needs analysis to plan curriculums
  • co-operative and group work (including collaborative writing) that strengthens the community of the class and offer writers authentic audiences;
  • integration of language skills in class activities;
  • learning style and strategy training to help students learn how to learn;
  • and the use of relevant, authentic materials and tasks.

There are many different approaches, and they can all be used interchangeably to suit your teaching style. The following is a review of approaches:

Art/Musical

Utilizing both sides of the brain is a great key to learning another language. Students acquire the L2 through songs and art such as charts and graphs. Art is also used by students to draw pictures of new words or to create stories about pictures.
This reinforces newly acquired vocabulary.

Direct Based/Communicative

This is where students team up to work with each other and practice conversation or vocabulary words as guided by the teacher.

For example, the teacher would create a scenario such as becoming acquainted with the names of fruits.

The teacher would provide the paper and have the students draw a vegetable and then pronounce the word in both languages.

This promotes a complete recollection of the name and image in their language while linking it with the new English word.

The exercise could be taken one step further by asking the students to

make up a story about the vegetable and using their stories as a collective discussion for the class.

There is an endless amount of scenarios one can create for the students to practice among one another. Instructors should encourage the students to use spontaneous words. Props, flash cards, music and art work are instrumental in creating different scenarios.

Grammar Memorization Speech

This is translating the words for the students and having them repetitively write and speak them. To demonstrate these powerful methods, the teacher can have a drill where he/she asks the students to write a word 20 times and the translation 20 times and speak the word 20 times for 5 days. The drawback with this approach is that it can be repetitive and boring which can cause students to experience frustration due to lack of creativity.

Vocabulary

This approach focuses on teaching vocabulary in order to facilitate language acquisition. At the beginning of every class, the teacher can introduce 5 new words. As time progresses, it would be good to set in motion each class with a warm up of the 5 words from the previous class.

One can then integrate these words into other methods. For example, one can teach such things as directions by taking a walk throughout the school with students. When making a left turn, hold up the vocabulary sign for the word “left,” and then have them memorize it.

Lexical Chunks

According to Lewis (1997, 2000) native speakers carry a pool of hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of lexical chunks in their heads ready to draw upon in order to produce fluent, accurate and meaningful language. Most of the expressions we use on a daily basis are ‘fixed’ and are not rule governed.

Therefore more time should be spent teaching base verbs than tense formations,
i.e dance, jump, run (verb without any other suffix)

content nouns should be taught in chunks which include frequent adjectival and verbal collocations,

i.e

collocation refers to a natural combination of words that are closely affiliated with each other. Some examples are “pay attention”, “fast food”, “make an effort”, and “powerful engine”.

Absolutely necessary
Bitterly cold
Deeply affected
Deeply ashamed
Deeply hurt
Deeply moved
Deeply offended
Ruggedly handsome
Scared stiff
Strongly opposed
Actively involved
Badly hurt

and sentence heads such as “Do you mind if…” and “Would you like to…” should be focused on. The lexical approach also suggests that suprasentential linking should be explicitly taught, and prepositions, modal verbs and delexical verbs should be treated as if there were
lexical items. In the TESOL setting, therefore, metaphors and metaphor sets should be taught on account of their centrality to a language.

Define psycholinguistics and bilingualism

psycholinguistics

Psycholinguistics is the discipline that investigates and describes the psychological processes that make it possible for humans to master and use language. Psycholinguists conduct research on speech development and language development and how individuals of all ages comprehend and produce language.

For example, a psycholinguist might choose to focus on how a baby develops their specific language to the exclusion of all others. If you were to study psycholinguistics, you might study the process of language acquisition, or how the human mind develops, perceives, and produces both spoken and written communication

Psycholinguistics covers three main aspects namely : (a) Language Comprehension, (b) Language Production and, (c) Language Acquisition.

Psycholinguistics is all about the study of how individuals comprehend, produce and acquire language in its spoken, written and signed forms, while linguistics is the scientific study of the language only.

