Second Language Essays (Examples)

While I understand why non-literal meanings are particularly difficult for speakers to comprehend, it seems to me that interlanguage would be easier for people learning second languages, because they can draw from examples of interlanguage from their native language. After all, even elementary school children have difficulty understanding the existence of idioms, homonyms, and other examples of words and phrases that have alternate definitions.
I appreciated the description of the developmental stages for language acquisition in Chapter 4; the progression from subject to direct object, indirect object, object of preposition, possessive, and object of comparison provided a useful classification of the progression of language acquisition. However, I was confused by the author's contention that "Developmental stages are not like closed rooms. Learners do not leave one behind when they enter another" (Lightbown and Spada, 92). While it is true that different people absorb material at different rates, it seems very…

This then helps the teacher to appropriately adjust their approach and teaching skills to address the particular weak points that the students or particular student might have.
There is need to incorporate computers in class as well particularly in some particular topics in teaching second language. This applies especially when it comes to the use of language in creating formal documents or such like formal types of writing which can best the imbibed by the students.

With the availability of the computers, there will need also to have language systems used to help the students especially in the independent learning process. This will help the students grow some level of independence and self-reliance in learning more details of language as they can easily look up the meaning and use of words and phrases even in the absence of the teacher.

LCD projector is yet another technology that can be used in a…

He is 37 years old, born in France, of Senegalese descent. His native language is French, but he also speaks Wolof, Fulani, and American English. He was from a middle class background and was educated in the French school system. He knew virtually no English when he arrived in 1997. he took a job as a factory line worker in the plant and learned English rapidly, using his skills to move up in the company.
The methodology for the study of this worker was an ethnographic case study intended to understand the individual dynamics of this individual at his place of employment, using theory-based or operational construct sampling. In this approach, the sample becomes representative of the phenomenon of interest, with the interest in this case being the subject's social identity in his second language. The two methods of data collection used are observation and interviews. The observations covered a…

Theoretically, CLIL draws on research that situates the integration of language and content as the relationship between form and meaning. An understanding of the theory and practice related to the content-based classroom is essential to the present study. In this section of the chapter, I outline the underlying theory and rationale commonly cited as a basis for CLIL, review empirical research that has evaluated CLIL in the classroom, and outline various approaches designed to integrate language and content.
CLIL is an umbrella term that captures a wide range of classroom models that include attention to content and language. CLIL is premised on the belief that language and content are inseparable in SLA, and that language is "a system that relates what is being talked about (content) and the means used to talk about it (expression)" (Mohan, p. 1). As a pedagogical framework, CLIL has been widely adopted as an alternative…

Second Language Learning
To What Extent May L1 Affect Second Language Learning

Linguistic and Metalinguistic Knowledge

This category includes variables that are effective in both reading and listening comprehension and that involve knowledge about the structure of language, such as its syntax and morphology. Two questions guide the discussion here: How does linguistic knowledge in L2 develop, and how does linguistic knowledge in L1 affect L2 linguistic knowledge, indicating cross-language transfer?

Syntactic Knowledge. The development of syntactic knowledge has been one of the most productive research areas in applied linguistics, especially in the field of second language acquisition. A typical study involves selecting a linguistic dimension (for example, relative clause formation strategies) and then comparing groups of bilinguals who have different ways of representing that parameter in their L1 (Robert & Williams, 2009). These studies tend to emphasize the Universal Grammar underlying all languages and suggest that second language acquisition involves setting new…

A child who has been exposed to English as part of the curriculum of his or her native school will likely have an advantage over a child who has not. The processes of learning a new language are themselves helpful, even if the child has not previously been exposed to English. Being prepared for learning irregular verbs, understanding how to diagram a sentence, and figuring out unfamiliar words in context are all skills that are essential to becoming fluent. Never having thought about a language in a critical fashion is an additional obstacle for non-English speakers who have never had formal language training. "This helps explain why foreign exchange students tend to be successful in American high school classes: They already have high school level proficiency in their native language," and often an additional language (Walqui 2000).
The psychological motivation for learning a new language cannot be discounted. A child…

The acculturation model developed by Schumann (1978) consists of a taxonomy of variables that were developed based on the concept that both social (group) and affective (individual) variables are the primary causative variables as shown in Table __ below. In this regard, the term "acculturation" is used to refer to the learner's positive identification with, and hence social and psychological integration with, the target language group. For instance, Schumann notes that, "[T]he learner will acquire the second language only to the degree that he acculturates" (1978, p. 29).
Table

Taxonomy of variables influencing second-language acquisition

Variable

Examples

Social Factors

Dominance; Nondominance; Subordination; Assimilation; Acculturation; Preservation; Enclosure; Cohesiveness; Size; Attitude; Intended Length of esidence in Target Language Area.

Affective Factors

Language Shock; Culture Shock; Motivation; Ego-permeability.

Personality Factors

Tolerance for Ambiguity; Sensitivity to ejection; Introversion/Extroversion; Self-esteem.

Cognitive Factors

Cognitive Development; Cognitive Processes; Imitation; Analogy; Generalization; ote memorization; Cognitive Style; Field Dependence; Category Width; Cognitive Interference; Monitoring.

Biological Factors

Lateralization; Transfer; Infrasystems.

Aptitude Factors

Modern Language Aptitude;…

The researcher observed the following conclusions about conversation analysis

The use of a conversation-analytical transcription is important because it pinpoints details which are essential for understanding code-switches and the negotiation of roles and relations (Steensig 2004).

