So, I'm sitting with this student of ours that comes in about three times a week and all he does is grammar. His attempts at any real human communication are laughable, if not passable, as his penchant is for understanding the deep mechanics of English grammar. As a self-proclaimed philosopher, he spends hours and hours picking apart the logic of entirely random sentences. In particular, he is fascinated by the use of negation in English.
I have to admit, his fascination gets my juices going at times. Thoughts of college grammar classes flash by and all I can see are endless chalkboards filled with fully diagrammed sentences. I am hypnotized by my own memories. Luckily, when I wake up from my stupor, he's still pouring pages of his work, too into grammar to notice that I was absent for a few moments.
The thing that really gets me is that he - but not only him, lots of people do this too - asks me these questions about the finer workings of English grammar and expects clear cut answers. Even as I rattle off these absolutes about language I can hear the English Powers that Be rustling in their lofty chairs, showering disapproving glances and finger wags my way.
And on some level, I really don't care. At some point, these "opinions" about usage will shift to accommodate new social norms and ideologies. The permanence of grammar is a myth, smoke and lights, something that Usage Nuts death grip because their jobs and their own sense of reality depend on it.
I've told this guy that grammar rules fluctuate and bend over time, so that his minute, nit-picky explanations of rules will only work for a short time. He intends to create a computer program that will automatically modify the grammar of a given sentence in a number of ways.
I only ask, why?
Monday, August 9, 2010
Saturday, August 7, 2010
The Interesting Thing about Deaf People...
The other day as I loitered around the meat section at the local supermarket searching for a specific cut of chicken that my wife so desperately wanted, I saw a group of three deaf people huddled in deep discussion, possibly signing over the same conundrum I had found myself in. Using my vast powers of intellect, I assumed they were a family: older man with a bit of a metabolic-syndrome gut, and older woman who looked fed up with that gut, and a young woman who seemed to mediate between the two other meat seekers. I wanted to stare, investigate their signing - kind of a visual eavesdropping. But that never works in any situation, actually. You could get arrested for stalking if you kept it up for any decent length of time.
Just as this unquenchable curiosity was taking control of my better social skills, I paused to reflect on why exactly I was so interested in these people. Yes, they are signing to each other, expressing their hopes and desires with their hands instead of their mouths. But those hopes and desires are not about the true meaning of life or the secret to curing cancer - they're talking about MEAT! Still, we - "we" here meaning "me" - want to gawk and point because they are talking about meat in a way that hearing people don't. I am sure that the little Japanese kids eavesdrop on my wife and I when we are at the supermarket discussing the same supper-related matters.
I've been reading Pinker's book The Language Instinct and have had the chance to reform opinions regarding humanity's use of language. For example, despite the "atrocities" of Black English Vernacular, it is a fully functioning and fully grammatical form of English. The sentences "He working" and "He be working", though incorrect when compared to Standard American English and seemingly express the same idea, actually refer to two completely different concepts about work, and they are referred in this way consistently.
Moving back to deaf people, they too have a language with a fully functioning grammar and rich vocabulary, capable of expressing any ole idea that might come into the signer's head. If non-hearing people learn sign language from an early age it is easily acquired, though if they can't have access to it until they are older their acquisition of the language is very limited. In short, the mental processes that manage language (a kind of grammar or device, if you will) inside a deaf person's head treats sign language just like any other language. There are rules and categories of words like nouns, verbs, and objects, and all of these are used consistently.
Interesting?
Well, it is and it isn't. Reminds me of a Steve Martin bit about his trip to France: Boy those French! They have a different word for everything! Uh, yeah they do. And while that might be the most fascinating realization for a moment, really it's just normal. And that's what happened to me when I saw those deaf people signing by the meat section: I was in awe of their use of their hands to use language but they were just doing what nearly any normally functioning human being can do. They were using language.
In terms of language, deaf people signing about meat are no more interesting that hearing people talking about meat. No, deaf people are not interesting, and that interests me.
Just as this unquenchable curiosity was taking control of my better social skills, I paused to reflect on why exactly I was so interested in these people. Yes, they are signing to each other, expressing their hopes and desires with their hands instead of their mouths. But those hopes and desires are not about the true meaning of life or the secret to curing cancer - they're talking about MEAT! Still, we - "we" here meaning "me" - want to gawk and point because they are talking about meat in a way that hearing people don't. I am sure that the little Japanese kids eavesdrop on my wife and I when we are at the supermarket discussing the same supper-related matters.
I've been reading Pinker's book The Language Instinct and have had the chance to reform opinions regarding humanity's use of language. For example, despite the "atrocities" of Black English Vernacular, it is a fully functioning and fully grammatical form of English. The sentences "He working" and "He be working", though incorrect when compared to Standard American English and seemingly express the same idea, actually refer to two completely different concepts about work, and they are referred in this way consistently.