Bilingualism

Put simply, bilingualism is the ability to use two languages. However, defining bilingualism is problematic since individuals with varying bilingual characteristics may be classified as bilingual.

Bilingualism means to have the ability to communicate in two languages. For example, a person could communicate in French and Spanish or English and American Sign Language. A person could become bilingual because they are raised in a dual-language household or because they learn a second language later in life

Compound Bilinguals – Use two languages from the start. Many children grow up learning two languages at the same time.
Coordinate Bilinguals – Use only one language at home. Your child can learn the second language when he starts school.
Subordinate Bilinguals – Give your child many chances to hear and practice both languages during the day.

Name and describe 5 language learning strategies for TESOL

  1. Cognitive Strategies aid the learners to make and strengthen associations between new and already-known information and, also facilitate the mental restructuring of information. Some examples of cognitive strategies are:

    guessing from context,
    analyzing,
    reasoning, while taking systematic notes and reorganizing information,
    Repetition,
    Spaced learning,
    Explain it to someone else,
    Write it in your own language,
    Use real world examples,
    Distributed practice,
    Visualisation techniques,
    Quiz yourself

  2. Mnemonic Strategies – improve retention through learning techniques to help memorize. These strategies are useful for memorizing information.

    Examples are:
    by sounds also known as rhyming,
    by body movement also known as total physical response,
    in which the teacher gives a command in English and learners physically follow this.

  3. Meta-Cognitive Strategies help learners manage themselves as learners, the general learning process and specific learning tasks.

    There are several varieties that exist. A group of meta-cognitive strategies makes it easier for individuals to know themselves better as language learners.

    Meta-cognitive strategies are related to self-management or self-regulation in a given reading activity. Meta-cognitive strategies include planning and monitoring strategies. Planning strategies refer to L2 learners’ actions of what needs to be done, and how and when to do it.

  4. Affective Strategies – include individuals identifying their own feelings (for example anxiety, anger, and contentment) and becoming aware of the learning circumstances that cause them. Using a language learning diary to record feelings about language learning is also helpful, as can emotional checklists. However, cultural norms make an influence on
    the acceptability or variability of affective strategies.
  5. Social Strategies – ease learning with others and help learners understand the culture of the language they are learning.

    Some examples of social strategies are

    • asking questions for clarification or confirmation
    • asking for help
    • learning about social or cultural norms/values
    • studying together outside of the class

    Research findings suggest that these strategies can indeed be taught to language learners, that learners will apply these strategies in language learning tasks, and that such application does produce significant gains in language learning.

Why do Americans struggle to save money?

consume ( verb ) – to engage fully, utilize as a customer, be destroyed by

Consumerism (noun) – promotion of consumption – new stuff every year with fresh features, invite consumers to upgrade from their older versions.

With 69% of Americans having less than $1,000 in savings and 45% having $0, why are so many
people bad at saving money?

Too many people have bought into the consumer culture.

I just have to have the latest $1200 smart phone.

I desperately need that 3rd 60 inch TV.

I am dying for Sept when I can get my next new car.

I have to have a sports watch, all the fashionista clothes, and a remodeling of the kitchen every 2 years.

You have to live below your paycheck, whatever that is. AND make an effort to improve yourself and so as to EARN a larger paycheck next year.

There are plenty of people out there who earn $150k+ a year and who are a couple months away from bankruptcy. Why? Because they have no discipline, no common sense.

It’s not so much how much money you make, it’s how much you keep.

70%+ Americans have been reported to live paycheck to paycheck

Maybe because wages have basically been stagnant for 30 years and products and services have become more and more expensive?

inflation – a general increase in prices and fall in the purchasing value of money.

Americans are told from birth, that they are prosperous, and that this prosperity is a birthright. Of course, wages for the working class have been stagnant for almost a half a century now, but most don’t realize this.