The method also provided a detailed analysis of what it is pertinent for each participant to do at precise points in the interaction (Steensig 2004). This is critical to comprehending the context in which events such as code-switches, occur (Steensig 2004).

The conversation-analysis theory can also aid in understanding how Participants make alliances and afford "power wielding" in the interaction (Steensig 2004).The author asserts that "Although this point was only cursorily developed in Steensig (2000a) it was claimed that detailed analyses using conversation analytical methods may be a clue to a better understanding of the social relations between the participants (Steensig 2004)."

Advantages and Disadvantages of Conversation analysis

The primary advantage of conversation analysis is that it relies upon…

first language (L1) in the second language EFL classroom (L2). The study provides a brief historical background of the use of native or target language for a classroom teaching. The literatures are also reviewed to enhance to a greater understanding on the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis. Theoretical arguments are provided to support or against the use of monolingual or bilingual approach in a teaching environment. While some scholars believe that monolingual approach is the best to teaching, some scholars support bilingual approach.
There is a growing debate among scholars, academicians and professionals whether a classroom teaching of ELT (English language teaching) should exclude or include native language (LI) and the issue has led leading to a long-term controversy. (Brown, 2000). Supporters of monolingual approach argue that instructors should avoid using L1 in the classroom environment. At the end of the 19th century, supporters of the Direct Method banned the use native…

Linguistics
Critique of Cross-cultural Culture Awareness for Second/Foreign Language

This context confers to foreign culture, which can be any language apart from the original mother language. The article restricts itself to French as the "foreign language," which is not the case to every human. The author of the article talks about French textbooks and matters pertaining French speaking world, instead of covering various languages too. The introductory part (abstract) translation is French, which clearly shows the bias aspect of the author. In the article, learning of French and Francophone cultures is applicable to any second or foreign language. Cultures performed by different language groups are totally different, and if anyone wishes to learn a different foreign language as a second language apart from French, he/she will have different concepts from the one who has learned French as the second language. The author also restricts herself to one region and shows the reaction…

234).
Thus, the connection between social choices and variability in language for the second language leaner is remarkably clear. What is left up to interpretation, however, is the extent to which variability is influenced by linguistic or social factors, by internal or external factors. Based on the observations of sociolinguists, the results of the VABUL program, and recent studies into this issue, it is clear that social factors play at least some role in the acquisition of the target language by the second language learner. By investing further research into this area, however, linguists cannot only make a determination regarding the degree to which variation in second language learners is influenced by social factors, but they can also draw implications for the nature of language and the appropriateness of the prominent universal grammar theories. For instance, if the internal universal constraints variable were to be proven conclusive, this would stand…

24). The findings of this study challenge accepted notions concerning the efficacy of the teacher-initiated initiation -- response -- feedback (IF) sequences that are delivered in whole group teacher-fronted environments.
Based on his findings, Baynham argues that "teacher and students are robustly claiming interactive space in classroom talk, bringing the outside into discussion. This data, drawn from narrative and classroom data in case studies of Adult ESOL classrooms, points to less docile more agentive and open-ended models of classroom discourse than have typically been evidenced in the literature" (2006, p. 24).

Lam (2004)

The researcher presents an analysis of discourse, interview, and observational data that suggest a mixed-code variety of English is adopted and developed among the focal youth and their peers around the globe to construct their relationships as bilingual speakers of English and other languages. This researcher emphasizes the need to study how people navigate across contexts of socialization in…

English as a Second Language - Background Knowledge
KNOWLEDGE

Shirley Adams established in her research that "Along with vocabulary, a reader's background knowledge has been shown to be an important component of reading comprehension. The background experiences children bring to a reading selection affect how well they can understand it" (155). Furthermore, Adams points out that vocabulary is a critical factor in language development and subsequent reading comprehension (155). Generally, in learning a second language, "Teachers who create or select reading materials should keep in mind the backgrounds and present knowledge of their students. For example, reading selections for a beginning French class should include topics with which the students are already familiar rather than selections dealing exclusively with the target country or culture. Even though beginning students may not know all of the vocabulary in a reading selection, they are less likely to feel frustrated in their first attempts with a…

The 'use' of language while the student learns is just as important as the quality of learning provided because without functional real-life use of the English Language there is no real grasp of the language and therefore the student might learn and yet not retain that learning. There are many activities that the teacher is able to use in the learning environment that not only assist the ESL learner but serve to educate students already in full grasp of English about other languages and cultures effectively pulling the ESL student into the activities and putting all students at ease in the learning environment. Social learning of the English language, or in fact in learning any language is very important as social learning provides an excellent platform for common everyday functional use of the language.
III. Responsibilities of the Teacher and School for the ESL Student

It is the responsibility of the…

Adult Second Language Learning: Chinese Semantics, Explicit Learning
The area of second language learning (Chinese) is explored in this work in view of the appropriateness of the methodologies expounded by literature on the subject. Specifically, the proper use of explicit teaching method by incorporating aids like cues, pairing, sequential affectations, and the timing of radical disposition has been attempted in this work. The knowledge of previous work has been used to evaluate the utility of explicit teaching methodology to adult learners of Chinese language. The outcome arrived at is that with certain restrictions (because of certain limitations of the study), explicit learning methodology can be a faster tool than implicit methods as displayed in longer retention of the learned concepts. Also, explicit teaching can aid expansion of vocabulary amongst learners if imbued with the right implements in shorter time compared to implicit teaching methodology.

