Category Archives: Language

Redlined – Red pens result is more corrections on papers – wonder if this is true for red font on e-corrections

Redlined

Correction isn’t the most important thing

By
Jan Freeman

 

June 6, 2010

For schoolchildren, the red pen has long been a fearsome weapon, blazoning the marks of failure on once pristine writing assignments. And in recent years, many teachers have turned down the volume, switching from red’s loud rebuke to gentler purple pens. Now research has illuminated another aspect of the red-pen effect: A study published last month reveals that teachers armed with red pens actually grade more severely than those using blue.

The study, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, found that when participants marked up a paper supposedly written by an English learner, the red-pen wielders found more language mistakes to criticize. And when asked to grade a paper with no actual errors — just some doubtful style choices — the red-inksters awarded lower overall marks than the blue team.

The researchers — Abraham Rutchick of California State University, Northridge, Michael Slepian of Tufts University, and Bennett Ferris of Phillips Exeter Academy — don’t address whether marking more errors is good or bad (though earlier studies have linked the color red with failure). Their main point, Rutchick noted in an e-mail, is that “we’re constantly bombarded with stimuli that influence how we think and act, even (especially?) when we’re trying our hardest to be objective.”

via boston.com

I wonder if this holds true for red ink on electronic documents? 😉

Do bilinguals have two personalities: a special case of cultural frame switching

Interesting article (http://www.utpsyc.org/Nairan/research/bilingual.pdf)

One of the findings, I find particularly interesting. That is the finding that when speaking English, bilinguals were more extroverted than when communicating in Spanish. That, in itself, isn’t as interesting. What is really interesting was that they seem to stay at around the same rank (in extroversion) in both languages. Meaning, if they are around mid-level for extroversion in Spanish, they will also be about mid-level in English.

This is interesting for me given my (and most language teachers’) observations that fluent English language learners seem to be even more outgoing in English than in their native language. This is particularly true with students in Korea (just my observation, your experiences may differ).

I’ve often given the example of the woman I knew who was quick to swear like a sailor in English, while living in the States, but who, when in Korea, had a difficult time with even civil arguments. Her ability to confront and engage was nearly eliminated in the change of culture/language (which had the most effect is a good debate).

One of the findings of this paper is that she may have about the same rank of extroversion in both contexts, though the level of extroversion displayed differs.

Arizona Grades Teachers on Fluency

PHOENIX—As the academic year winds down, Creighton School Principal Rosemary Agneessens faces a wrenching decision: what to do with veteran teachers whom the state education department says don’t speak English well enough.

The Arizona Department of Education recently began telling school districts that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English.

State education officials say the move is intended to ensure that students with limited English have teachers who speak the language flawlessly. But some school principals and administrators say the department is imposing arbitrary fluency standards that could undermine students by thinning the ranks of experienced educators.

via online.wsj.com

Really, they are not grading on fluency. At least in this article, fluency is not really addressed. They are really looking at some sort of target accent and grammar use measures. I’m really wondering if the WSJ just didn’t report this with enough accuracy. I can’t imagine that they (the Arizona DoE) would be that messy in proposing evaluation measures.

Honestly, I don’t know what to think of this. The racist scumbags are out in force if you take a look at the comments section, and this is enough to make anyone thing this is a bad idea. However, it is much more than an issue of race or even language identity. This is the ongoing, knock-down, drag out fight on the issue of NESTs (native English-speaking teachers) and NNESTs (non-native English-speaking teachers) in ESL classrooms.

This debate has been hot in TESOL for many years. The growth of interest/belief in World Englishes has kept it at the forefront of criticism, theory, and practice discussions in recent years.

Ordinarily, I fall on the side of the NNESTs on this argument, but my opinion differs depending on the context and the goals of the organization. The policy, at first glance seems reasonable. Teachers with an accent or grammar that impedes communication, should be removed from the classroom (Arizona is only proposing that they are removed from ESL classrooms). This is completely reasonable, BUT….

Oops, we now have the problem of rating these teachers. Should all teachers be accessed by this measure? That would only make sense. There are plenty of native English-speaking teachers out there with terrible grammar and writing skills (also referred to in the article). We should get rid of them to. Or, should the people evaluated just have to be as good as the worse of the native English-speaking teachers? That would set a low bar, wouldn’t it?

What about a teacher with a heavy Scottish accent? I mean, have you ever seen Trainspotting? It may be English, but it’s pretty tough to understand for most Americans. I’d even venture to guess that most Americans understand English with a heavily influenced Spanish accent better. Really, we hear it much more often. So, the Scottish are out. While we are at it, the English, Australians, New Zealanders, and South Africans should be out, too. If they don’t speak American they shouldn’t be teaching our fragile children. Oh wait. Canadians. They’re out too. What’s up with that “aboot” thing. That ain’t American, ya know? They’re gone.