They think they have an obligation to be consumers, and that they are failures falling short of the American Dream, if they do not have the trappings of prosperity.

So they routinely decide whether they can afford something, based on the size of the monthly payment, not the actual cost of the purchase itself.

Working Class have been stagnant for over 40 years. Again, most of us don’t realize this, because we make more “dollars” than our parents did. What we don’t comprehend, is that the rate of inflation and increases in the cost of living, have outstripped the number of dollars we earn, so that our standard of living has actually diminished considerably during that 40 plus years.

There is some validity to the idea that we could do better, if we were better educated about money. But another consideration is that economic policy is enacted in the US by the wealthy class, and it is designed to benefit only them…not us. The primary reason along with economic ignorance for the fact that so many Americans live paycheck to paycheck, is that the economic policies are stacked against the Working Class. But most of us don’t realize it.

KMART

I earned 9.50/hour for KMART.
9.50 * 30 hours = 285
285 * 4 = $1140

after taxes = $934.8

rent $300
634.8

School loans = $180 a month
$454.8 left for spending
$113/ week
$16.24/day

dish at local chinese restaurant is $9.99

1st software job

$52,000 = 353,000rmb

$4333/month

after taxes $3553

$650 rent
$1000 student loans
$500 credit card
$400 (phone bill, commute, gym fees)

$1000/4 = 250/week
$35/day

Keeping up with the Joneses

The joneses – Kate is the leader of a team of stealth marketers, professional salespeople who disguise product placement as a daily routine.

Their clothing, accessories, furniture, and even food are carefully planned and stocked by various companies to create visibility in a desirable consumer market. While Kate’s team is highly effective, Steve is new to the team.

The team quickly ingratiates itself into the community, slowly shifting from displaying products to recommending them. Soon, local stores and businesses are stocking products based on the Joneses’ trend-setting styles.

Cashless society

There’s another reason Americans struggle to save money: The cashless society. Americans pay for nearly everything with a debit or credit card and that can affect their spending.

Studies have shown that people are willing to spend up to 83% more when using a credit card to pay for their purchase. If you don’t believe it, try this experiment. Spend a few weeks paying for everything you can by cash. Take cash out of your checking account and see if you can notice the difference in how it feels when that cash leaves your hand. See if spending cash feels different than swiping a debit or credit card.

Most people find that it’s much tougher to let go of cash than it is to swipe a debit or credit card on a machine. Purchases made with a debit or credit card just don’t feel like spending real money.

Purchases made with plastic do spend real money. We’re not just spending more on purchases, either. People who don’t pay their cards off in full every month are also paying interest on their credit card balances, often at rates as high as 20% or more.

I was $10,000 in debt:

Bank of America
Discover
Washington Mutual (Chase)

Having a baby

Private room (1 night) $4940
Semi-private room (1 night) $2470
Admissions charge (walking through the door) $700
Pharmacy $1193
Lab fees $1533
$7250 (Labor room and delivery)
————————————

$18,224 (total hospital charges)
$16,107 (insurance)
$2094 (pays out of pocket)

$12,000 (hospital charges)
$6,000 (insurance)
$6,000 (pays out of pocket)

Cancer frequency by country (per 100,000)

1 Mongolia 918.0
2 New Zealand 438.1
3 Ireland 373.7
4 Hungary 368.1
5 United States 352.2
6 Belgium 345.8
7 France 344.1
8 Denmark 340.4
9 Norway 337.8
10 Netherlands 334.1
11 Canada 334.0

Cancer is becoming a more common tragedy in our world. The American Cancer Society estimates that more than 600,000 Americans will die from cancer this year, and almost 2 million new cases will be diagnosed.

Then vs Now

Americans LOVE to save money, to the point of hoarding. If you look back at people who had money to save, who grew up in the 1940s-1980s golden years, they mostly have enormous nest eggs, rental properties, second and third homes, assets that can be turned into money regardless of what happens with our monetary system and economy.