Introduction

According to Taft and Chung (1999) knowledge of…

English as a Second Language
America is known as a melting pot; people have migrated here from many different countries, cultures and speak different languages. Children are raised in homes where different languages are being spoken, some families use English primarily, however there are families that do not speak any English. Children raised in these household where there is little or no English will need to learn English in school. English is being taught in the schools as a second language in the mainstream classroom; however the students are not successful in this setting. Children in the ESL programs in the United States are not reading at the same level as students who are primary English speakers. All students in the mainstream classroom should be successful academically.

English as a second language (ESL) is an important aspect of the educational system. ESL is currently failing the children immersed in these programs. Many…

English as a Second Language
The main objective of the Lasisi research project was to explore how English as a Second Language (ESL) students who were in middle school would interpret advertisement images and they used visual representations to communicate (Lasisi, 2009). The Lasisi study was conducted in California, with mainly Hispanic students. The students were observed from the beginning of the class, once they were identified. The researcher and the students had time to get to know each other so that they could become familiar with each other. My research utilized the Lasisi's research to gather additional information in the school systems.

Students were randomly selected and asked questions about the English as Second Language program (ESL). Fifty seven percent of the students that participated in the study were black, non-Hispanic and forty three percent were white non-Hispanic. The majority of parents of these students (57%) were between the ages of…

ESL Students |
Curriculum

English as a Second Language Student Success in a Mainstream Classroom Setting

According to Kalaian & Freeman (1994), confidence is one of the key elements required to teach children. Instructors therefore need educational support to ensure that they can teach children with who's second language is English in an appropriate manner. According to the results of the research conducted by Center and Ward (1997), they discovered that the attitude of teachers toward inclusion reflected a lack of confidence in their ability to teach properly and in the level of support provided to them by the educational institution.

Inclusion can often been linked with the concept of mainstreaming in the educational field. It is the act of teaching handicapped and non-handicapped children together in the same classroom. It has been of interest in the field of Education ever since the late 1960s. esearch had earlier revealed that special-education children were able…

Standards
English language learners

Journal comparison: TESOL Journal and the English Quarterly

Both the TESOL Journal and The English Quarterly, the official refereed journal of the CCTELA (Canadian Council of Teachers of English Language Arts), offer the opportunity to publish materials on the subject of English-language learning. However, the two journals have fundamentally different purposes. TESOL Journal is primarily a peer-reviewed academic journal with areas of specific interest. It is designed with a professional audience of educators in mind, although it does publish a few non-journal type articles. It is designed to use the research process to help teachers better use theory to "inform, shape, and ground teaching practices and perspectives" in the field of ESL (Submission requirements, 2012, TESOL Journal).

Submissions to TESOL Journal can take the form of general feature articles (which must include an abstract), articles on 21st century language skills, and articles on ESL students with interrupted formal education.…

Language and Language Practices
Language is the written and verbal method by which people communicate with one another. It employs sounds or written designs that are understood by others to create words, phrases, and sentences. Other species have language, as well, but it is not believed to be as complex as the language used by human beings (loomfield, 1914; Deacon, 1998). There are many facets to language, and there are nuances and subtleties that are often overlooked. This is especially true with people who are just learning a language, whether they are children first learning to speak or second-language learners being exposed to a new and different language for the first time. People who study languages are involved in what is called linguistics. They may study a particular language, but more often than not they study multiple languages and the construction of those languages. What they do is very different than…

Language and Thinking
Language is the one aspect, which distinguishes human beings from lower species of life (Faccone et al. 2000). Sternberg (1999 as qtd in Faccone et al.) lists its properties as including communication, arbitrary symbolism, regular structure, structure at multiple levels, generation and production and dynamism. Sternberg assumes that language is most likely acquired naturally from the environment where a person is raised as an infant. The stages seem universal. The first is the cooing stage at two to four months. At this initial stage, an infant seems able to produce and possible phonemes or basic speech sounds. An infant's need to distinguish between phonemes of different languages gradually disappears around 8 months. This is when he recognizes the relationship between sound and meaning in his native language. This is how language begins to have importance to him. The findings of Sternberg's study reveal that human beings are born…

Consider the fact that the Iroquois are said not to have had a strong word for the singular "I," and that they subsequently developed what was arguably the longest lasting communal representative democracy the world has ever known. The Inuit, whose culture revolves around the arctic world, have dozens of words for snow - this sort of technical knowledge allows quick and accurate transmission of conditions and training in survival.
In Western terms, one remembers that Jesus Christ was said to be "The Word," yet in the original Greek this indicates not only a spoken word but also the Logos - the root term for intellectual reason, for Meaning within context (be that the context of a sentence, a life, a history, or a universe); logos was rational order. The difference between saying that a religious figure is the Word (which at its most profound seem to indicate a kind…

Language Diversity
Crawford begins the article by highlighting problems associated with second language instruction in American classrooms. According to the statistics cited most approaches used in these classrooms are inadequate to provide students with the necessary skills to communicate in the target language outside of the classroom. The reason for this is a lack of focus on communication skills, combined with an inflated focus on form rather than function. Despite efforts to improve upon this by methods such as the total immersion approach and the audiolingual method, results are still shown to be poor. Chomsky, Krashen and Cummins's theories are shown to have revolutionized language acquisition theories, and thus also language teaching methods. Furthermore Crawford shows that a child's inherent feelings about his or her own culture, and consequently about the culture represented by the target language, have a significant impact upon second language learning. It is then suggested that children…