Moving back to deaf people, they too have a language with a fully functioning grammar and rich vocabulary, capable of expressing any ole idea that might come into the signer's head. If non-hearing people learn sign language from an early age it is easily acquired, though if they can't have access to it until they are older their acquisition of the language is very limited. In short, the mental processes that manage language (a kind of grammar or device, if you will) inside a deaf person's head treats sign language just like any other language. There are rules and categories of words like nouns, verbs, and objects, and all of these are used consistently.
Interesting?
Well, it is and it isn't. Reminds me of a Steve Martin bit about his trip to France: Boy those French! They have a different word for everything! Uh, yeah they do. And while that might be the most fascinating realization for a moment, really it's just normal. And that's what happened to me when I saw those deaf people signing by the meat section: I was in awe of their use of their hands to use language but they were just doing what nearly any normally functioning human being can do. They were using language.
In terms of language, deaf people signing about meat are no more interesting that hearing people talking about meat. No, deaf people are not interesting, and that interests me.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Ambulances
As I sit here drinking my glass of shochu and watching, for some reason, CSI NY, an ambulance screams by outside. A lot of them pass here since there's a hospital just down the road. I've heard them all my life, but they are most distressing to hear late a night. What kind of crap went down for someone to be taken by an ambulance at this time at night? Hate to think of it. Hate to think that one day one of my own family members could be taken away in one of those things.
One was, actually, my sister, many years ago. Quite frightening but maybe more frightening for my parents. Now that I have a son, I can sort of imagine their frame of mind as they crested the hill and saw that swarm of flashing lights and my sister stuck in her date's car. Hell, when my son even looks like he might fall over even though he's sitting on carpet I get a little tense. Having children is certainly a blessing but when I hear ambulances roaring by in the night, I get a little freaked out.
I need to calm down.
Maybe another drink?
Definitely no more CSI!
One was, actually, my sister, many years ago. Quite frightening but maybe more frightening for my parents. Now that I have a son, I can sort of imagine their frame of mind as they crested the hill and saw that swarm of flashing lights and my sister stuck in her date's car. Hell, when my son even looks like he might fall over even though he's sitting on carpet I get a little tense. Having children is certainly a blessing but when I hear ambulances roaring by in the night, I get a little freaked out.
I need to calm down.
Maybe another drink?
Definitely no more CSI!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Negativityisms
When it comes right down to it, I just hate being negative.
And I hate other people who are negative and bring me down. I work in an industry that requires its participants to be outgoing and outspoken and if one is not so then no amount of care, consideration and/or instruction will have any effect. Students who lack confidence, who are generally negative about their own ability to use English as a tool for communication, annoy me to no end.
"How can that be, Lance? Teachers aren't supposed to think like that!" some may say.
Well, maybe so, but these students pay their own way. They come here of their own volition (though possibly of their parent's volition, too). Why do they endure such torture every week, paying handsomely all the while? Why, indeed.
But it is this negativity that drives me up the wall. I have lost my patience with students who make no effort to make any progress. I dread their classes, knowing that they probably have some far-fetched idea that this one block of 60 minutes each week will magically transform their otherwise dense brain matter into a language learning device ripe for reprogramming, that stepping foot into this small office space will award them smooth acquisition of English.
The funny thing I noticed the other day, as I thought about these students and their rather hopeless situations, is that I have become negative, too. Their ignorant refusal to use in class the English they already know, to spend some time outside of class pursuing language opportunities, to engage in conversations longer than one syllable -- all of this has just pushed me over the edge.
I have simply run out of patience for these types of students. I suppose you could say I have been blessed with a very few number of honest-to-goodness students intent on learning and acquiring English. I can see Purpose in their twinkling eyes, can feel their growth in the conversations they have with me, can literally see their progress as they compose longer journal entries, read more complicated texts, maintain personal dictionaries. Indeed, it's these students that have turned me off from the rest.
But at the end of the day, I am still the teacher for ALL of my students, even the ones that should not be wasting their parents' hard earned money. Though despite my myriad efforts to motivate them and their equally countless ways in which they have managed to escape learning something, I am bound by my private little oath as an educator not to give up on them as long as they are willing to try.
But when do I know if they have given up? How do I know when they have succumbed to their own relentless negative growth?
When is enough enough?
And I hate other people who are negative and bring me down. I work in an industry that requires its participants to be outgoing and outspoken and if one is not so then no amount of care, consideration and/or instruction will have any effect. Students who lack confidence, who are generally negative about their own ability to use English as a tool for communication, annoy me to no end.
"How can that be, Lance? Teachers aren't supposed to think like that!" some may say.
Well, maybe so, but these students pay their own way. They come here of their own volition (though possibly of their parent's volition, too). Why do they endure such torture every week, paying handsomely all the while? Why, indeed.