The reason Americans don’t have money saved is that we are NOT a rich country anymore. Poverty is widespread, wages stagnant, and young people forced into massive debt just to get what everywhere else is standard. Living above paycheck to paycheck just doesn’t happen for the bottom 60% of the country.

Capitalism

资本主义

Adverb 2

ref – https://www.grammarly.com/blog/adverb/

An adverb is a word that modifies (describes) a verb (he sings loudly), an adjective (very tall), another adverb (ended too quickly), or even a whole sentence (Fortunately, I had brought an umbrella). Adverbs often end in –ly, but some (such as fast) look exactly the same as their adjective counterparts.

adverb describes a verb
Tom Longboat did not run badly (badly is an adverb)

adverb describes an adjective
Tom is very tall (very is an adverb)

adverb describes another adverb
The race finished too quickly (too and quickly are both adverbs)

adverb describes a whole sentence
Fortunately, Lucy recorded Tom’s win.

Adverbs and verbs

Adverbs often modify verbs. This means that they describe the way an action is happening.

Phillip sings loudly in the shower.
My cat waits impatiently for his food.

I will seriously consider your suggestion.

The adverbs in each of the sentences above answer the question in what manner?

How does Phillip sing? Loudly.
How does my cat wait? Impatiently.
How will I consider your suggestion? Seriously.

Adverbs can answer other types of questions about how an action was performed. They can also tell you when (We arrived early) and where (Turn here).

However, there is one type of verb that doesn’t mix well with adverbs:

Linking verbs – feel, smell, sound, seem, and appear
(typically need adjectives, not adverbs)

A very common example of this type of mixup is

I feel badly about what happened.
I feel bad about what happened.

Because “feel” is a verb, it seems to call for an adverb rather than an adjective.

ex: I jump (verb) powerfully (adverb) in the competition.

But “feel” isn’t just any verb; it’s a linking verb. So we need an adjective.

ex: I feel (linking verb) bad (adjective) for you.

Therefore,

An adverb would describe how you perform the action of feeling. An adjective describes what you feel.

“I feel badly” means that you are bad at feeling things. If you’re trying to read Braille through thick leather gloves, then it might make sense for you to say “I feel badly.”

But if you’re trying to say that you are experiencing negative emotions, “I feel bad” is the phrase you want.

Adverbs and adjectives

Adverbs can also modify adjectives and other adverbs. Often, the purpose of the adverb is to add a degree of intensity to the adjective.

The woman is quite pretty.
This book is more interesting than the last one.

The weather report is almost always right.

The adverb almost is modifying the adverb always, and they’re both modifying right.

“Is my singing too loud?” asked Phillip.
My cat is incredibly happy to have his dinner.

We will be slightly late to the meeting.

This bridesmaid dress is a very unflattering shade of puce.

Adverbs and other adverbs
You can use an adverb to describe another adverb. In fact, if you wanted to, you could use several.

Phillip sings rather enormously too loudly.
The problem is that it often produces weak and clunky sentences like the one above, so be careful not to overdo it.

Adverbs and sentences
Some adverbs can modify entire sentences—unsurprisingly, these are called sentence adverbs. Common ones include generally, fortunately, interestingly, and accordingly. Sentence adverbs don’t describe one particular thing in the sentence—instead, they describe a general feeling about all of the information in the sentence.

Fortunately, we got there in time.
Interestingly, no one at the auction seemed interested in bidding on the antique spoon collection.

At one time, the use of the word hopefully as a sentence adverb (e.g., Hopefully, I’ll get this job) was condemned. People continued to use it though, and many style guides and dictionaries now accept it. There are still plenty of readers out there who hate it though, so it’s a good idea to avoid using it in formal writing.

Degrees of comparison
Like adjectives, adverbs can show degrees of comparison, although it’s slightly less common to use them this way. With certain “flat adverbs” (adverbs that look exactly the same as their adjective counterparts), the comparative and superlative forms look the same as the adjective comparative and superlative forms. It’s usually better to use stronger adverbs (or stronger adjectives and verbs) rather than relying on comparative and superlative adverbs.