If language is like food, then the ingredients are its words; the cooking process is its grammar; the nutritional value is its semantics. Some sentences are simple staples like rice and beans. Others are primarily aesthetic, finely crafted, and honed over time like a French sauce. Like the ingredients in any dish, the words of a language depend largely on geography. At the same time, we borrow words from other cultures just as we may borrow ingredients from other cuisines. Spanglish is like fusion food. Some cooking processes are rigid, time-consuming, and complex like proper grammar; others are looser and more flexible like everyday speech. There are some dishes you would serve your mother and others that are too spicy for her. Some language is long-winded and without substance; some is meaty; some is so packed with goodness that you return it again and again.
Ascription to the rules of…

Language Diversity and Education by Carlos J. Ovando, the author makes the point that the language diversity present in the United States has significant implications for all teachers and all students. He emphasizes the importance of both a person's first language and the dominant language in a culture. He notes the complexity of learning a second language: in addition to the cognitive mastery of vocabulary and grammar involved, fluency in a language involves discourse (structure of paragraphs and larger chunks of written language); appropriateness (adjusting language to the social setting); paralinguistics (body language, gestures, volume, pitch, etc.); and pragmatics (cultural norms involving language, subtle conversation skills). Even though ESL students may seem to be learning English rapidly, those language skills may be largely social and inadequate t the cognitive demands made on it in a classroom.
Ovando gave examples of true dialects in the United States -- creoles, or combinations of…

Language and Literacy
Every workplace without exception relies on language as a primary means of communication. Therefore, all types of literacy are required in order for an organization to function properly. The different types of literacy range from multicultural awareness to written language to public speaking. For the purposes of this project, I examined and analyzed several different workplace environments for their usage of language and their different literacy demands. My personal workplace environment is a high-stress, hustle-and-bustle office. Phones are ringing constantly throughout the day, memos are being circulated on a near-daily basis, and most employees need to be familiar with company literature including quarterly financial reports. In addition to the rigors of interpersonal communication, which entails informal as well as formal conversations, we deal with inter-office communications with those who work at remote office locations, with offices located abroad, with clients, and with various others with which we do…

Further, it is in this stage that instructors have the ability to widen the instruction significantly to incorporate many activities that allow students to practice their new knowledge in a variety of different ways and with focus on a variety of different subject matters.
In viewing the basic theoretical and practical-use background of the Natural Approach of Language Teaching and Learning, one can understand that basic functions that allow students the ability to hone new skills in a non-threatening environment. However, despite significant praise in the teaching community regarding the success of the Natural Approach, the method's critics still exist. Due to this, it is crucial to understand the advantages as well as the disadvantages that exist when the Natural Approach is employed in a language learning environment, especially in dealing with English as a second language.

Advantages and Disadvantages

In beginning to understand the overall value of the Natural Approach, one…

Second language proficiency and academic achievement can be challenging to develop simultaneously. Krashen's (2010) work illustrates the various systems of learning, including the learning that takes place subconsciously and the learning that takes place more by rote methods. Likewise, Gottlieb (2006) differentiates between social and academic language proficiency and academic achievement for students. The acquisition of the language entails different cognitive processes than the acquisition of subject-specific knowledge. Educators armed with a more thorough understanding of academic versus language proficiency can better help their students succeed on both levels.
Krashen (2010) points out that each human being learns language in the same way. Individual differences may be important for current scientific paradigms, but for educators, a more universal approach will be far more helpful in creating a classroom environment and pedagogical approach that will be effective. After all, human biology is universal; so, too are the cognitive processes involved in language…

As an analytic method it varies from the syntactic syllabus in simliar way as the practical and procedure syllabi, particularly in the supposition that the learner learns best when using language to converse about something. TBLT also is different from the two other logical curricula in a lot of ways. It differs from the procedural syllabus in that it stresses the importance of carrying out a needs analysis prior to instruction.

Identifying likely bases of task complexity certainly is an essential precondition for making ethical choices regarding the grading and sequencing of functions, upon which many of the worth of the TBLT will rest. Grading and sequencing of pedagogic errands is certainly a chief test for the task-based syllabus creators.

Principles and features of task-based language teaching.

Prabhu's observations, stated at the beginning of the project, guide to the first belief of task-based interaction that "language is a basically just a meaning system"…

Sometimes students have obstacles to contend with as they enter school. One such barrier can be language. The student I worked with is a Chinese first year student who is attempting to assimilate to AP class schedules. He is a 14-year old interested in learning the English language and is having problems not only learning the language but balancing out the needs of his identity versus the American culture. English Language Learners often must contend with several influences and deal with a new culture that may seem dauting and stressful[footnoteRef:1]. His name is Bo. [1: Larry Ferlazzo, English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work (Santa Barbara, Calif: Linworth, 2010)] Bo recently immigrated to the United States with his family two years ago. While Bo has learned conversational English and some grammar, he still has problems writing in English. The way to write simplified Chinese is different than English and so he…

Seamless Bridge
As language may be viewed as a vehicle by which a student can better achieve academic success (Gottlieb, 2006), language proficiency assessments are ways in which the teacher can review whether or not the student is developing language proficiency rather than just content understanding. Thus the idea that students who are learning an additional or second language will seamlessly bridge into grade-level content once they reach the highest level of proficiency is a simple extension of the reality that language affords the user: it is the means by which understanding and success in a culture wherein that language is used can be obtained. Thus, if an ELL develops a true understanding and grasp of the language, the grade-level content that the student should be able to grasp is made available to him: it opens up because the language proficiency acts as the key what would otherwise be a door…