OK, so I lapse into a good deal of sarcasm. The question is left unanswered, though. What is the target? This is the slipperiest of slopes in a country where there is no standard. No matter where you live, everyone will insist that their English is standard. That doesn’t mean it won’t impede comprehension when interacting with students from other regions. If we have this much variability at home, what is the standard that we shoot for?

I don’t outright disagree with the Arizona policy; however, I am doubtful that they can come up with a fair assessment of these abilities that take into account the many factors that make a good teacher of English.

Breaking News! Alabamans speak English

More accurately, according to this guy, Alabamans should only interact with the government in English. There is probably a good policy issue in there somewhere, but this guy (notice, I won’t use his name) is not doing this because of a concern over spending, he’s doing it to get the emotional vote from people with contentious relationships with groups of people who don’t speak English.

I don’t know the rest of his politics. He may be wonderful in so many ways. He might be the leader we need. BUT, this call type of campaign ad makes me think that the guy is just out to divide and conquer. Create this group that everyone can hate on, damn dirty foreigners, to boost his ratings with those who have an emotional reaction to this issue.

Is it really an issue? How much does it cost to create multiple forms of the test? Give me a break. That is a nothing cost. It will cost more to have people tell the damn dirty foreigners that they are out of luck and need to use the English form.

Class Struggle – Why waste time on a foreign language?

Why waste time on a foreign language?

[This is my Local Living section column for April 22, 2010.]

My online discussion group, Admissions 101, recently exchanged verbal blows over foreign language courses in high school. Most of us defended the conventional wisdom. Learning another language improves cognitive development, we said. It enhances academic skills, encourages a sense of the wider world and looks good to colleges.

But the dissenters scored some points. “It is a waste of time and money in our schools,” said a parent who remembered seeing empty language lab stalls. A high school teacher said that “language study is complete nonsense for most people. I’d wager close to 80.percent of kids taking foreign languages in high school do so because they have to.”

How much do they learn? There is little evidence that many students achieve much fluency in high school.

It wasn’t until I decided I wanted to be a reporter in China that I got serious about grammar, vocabulary and accent in a foreign tongue. It was very difficult, another reason why high school language students don’t get very far.

How students still look good on their report cards is easy to explain. Because much of the world is striving to learn English, Americans wonder why they should bother to learn other languages. We talk about the importance of foreign language learning to our national security, but we don’t mean it. If if we need speakers of exotic tongues, we import them.

You can tell right away this guy is in Washington, D.C. in the way that he talks out of both sides of his mouth. Take a stance, man!

He makes some great points, but let’s read around what he said to eek them out.

(1) Language learning is best accomplished when it is based on an immediate need or desire to learn (job, deployment, girlfriend/boyfriend).

(2) Isolated high school programs do little to produce “fluent” speakers of the language. Anyone will tell you that it’s a tall order for someone to become “fluent” in 4 years of minimal study. This is why feeder programs are essential. We should be teaching languages from kindergarten in K-12. Before that, parents should be teaching their kids foreign languages from birth (slight exaggeration, but only slight).

He’s overall tone is very negative towards language learning (for the general public–applying to universities). He states that we (the U.S.) imports foreign language specialists when we need them. That is absolutely true. However, he sees the past with little insight into the future (or the present). It’s not that we have to worry about who will do the language work in the States, we have to worry about marketing ourselves and getting jobs abroad. Do you really think that being monolingual (even if it is the “global language” of English) will get you very far? Hell, most of these companies are headquartered in non-English speaking countries these days.

You want to go into finance? Learn Chinese or another East Asian language.

You want to go into technology? Multilingual Eastern Europeans, Middle Easterners, and Asians are going to eat your lunch.

You want to go into science? ….ok, you can probably get by with English-only, for now.

Why waste time on a foreign language? I’ll tell you why. Even if your parents were clueless enough not to prep you early to learn a second language (any language), exposure to language learning in school can start you down the path of figuring out how to learn languages. It can plant the seed of interest, or at least, get you to better know yourself, your interests, and how you best learn.

Sometimes, I just want to smack some sense into these myopic buffoons. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll knock their blinders off so they can see that there is a world outside of their suburban hell.

Wow, that rant felt good.

The Chosun Ilbo (English Edition): Daily News from Korea – Most Office Workers’ English Studies Are Short-Lived

Most Office Workers’ English Studies Are Short-Lived

Most junior office workers decide to improve their English but give up after a while, a straw poll suggests.