An absolute adverb describes something in its own right:

He smiled warmly
A hastily written note

To make the comparative form of an adverb that ends in -ly, add the word more:

He smiled more warmly than the others.
The more hastily written note contained the clue.

To make the superlative form of an adverb that ends in -ly, add the word most:

He smiled most warmly of them all.
The most hastily written note on the desk was overlooked.

Placement of adverbs
Place adverbs as close as possible to the words they are supposed to modify. Putting the adverb in the wrong spot can produce an awkward sentence at best and completely change the meaning at worst. Be especially careful about the word only, which is one of the most often misplaced modifiers. Consider the difference between these two sentences:

Phillip only fed the cat.
Phillip fed only the cat.

The first sentence means that all Phillip did was feed the cat. He didn’t pet the cat or pick it up or anything else. The second sentence means that Phillip fed the cat, but he didn’t feed the dog, the bird, or anyone else who might have been around.

When an adverb is modifying a verb phrase, the most natural place for the adverb is usually the middle of the phrase.

We are quickly approaching the deadline.
Phillip has always loved singing.

I will happily assist you.

When to avoid adverbs
Ernest Hemingway is often held up as an example of a great writer who detested adverbs and advised other writers to avoid them. In reality, it’s impossible to avoid adverbs altogether. Sometimes we need them, and all writers (even Hemingway) use them occasionally. The trick is to avoid unnecessary adverbs. When your verb or adjective doesn’t seem powerful or precise enough, instead of reaching for an adverb to add more color, try reaching for a stronger verb or adjective instead. Most of the time, you’ll come up with a better word and your writing will be stronger for it.

Working retail and service in the US

It was late October. I found myself alone in a distant town, somewhere near the northeast part of the country. My twenty years in America had been interesting. Unfortunately, the manifestation of the American dream was not a reality for me. I had a graduate degree, but no opportunities. There were very few available positions for someone with little to no experience. In fact, my situation was worse. In order to graduate, I sacrificed too much. My family pushed too much. I overworked and overextended myself, which resulted in some rather nasty symptoms. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, and as a result, I was only a shadow of my former jubilant self. To add insult to injury, due to my political opinions at the time, my father kicked me out of the house as well.

In order to escape insomnia, burnout from school, and a detrimental family environment, I went to live on a farm in Doylestown Pennsylvania. I worked for the local Kmart store during the Christmas retail season when shopper traffic was highest. The position paid nine dollars and twenty five cents an hour. I worked as an Utilities and Receiving associate. The hiring manager was Mary Ann.

I was jolted awake at 7:45am by my alarm. I plodded to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and returned to my makeshift room. As I put on my usual work khakis and a hooded sweatshirt, I noticed that my insomnia had improved. With ever growing confidence, I went downstairs and was ready to tackle the day. Sonnet greeted me with a wagging tail. I scratched his broad furry head and opened the front door. The sun’s warm rays greeted me, and I took a second to admire the acres of farmland. It was a Tuesday, so my landlord had left before the break of dawn. Mr Detweiler sold farm cleaning equipment and traveled the nearby counties to deliver them. His wife Mrs Detweiler worked at the local Deli. I walked down Main Rd steadily. Every now and then, a car zoomed by.

I started work by clocking in before 9am. We were to report to Receivings, which was an area designated for receiving stock. It was located in the back of the store. The Receivings’ Manager was a guy named Doug. He was in his fifties, came from Jamaica, and was divorced. He had very strong paternal presence and all the employees liked him. He understood the bureaucracy of Kmart’s retail environment and did his best to accommodate those around him. What I remembered most was his tiredness from life. He lost a lot of himself in his divorce, and just wanted to earn some money. I remember him chatting about getting a Driver B license so he could drive dump trucks and earn sixty grand a year. Obviously his current managerial position at Kmart did not look promising.