Language Policy and Planning
Language planning refers to the efforts that are deliberately undertaken to influence how languages functions, are structured or acquired or the variety of languages in a given country. It is often a government responsibility by non-governmental organizations have also come to be involved in this. Grass-roots organizations and also individuals have been involved in this. The goal of language planning differs depending on the country. However, it generally includes planning, decision making and possible changes which benefit the communications system of the country. Language planning or efforts to improve the communication in a country can also bring about certain social changes such as shift of language, assimilation and therefore provide a motivation which plans the function, structure and acquisition of languages Woolard & Gahng, 1990()

Decision making in language planning

There are four dominant language ideologies which motivate the decisions that are made regarding language planning. The first is…

Ketch asserts that it is through this natural process that students comprehend and become critical thinkers. Likewise, Pinnell seems to share similar beliefs about natural processes and educators allowing children to explore these processes. The author asserts that
"Concentration on skills draws attention away from the normal and self-reinforcing uses of language, and instruction often unnecessarily makes a natural everyday activity seem foreign and stilted. Language studies suggest that efforts should be redirected to take advantage of nature's most powerful incentive for developing facility with language -- the child's intention to communicate meaning to other people, the use of language for a variety of purposes (Pinnell."

Both of these assertions support the importance of oral language. Ketch encourages this by explaining the importance on conversation is developing critical thinking skills. Likewise Pinnell enforces this by explaining the importance of language use among children.

Conclusion

The purpose of this discussion was to provide a…

Stages of Language Production:

While there is not necessarily a consensus among researchers as to the precise nature of human language production, one widely accepted view is the information processing approach (obinson-iegler, 422). In that framework, language production generally occurs in four specific stages: (1) conceptualization, (2) planning, (3) articulation, and (4) self-monitoring.

In that regard, the conceptualization stage refers to the internal process whereby the individual develops the desire to communicate a specific thought to others (obinson-iegler, 422). The planning stage consists of the decisions pertaining to how the thoughts to be communicated are organized into a linguistic plan within the framework of the language in which the individual hopes to communicate. The articulation stage involves the actual expression of the thoughts formulated in the conceptualization stage through the linguistic plan developed in the planning stage (obinson-iegler, 422).

Finally, the self-monitoring stage consists of the individual's purposeful awareness of the manner in…

Condors eat dead squirrels but the colossal birds also consume the poisons intended only for those squirrels. The Condors talk to each other, fearing extinction, introducing naturalism. In 1985 the last 22 Condors are plucked from their tortured habitat and taken to the San Diego Zoo and other venues for captive breeding.
Fast forward to 2012. n ristotelian plot structure with mind-bending irony -- first utilizing the reversal of fortune followed by society's recognition (anagnorisis -- a sudden discovery) that takes people from ignorance to knowledge -- could be a model useful for an enterprising screenwriter delving into the Condor's fate. The reversal of fortune is the demise of the Condor due to human interventions, intended and unintended. That many informed humans have gone from ignorance to knowledge completes the second part of ristotle's plot formula.

s to the irony in proposed ristotelian plot, take Oedipus Rex, for example. In the…

Language and Religion
I visited the Anglican Church in my community, who congregates every Sunday at 10am. To gain access, I telephoned the Secretary of the church, who explained to me that services were open to any members of the public. She indicated that I would be most welcome and she sounded very friendly as well. She invited me to also speak to the Reverend and gave me his number. I followed her advice and telephoned the Reverend with my request and the reasons for wanting to attend the assembly. Like the Secretary, the Reverend was extremely friendly and open to my request. He asked a few questions about my research as well, and seemed interested in what I had to say. He struck me as a very warm person who truly believed in what he was doing. So, the following Sunday, as decided, I woke up early, dressed according to…

Instead, however, the headline does follow the sequence of events as they happened to present a more chronological overview of the event while still maintaining a good inverted pyramid structure. For example, take the head line of the news story in Appendix A: 'Iranian election uproar tests U.S.', this headline without giving specifics of the actual election result implies that the results were not great overall because of the impact that it has on the relations between U.S. And Iran. Hence, whoever reads this headline and know even the slightest bit about the background of the U.S.-Iran relations will interpret the possible results without actually reading about them.
Similarly, when analyzing the headline in Appendix B, 'Regime Change Brewing in Iran?' another format of headline comes to mine. The headlines can also be used to exhibit the actual strategic breakdown of the news story in a single sentence. This simply…

Apparently this view has much in its favor.
When we compare modern English with some of those Indian languages which are most concrete in their formative expression, the contrast is striking. When we say "The eye is the organ of sight, the Indian may not be able to form the expression the eye, but may have to define that the eye of a person or of an animal is meant. Neither may the Indian be able to generalize readily the abstract idea of an eye as the representative of the whole class of objects... (p. 64).

It does not seem to occur to Boas anywhere in the Handbook that such a way of talking about the world might not arise because the mind of the American Indians that he is writing about is "primitive" but rather because he or she is seeing the world in a very different way.

Boas would no…

" ith this onslaught of blacks into their communities, there was an "exodus of Jews" (apparently no pun intended vis-a-vis the book Exodus about the Jews seeking a homeland) which created a "vacuum" that was immediately filled by a "housing-starved black population."
On page 415-16, Hirsch writes that the "real tragedy surrounding the emergence of the modern ghetto" is not that it has been "inherited" but that it has been "renewed and strengthened... with government sanction and support."