Junior office workers, who accounted for 73 percent of English program participants, often stop studying soon after they start. Only 27 percent last more than three months, while the majority stopped after about a month.

Not too surprising. Learning a language is like deciding you are going to exercise more. You start out gung ho and then find other things that are more immediately important to you. You then get a notice at the end of the year to renew your membership that you utilized a dozen times or so. Then you tell yourself you’re going to really do it this time….only to fall into the same hole.

These folks take language classes (or tutoring) because they believe, in the long run, that better English skills will improve their chances of moving up. This long-term, extrinsic motivation is the least sticky. The needs and desires of the immediate world take precedence and the goal is put off until later or manifested in books, software, and classes that will gather real or virtual dust until the desire strikes us again.

The reason that upper management was better is likely because they see a greater need or immediacy for the language, for testing, interaction, or simply cache.

On Language – Social – NYTimes.com – and a short post on language change and variety

Leslie David
By BEN ZIMMER

In our Web-driven era of social media and social networking, we are all learning more sophisticated ways to “socialize” that go far beyond cocktail-party chatter. But being social in the 21st century can sometimes be downright unsettling.

Consider the anxieties over a linguistic trend that The Wall Street Journal’s Overheard column expressed last month. “A new catchphrase in meetings is ‘let me socialize that,’ ” The Journal wrote. “No, they aren’t suggesting they will see if they can get a government bailout. Or introducing some left-wing political theories to business. Instead the phrase means ‘I’ll discuss this with my colleagues and circle back to you.’ ”

via nytimes.com

Fun (for the linguist in me) treatment of the word “social”.

The changing uses of words makes it difficult to teach language. Regional, age, and SES differences (to name a few) all influence language use. This is why learners fluent in English can have such a difficult time communicating at a fast food restaurant, in the dorm with undergraduates, or with any language variation outside of the standards they have had exposure to (difficulties many native speakers face as well).

How can I teach a language that is always changing? As with most teachers of English, I focus on academic language that, while it changes over time, is more much resilient to change than less formal domains. I fall back on standards (as ephemeral as they are) to provide a foundation.

The foundation is not enough, though. Standards create expectations that, when challenged, cause communication to falter. This is where variety comes in. Language variety increases exposure to language outside of your classroom standards. It’s faster/slower, drawl/clipped, enunciated/mumbled, male/female, formal/informal, and all the other wonders of language variety. Working outside of your classroom standards can encourage skills to process non-standard varieties, thus providing tools to learners to interact with the greater world of English speakers.

Most of us in EFL contexts are preparing learners who are less likely to interact in English with someone who sounds just like us than they are to encounter a fast network of global English speakers. In my neck of the woods, Korea, learners are more likely use English with Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, Taiwanese, Malaysian, and Thai speakers of English than they are with Americans, Canadians, and speakers from the other (preferred) English-speaking countries. The reality is that we do them a disservice if we teach them otherwise.

This post went way off topic, but I’m procrastinating, so whatcha’ gonna do? 😉

Early Childhood Language Learning

Occasionally, though more often than you would think, I have people ask me about the drawbacks of early childhood language learning.  Now, there are two problems with this: (1) I'm not an early childhood researcher, and (2) I've never really heard of any drawbacks.  Most TESL/SLA texts focus on the benefits of language learning/acquisition, specifically in foreign language context).

So here are a couple resources that describe some of the assumed and supported benefits.

Early Childhood Language Learning

With the amount of support for early childhood language learning, I would enthusiastically recommend parents consider this with their children.  I also feel better about my very necessary approach with my own son (Korean/English). However, I have to pause a little.  One thing that I am suspicious about is the LACK of research on the drawbacks. Every topic out there seems to have at least a little support for each side, but I wasn't able to find anything (in a quick search) to discuss the negatives.  Why is that? There are always drawbacks, aren't there?

There is some research that describes problems inherent with children not learning their parent(s) language(s). This is certainly a concern of mine, but this shouldn't be a concern for Korean-speaking parents in Korea. No matter how good or intensive your child's language school is, they will not "lose" their Korean. This is the problem I hear cited the most from parents (and students) here in Korea. As far as I can tell, there is no research supporting this.

The other concern that I hear is that learning a language (in this case English) will cause children to not appreciate Korean culture.  This one could be correct, I guess.  Not that they won't understand Korean culture, but that they may have different expectations in the ways in which people interact (turn-taking, holding the floor, power, status, deference, etc.) that are influenced by their other language.  Not that I really think that this should be a concern, but I guess I can see it as a possible drawback.

If you have anything to add, please post in the comments. My understanding of language and social theory in this area is not well-informed.

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