But it is this negativity that drives me up the wall. I have lost my patience with students who make no effort to make any progress. I dread their classes, knowing that they probably have some far-fetched idea that this one block of 60 minutes each week will magically transform their otherwise dense brain matter into a language learning device ripe for reprogramming, that stepping foot into this small office space will award them smooth acquisition of English.
The funny thing I noticed the other day, as I thought about these students and their rather hopeless situations, is that I have become negative, too. Their ignorant refusal to use in class the English they already know, to spend some time outside of class pursuing language opportunities, to engage in conversations longer than one syllable -- all of this has just pushed me over the edge.
I have simply run out of patience for these types of students. I suppose you could say I have been blessed with a very few number of honest-to-goodness students intent on learning and acquiring English. I can see Purpose in their twinkling eyes, can feel their growth in the conversations they have with me, can literally see their progress as they compose longer journal entries, read more complicated texts, maintain personal dictionaries. Indeed, it's these students that have turned me off from the rest.
But at the end of the day, I am still the teacher for ALL of my students, even the ones that should not be wasting their parents' hard earned money. Though despite my myriad efforts to motivate them and their equally countless ways in which they have managed to escape learning something, I am bound by my private little oath as an educator not to give up on them as long as they are willing to try.
But when do I know if they have given up? How do I know when they have succumbed to their own relentless negative growth?
When is enough enough?
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Suggestions
At the suggestion of my wife, I am starting up this blog again. Our sister-in-law has been keeping one about her son, mainly for the grandparents and friends, so this has evidently spurned my wife into a sudden interest in blogs. Okay, maybe not a real interest, but after I told her that I had one she gave me this look like "What ELSE are you keeping from me...?" She suggested I start it up again. So, here I am.
And that's the funny thing about suggestions: lots of people give them, but maybe only about half follow them. As a EFL teacher, I have first hand experience of this. I have suggested and still do continue to suggest a variety of ways in which my students can improve their English proficiency. Living in Japan does not afford many opportunities to naturally use English outside of a classroom, so I would assume that any suggestion I give would be taken to heart.
Alas, I am sadly mistaken.
Out of the 15 or 16 high school to adult EFL students I teach, only four or five have followed my advice, and only one or two do so regularly. My question is, why?
Why, if they are paying about $90 a month to visit my class once a week, do they not invest an equal amount of time outside of class to develop their skills? Why do they come to class with sheepish grins on their faces saying, "No, I did not do any vocabulary study this week?"
It baffles me, but only to a certain point. If I worried too much over it, like I did when I first started working in this English Conversation industry, I would probably drive myself crazy. I have come to the conclusion that many of these older learners are not really pursuing English to fully master the language - it is merely a fun and slightly expensive hobby where they can meet up with similarly aged people to exchange a few words in a foreign language. Research studies I have heard about seem to suggest that learning a foreign language keeps the brain active and stems the oncoming tide of senility. Maybe that is what they are hoping for. If that is the case, then I guess they are at least following SOMEONE'S suggestion, albeit not mine.
No worries, though. They keep coming each week, smiling either because they are happy or because they didn't do any work, but smiling nonetheless. And they pay. And that's the bottom line, I guess. It SHOULD be whether or not they are really gaining anything from their experience in the class but come on... At the end of the day, we all know that money walks, even if my students can't talk.
And that's the funny thing about suggestions: lots of people give them, but maybe only about half follow them. As a EFL teacher, I have first hand experience of this. I have suggested and still do continue to suggest a variety of ways in which my students can improve their English proficiency. Living in Japan does not afford many opportunities to naturally use English outside of a classroom, so I would assume that any suggestion I give would be taken to heart.
Alas, I am sadly mistaken.
Out of the 15 or 16 high school to adult EFL students I teach, only four or five have followed my advice, and only one or two do so regularly. My question is, why?
Why, if they are paying about $90 a month to visit my class once a week, do they not invest an equal amount of time outside of class to develop their skills? Why do they come to class with sheepish grins on their faces saying, "No, I did not do any vocabulary study this week?"
It baffles me, but only to a certain point. If I worried too much over it, like I did when I first started working in this English Conversation industry, I would probably drive myself crazy. I have come to the conclusion that many of these older learners are not really pursuing English to fully master the language - it is merely a fun and slightly expensive hobby where they can meet up with similarly aged people to exchange a few words in a foreign language. Research studies I have heard about seem to suggest that learning a foreign language keeps the brain active and stems the oncoming tide of senility. Maybe that is what they are hoping for. If that is the case, then I guess they are at least following SOMEONE'S suggestion, albeit not mine.
No worries, though. They keep coming each week, smiling either because they are happy or because they didn't do any work, but smiling nonetheless. And they pay. And that's the bottom line, I guess. It SHOULD be whether or not they are really gaining anything from their experience in the class but come on... At the end of the day, we all know that money walks, even if my students can't talk.
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