Finally, on page 416, Hirsch gets down to the bare bones, bottom line social dynamic of the problem that has been allowed to fester in Chicago (at least up to 1983 when he published this essay). hen, he writes, the racial lines began to "harden" after the post-II influx of blacks into the second ghetto, "it was apparent that white hostility was of paramount importance in shaping the pattern of black settlement." Blacks were…

Moreover, all psychological problems are based on dysfunctional relationships; therefore, change must occur in the arena of personal connections (the William Glasser Institute, 2010).
g. What is the role of cognitions or thoughts?

According to Glasser, thoughts are just one aspect of "Total Behavior," which includes "acting, thinking, feeling, and physiology" (the William Glasser Institute, 2010). All human behavior is Total Behavior, and all human behavior is chosen. However, acting and thinking are the only two components of behavior a person can directly control. Therefore, a patient must indirectly control their feelings and physiology by directly controlling their thoughts and behaviors (Glasser & Glasser, 2010).

IV. What specific techniques are used in this theory?

Choice theory is based primarily on "Seven Caring Habits" and "Ten Axioms" (the William Glasser Institute, 2010). The Seven Caring Habits are: "supporting, encouraging, listening, accepting, trusting, respecting, and negotiating differences" with creativity (the William Glasser Institute, 2010). The…

Put us in the air and we can't do anything should anything happen to the plane. We, as humans, cannot fly on our own.
A: Chapter eight also talks about assessing intelligence and there are many ways to do so. Intelligence, however, doesn't just refer to more analytical type of thinking. In the article "Emotional intelligence: A promise unfulfilled?" authors Matthew, Zeidner and oberts (2012) discuss how emotional intelligence is a fairly new construct in differential psychology. There are many proponents of this construct and they have made powerful arguments for emotional intelligence's importance in both basic and applied psychology (2012).

Emotional intelligence is a bit different than what we might normally think of as intelligence. It is a collection of aptitudes, skills and competencies for dealing with emotions and emotional encounters (Matthew et al. 2012). Perhaps one of the reasons emotional intelligence isn't considered much -- or when it is…

Initiating joint attention related to activity in the frontal-cortical system, especially the left hemisphere and responding to joint attention to the parietal lobes. Heimann et al. (2006) found that that deferred imitation and joint attention both influence the development of language and communication skills in infancy. Deferred imitation at nine months was the strongest of the predictors of nonverbal communication at 14 months, but the predictive power increased significantly in situations when deferred imitation and joint attention were used together.
ecently studies have been conducted with other areas of cognitive behavior. For example, de Villiers (2007) has been looking at the association of language and what he calls Theory of Mind. Theory of Mind refers to the folk psychological theory humans use to predict and explain others' behavior on the basis of their internal workings: feelings, intentions, desires, attitudes, beliefs, knowledge and point-of-view. In other words, people have to create…

speaking in the target language is the expectation that a proficient speaker will sound like a native speaker. Is this an appropriate or realistic expectation?
Not a long while after the emergence of the subject of second language acquisition (SLA), which most of the scholars think came around the time of initial years of 1970s, there has been a need to develop ways by which to measure the development of the second language, aside from the usage of detailed homogeneous skill tests which were mostly appropriate to fulfill other objectives.

As per Freeman's (2009) information, the first declaration of this need was made by Kenji Hukuta (1976). Kenji Hakuta was concerned in knowing the path of his subject Ugusiu's English language development over a period of time. Besides the aforementioned practitioners, other L1 acquisition scholars had carried out for the pupils learning English as a national language. In the research of…

feature of language and why?
The most important key feature of any language is grammar. Grammar provides structure and meaning to sounds. Without a grammatical framework, it is unclear if a word is referring to a noun or an adjective; an adverb or a verb. Even a computer language must have a grammatical construction to be read and to be comprehensible. Many words between different languages sound very similar (such as Latin and Portuguese, for example) but without grammatical rules the distinctions in use between those sounds is unclear. Grammar also is part of the social 'situation' of a language. For a language to be effective, it cannot exist in a vacuum. "No commonly-spoken language is fixed. All languages change over time. What we call 'grammar' is simply a reflection of a language at a particular time" (What is grammar, 2014, English Club). Over time certain grammatical rules may become…

United States make English its Official Language?
The calls for English to be adopted as United States' official language have been prevalent since 1919 when President Theodore Roosevelt stated that the country has room for only one language i.e. The English language. The advocacy for English-only in the United States has been fueled by attempts to develop a unique American nationality. Actually, President Roosevelt advocated for English to be adopted as the official language of the United States because of the explicit and unqualified link between language and citizenship. However, since the beginning of this advocacy the issue on whether the United States should make English its official language has attracted various arguments and counter-arguments between supporters and opponents. The determination of a suitable position regarding the issue requires an evaluation of arguments by both sides.