Doug would open this garage door every morning at eight thirty and there’d be a truck container filled to the brim with boxes. The boxes contained dog food, seasonal items, bathroom products, stationery, games, and all kinds of retail junk. We would pull out a conveyor belt, which was like a steel snake with wheels for scales. The head would go into the truck, while the tail stays on the warehouse floor. The boxes would roll down the snake’s spine and slither from the truck and onto the warehouse floor. The obvious benefit was that we could unload the truck in the shortest time possible.

Each box weighed anywhere from five to fifty pounds, and ranged from stationary to cat litter. One or two guys in the truck container would get a box and push it down the conveyor belt. Once a box traveled down the conveyor belt and onto the warehouse floor, a few guys would put them on their respective pallets. When a pallet was full, we’d shrink wrap them and pull them out onto the sales floor for the sales associates to unbox and organize onto the shelves. This process went from nine am to twelve pm. We had to finish the whole truck every morning. Since the truck was docked and waiting for us to unload, the trucking company charged Kmart money for that time. So we had to hurry up. Once the truck was empty, we had an hour lunch.

I reached into my pocket and scrounged just enough to buy a two item lunch combo from the restaurant next door. It was $11.95. Lunch was about 20% of our daily wage. But I were ravenous due to hours of hard morning labor. I stepped out from the furnace that was Kmart and walked down to the Chinese restaurant. I wolfed down my two item combo and coiled belly up on a bench for some much needed rest.

After lunch, my job was to collect shopping carts. I would push one cart inside another so they were attached. After eight or nine carts, I had a shopping cart serpent. Then I’d charm it into the store entrance by lifting its tail and weaving it left and right.

All in all, it was grueling work. I was on my feet doing manual labor for eight hours straight, with only an hour lunch in between, and another 15 minute break in the afternoon.

Now, for the kind of mental conflict I was in, these blue collar service positions were therapeutic because I got to clear my mind. I had the opportunity to wipe away past painful memories, get exercise, and resolve my insomnia. But for the guy who wanted to get ahead in life, it didn’t make sense because you could hardly feed yourself. I worked about seven point seven hours a day. This way, I did not go over forty hours per week. In the US, if an employee worked over 40 hours, this meant full time, and Kmart will have to pay all sorts of benefits. As long as I worked below forty hours, we were part time, and Kmart could save a lot of money by only paying hourly wages. The hourly wage was $9.25 so this meant $71.23 a day. Tax for our bracket was 18%, so I literally took home $1424 every month. No raise. No promotion. I was just a muscle peon that worked during the holidays where retail traffic was at its highest.

After January, the holiday season ended and Kmart fired the new hires by bringing their weekly hours down to ten. That meant the employee will work two hours a day, which amounts to a few hundred dollars a month. With that kind of money, they’re living in poverty.

I soon quit Kmart, and then went to Lowe’s, and finally to Target. The work was all the same. Very blue collar. Very physical. The thing that mattered most was how many hours I got.

Lowe’s was okay, but Target was better. Out of all the retail places I’ve worked, Target treated me the best. I did Planogram, which was a position that started at six thirty in the morning. It was also grueling work because I had to make sure the shelves, theme, price tags, and items were all stocked and put exactly the way it was on their planograms. The positive was that they gave me thirty eight hours a week year round, so I had consistent income.

Retail positions in the US go unfulfilled because they have no future, no promotions, and they require the applicant to literally slave away for a paycheck that barely covers life expenses. The available group of workers that apply do not have higher education, have medical issues, do drugs, or simply cannot show up every morning. The retail companies know this, and would cold-bloodedly enslave them. They dangle hours according to sales traffic, and meticulously steer clear of employee benefits. The cost performance of such positions is only high for the company. The more aware and abled applicants will eventually know this, and leave for better opportunities. Such is life for the lower middle class working retail in these United States.