Advocacy for English as America's Official Language

In contrast to popular belief, the United States does…

properties of human language (displacement, arbitrariness, productivity, cultural, transmission, discreteness, duality) discuss how human language differs from animal communication.
Unlike animal language, human language can possess the property of displacement. Displacement "allows the users of language to talk about things and events not present in the immediate environment." (21) A human need not cry out in pain in the moment, but one can describe the silent pain one felt later on, displacing the experience into the future rather than when it was actually experienced. 'Let me tell you what a day I had,' is a very human, displaced expression. There is also a less arbitrary nature to human language, because human language is contextual. For instance, for although same beast would be a dog in England or a perro in Spain, yet the same dog would still give the same barking sound in both lands, if it were the same…

Also, student's vocabulary and formality of speech can and will differ in different social contexts, from school to home to the playground, as indeed does all human speech, as even teachers adopt a greater degree of formality speaking to the principal, to students, and also in their own homes.
hy teach standard speech at all? hat to do when certain patterns of speech, such as Black English, have different grammatical variations than standard written English? One approach is to stress contextual aspects of speech in education. (Chaika, 1994, p.299) It cannot be denied that job applicants and people are validated and valued differently, depending on how their speech coheres to Standard ritten English. Even dialect speakers are evaluated on a valuation gradient, as speakers with certain desirable accents, like a British accent for example, might be esteemed more than speakers with a traditionally Black or Spanish accent, unfairly. (Chaika, 1994,…

Traditional Methods of Language Teaching
The paper discuses the various traditional methods of language teaching, namely:

Grammar Translation Method

The Audio-lingual Method

The Direct Method

The Silent Way

The Communicative Approach

Cognitive code learning

The Natural Approach

Behaviorist approach

Functional-Notional Approach and The task-based approach

The paper discusses each approach in details and describes its various chief principles and how it helps both teachers and students to teach, understand, learn, and practice all the skills they learn through these approaches.

Grammar Translation Method

This method involves the learner to spend a lot of time in understanding the language structure. Though both listening as well as speaking suffer because of it. However, grammar and vocabulary are being stressed throughout the teaching method.

The grammar translation method has been derived from traditional approaches to the teaching of Latin and Greek in the nineteenth century (Selected Lesson Plans). It was originally used to teach 'dead' languages as well as literatures for instance Latin and Greek, and was…

(Farah and idge, 2009)
The successful shift from textbook, memory-based curriculum to a standards-based curriculum is therefore dependent on three things: the development of national standards and goals for curriculum; the development of corresponding assessment tools; and the re-education of teachers towards the objective of altering teachers' attitudes and views of their role in the education system. ather than simply drilling memorized facts, words or phrases into a student's consciousness-as is the case with a memory-based curriculum-teachers in a standards based, student-centered curriculum are responsible for helping students to apply such knowledge to practical situations for social success, over and above academic success.

eferences

English as a Second Language. (2010). etrieved December 30, 2010, from http://www.rong-chang.com/

English Teachers Network. (2010). Why Have a Standards-Based Curriculum and What are the Implications for the Teaching-Learning Assessment Process?. etrieved December 30,

2010, from http://www.etni.org.il/red/etninews/issue4/whystandard.html

Farah, S., & idge, N. (2009). Challenges to Curriculum Development in the UAE. Dubai

School…

These different perspectives were based upon their language learning experiences from the past, their language proficiency, their current academic needs, and also their future career choices. To bridge the gap, the teachers engaged in dialogue with the students to determine the best ways to engage the students individually (Pazaver, and Wang 35).
In a study in the International Journal of English Studies, the authors used ELT materials in order build of a reliable instrument to help in the potential for the promotion of implicit and explicit components in ESL learning by students. The found that implicitness and explicitness were promoted equally by the ESL teaching units in three different textbooks (Criado Sanchez, Sanchez Perez, and Cantos Gomez 129). In an article in the journal of Applied Linguistics, .W. Schmidt analyzes issues that impact upon explicit learning modalities. He concludes that subliminal language learning is impossible. Also, he notes that it…

Age and Learning a New Language
hat is the ideal age for a person to be able to learn a new language? hat are the dynamics (besides age) that contribute to SLA? This paper delves into those subjects using scholarly articles as resources.

The Literature on Learning a New Language and Age

"…Early beginners, through their longer exposure to L2, reach the necessary competence levels in their two languages sooner to allow transfer in both directions…" (Djigunovic, 2010).

hy are very young students especially gifted to pick up new languages quickly? The scholarship shows that younger learners "…have no awkwardness or inhibitions with the new language" and don't get too upset when they make mistakes (Cenoz, 2003, p. 77). As to whether or not younger learners "…soak up new languages" simply because the soak up information like a sponge soaks up water, Cenoz has his doubts. Indeed studies show younger learners excel in "listening…

Thus, lessons can utilize elements learned from understand how the brain naturally learns a language to augment the student's ability to progress more efficiently in learning a second language later on in life. Lessons would produce the environment which calls on the same type of brain functions that were so crucial in language acquisition in early childhood. Thus, teaching can become an extension of pre-existing strategies the students have already used earlier on in their lives without even knowing it. This means lesson plans built on a structure that highlights the importance of language at the phonic level, as this is what the author asserts as the primary vehicle for language acquisition in young children.
Lightbrown & Spada (2006) also provide evidence which would back up Kuhl's claims in the text How Languages Are Learned. In their discussion of early language acquisition, Lightbrown & Spada (2006) explain how the child's…

The groups were distinguished by those who participated in language acquisition activities employing enhanced reading with word-based activities and those who participated in what the researcher called 'narrow reading,' which occurred without this supplementary instruction. The two groups were asked to retain the same scope of fifty selected vocabulary words. Min would find that those in the former group, denoted as the "RV" group, performed significantly better than those in the "NR" group. In interpretation, Min tells that "the results show that the RV group demonstrated significantly more knowledge about the target vocabulary than the NR group on the acquisition and retention tests. The researcher concludes that reading plus focused vocabulary exercises are more effective and efficient than the narrow reading approach in enhancing target vocabulary acquisition and retention among EFL secondary students." (Min, p. 75)
Min would go on to suggest that the value in this study rests in…

Learning a language: Gaining fluency in a language to be free
The acquisition of language is never a culturally neutral process. When someone learns his or her first or even a second language, that individual also acquires a status in the eyes of the world, based upon how that language is perceived. The race of the speaker, his or her perceived level of education, gender, and race all interact with the stereotypes that exist in the gazer's mind. In Christine Marin's essay "Spanish Lessons," Marin chronicles how her unsteadiness in Spanish did not initially bother her, given the fact that she grew up in a society that prized whiteness. Gradually, as she grew older and her attitude towards her heritage changed, her lack of fluency in her native tongue became a burden. Similarly, Malcolm X was forced to grapple with his complex relationship with the English language. On one hand, it…

Grammar Error Correction
Grammar Correction Best Practices

The art and science of grammar correction has seismic implications on native and new speakers to English alike. The ability to communicate in a clear and cohesive fashion, both verbally and in writing, whilst using the proper syntax, punctuation, sentence structure and spelling is vital for the message to be clear. Further, it is seen as a sign of intelligence or lack thereof for someone to use the obviously wrong words and sentence structure while communicating in writing or via speech. hile grammar and languages teachers are perhaps fighting a losing battle right now given the fairly sloppy nature of many people including supposed language professionals like writers and journalists, there are indeed some verifiable and known best practices that can and should be used to help combat the grammar failures that pervade the sphere of communication in the United States as well as around…

Knowledge and Learning and Teaching a Second Language:
Researchers have divided the skills necessary for the acquisition of second language comprehension, particularly in the reading area, into two general theories: bottom-up, text-based, psycholinguistic approaches or top-down, socially-oriented conceptual approaches. In each case, lack of second language comprehension is attributed to misunderstanding of some key variable of the approach. For example, bottom-up studies tend to trace miscomprehension to misunderstanding of grammar (syntax), vocabulary (semantics), or other textual aspects. Accordingly, comprehension from the bottom-up is a data-driven process (Carrell and Eisterhold, 1983).

In contrast, top-down studies primarily attribute miscomprehension to the lack of specific background knowledge or cultural familiarity that is necessary to understand the text. Top-down understanding is seen as a process that is driven by concepts (Carrell and Eisterhold, 1983). Goodman (1967) is credited with first recognizing this additional aspect to reading comprehension, although he did not use the term "top-down"…

acial or ethnically-based teasing and peer pressure has long been associated with academic achievement, as Tyson et al. point out in his 2005 report studying the behaviors of blacks and whites during high school. While Tyson et al. also suggests that "school structures" are somewhat to blame for "stigmas" of "acting white" or "acting high and mighty" (582), he maintains that that teasing and peer pressure and also important components.
Because of the profound social implications of interactions between formulaic speaking and non-formulaic speaking students, teachers in the third year classroom need to be aware of students' interpretation of the formulaic speaking students, monitoring the communication between the groups. In addition to being aware of the situation, teachers should use the problem to educate students about stereotypes and teasing in addition to encouraging formulaic speaking students to express themselves in the language of instruction. Thus, third year students' use of…

The graph on figure 2 of Collier and Thomas' article (p. 8) also attests to the efficacy of two way immersion classes, perhaps even more so than the first graph. This is primarily due to the fact that there is a greater disparity in the average test scores for students who were enrolled in these classes, versus those that are not. Furthermore, since the learning of English is the principle objective for dual language learners, this graph attests to the value in students enrolling in two way immersion courses in which they learn both Spanish and English.

Another fact that this second graph alludes to, and which is noted in comparison efforts with the first graph, is that there is a relationship between achievement in Spanish and achievement in English. This is particularly true for non-native English speakers. Learning basic fundamental aspects of their own language naturally correlates to a greater…

sign language in public settings for people who are deaf.
Writing notes as a way to communicate with people who are deaf is convenient, for people with normal hearing, and recommended, by people with normal hearing. In the world of hearing people, recommendations for using note writing as a way to communicate with people who are deaf is common.

Communication at work. Employers are advised to supplement their communication with employees who are deaf by writing notes. For example, Equal Access Communication, an advocacy organization suggests that supervisors may wish to keep a white board or a chalk board by the work area of an employee who is deaf. The supervisor is reminded to keep the writing simple and concise, first establishing the subject to be discussed and then providing an explanation. Further, the supervisor is reminded that the person who is deaf may experience difficulties understanding idioms or double negatives,…

Cultural Sensitivity Language Based Amoja Three ivers' "Cultural Etiquette," Lynette Clemetson's "The acial Politics Speaking Well," observations experience, write a draft essay dealing issues cultural sensitivity language.
Prejudices and the politics of 'speaking well'

"Ethnocentrism," as defined in Amoja Three ivers' essay "Cultural Etiquette" is "a tendency to view alien groups or cultures in terms of one's own" and "the belief in the inherent superiority of one's own group and culture, accompanied by a feeling of contempt for other groups and cultures." Because how we speak feels so natural to us, there is a tendency to assume that people who cannot speak our language must be less intelligent -- or people who look differently from us cannot be masters of English. This is a common form of linguistic ethnocentrism. We assume that a recent immigrant is not intelligent because he or she is just learning the language -- even though we…