English language and literature

A Cure For Formal Language Errors In Papua New Guinea (& Elsewhere) - This Is Your Problem, Friend, Not Mine

by Thorold (Thor) May

The material in this article is as relevant now as it ever was. Some things don't change.  It was first published in Guidelines - A Periodical For Classroom Language Teachers, Vol.8, No.1,  June 1986, SEAMEO Regional Language Centre, Singapore. This is an extended version of a paper given  at the TESLA Conference in Goroka, PNG, in July 1985.

This paper proposes that teacher correction often has very little transfer effect on a student's later language... more This paper proposes that teacher correction often has very little transfer effect on a student's later language behaviour. It examines reasons for this, and the motivational paradigm within which students operate. The paper argues that student self-correction is more likely to have a measurable long term effect. A mechanism to motivate directed self-correction is therefore proposed. This mechanism involves subtracting marks from assessed essays, and indicating line locations where there is a problem, without however explaining the problem. The procedure gives students the option to recover the lost marks through re-editing and re-submission within a time frame. The system has been tested empirically and found to yield promising results. The method of error evaluation also results in a lower burden of pointless correction for teachers.

When Grammar Doesn't Help

by Thorold (Thor) May

This paper questions the role of grammar in language teaching and learning. Firstly it identifies the constituencies... more This paper questions the role of grammar in language teaching and learning. Firstly it identifies the constituencies in academic language teaching, and their often conflicting notions of language programs. Several kinds of learners are discussed, with particular attention to the large group who are uncomfortable with any technical analysis, including formal grammars. Some conventional ideas about what a natural language grammar actually is are challenged. The consequences of a connectionist view of language processing are briefly explored. The power of collocation sets is identified as a key to language acquisition. Language is set in the broader cognitive context of memory processes and patterns of generalization. Pedagogical grammars are viewed as forced external generalizations with little organic presence in memory, but some suggestions are made about how to make use of them. Actual student language memory, as well as teacher self-insight into L1 are both contrasted with the idealized patterns assumed by academic language programs. Finally, the stubborn problem of average teacher behaviour is set against the real ways in which people appear to use grammars and learn languages.

Purposive Constructions in English

by Thorold (Thor) May

The detailed analysis of Purposive Constructions in this long paper will help researchers to clarify these phenomena in English, even though the linguistic model employed, Chomsky's Government and Binding, has (in my view) been superseded.

Abstract: This thesis* explores some of the syntactic & semantic properties of Purposive Constructions in English.... more Abstract: This thesis* explores some of the syntactic & semantic properties of Purposive Constructions in English. The term "purposive" is recognized as a semantic concept which finds regular expression in a small range of syntactic configurations. Purpose Clauses (PCs) and Rationale Clauses (Rat.Cs) are examined in some detail. Briefer reference is made to several other configurations, notably Because Clauses, So-That Clauses and Infinitival Relatives. In general Purposive Constructions comprise rather fuzzy semantic categories. Nevertheless, the main syntactic features are fairly clear. Interpretation of the constructions requires a systematic account of the control of empty slots (ellipted NPs) by thematic elements in the matrix clause. General conditions of Government and Binding appear adequate to predict the distribution of gaps in most Purposive Clauses. However, the relationship between propositions predicated of a common argument in these constructions is found to sometimes require matching conditions too subtle for syntax alone to predict. A concept of Thematic Coextensiveness is introduced to account for such matching.

Language Tangle - Predicting & Facilitating Outcomes in Language Education - PhD Thesis - ThorMay

by Thorold (Thor) May

Doctoral dissertation in knowledge worker productivity (specifically language teaching productivity) awarded by the University of Newcastle, NSW in 2010. The abstract and links to supporting documents including the thesis itself may also be viewed at http://thormay.net/lxesl/lxtangle_abstract.html. The full dissertation title is "Language Tangle - Predicting and Facilitating Outcomes in Language Education".

This thesis argues that foreign and second language teaching productivity can only reach its proper potential when it... more This thesis argues that foreign and second language teaching productivity can only reach its proper potential when it is accorded priority, second only to language learner productivity, amongst the many competing productivities which are always asserted by stakeholders in educational institutions.

A theoretical foundation for the research is established by examining the historical concept of productivity, and its more recent manifestation as knowledge worker productivity, especially as applied to teachers.

The empirical basis of the thesis is sourced from a chronological series of twenty biographical case studies in language teaching venues in Australia, New Zealand, Oceania and East Asia. The biographical case study methodology, although rare in applied linguistics, is justified by reference to its wide and growing application in other fields of qualitative research. The case studies are analysed for common patterns of productivity, as well as teaching productivity inhibition or failure.

It was affirmed across all of the case studies without exception that external parties could not control or even reliably predict what individual students might learn, and how well, from instances of instructed language teaching. This was regardless of the power of institutional players, external resources, curriculums or the teacher. Student belief in the immediate value of what was to be learned in a given lesson, and personal confidence in an ability to learn it were the most critical factors.

Teaching productivity was found to turn, ultimately, on the teacher's ability to influence the probability of student learning. The teacher could best influence learning probability by enhancing student motivation. The most effective environments for teaching productivity were seen to be those where the teacher was professionally equipped and politically enabled to exercise judgements which maximized opportunities for student language learning productivity. A negotiated pact concerning both curriculum and method often proved effective, especially with mature students, and at times required some deception of institutional authorities.

Empirically, the encouragement of reciprocal learning relationships between teacher and students was found to be powerfully enabling for language teaching productivity in the case studies.

In many venues a small but effective minority of 'intimate learners' were also able to leverage their language learning productivity by forging more personal relationships with the teacher.

The wider cultural paradigm within each of the countries represented in the case studies sanctioned different paths and limitations for both language learners and teachers, and hence was seen to influence teaching productivity in critical ways. It was found that under certain conditions, notably (but not exclusively) those prevailing in many East Asian educational institutions, that certification of foreign language skills had a higher cultural, employment and monetary value than the actual ability to exercise foreign language skills.

A negative influence on teacher productivity in many of the case studies was an ignorance about language learning and teaching amongst institutional players. The disregard of language teacher professionalism was fed by a belief that being able to speak a language was all that was necessary to teach it, and reinforced by misinterpreting the meaning of test results. Related to this, an imbalance of power relationships between teachers or students with other institutional interests was consistently found to interfere with teaching and learning productivities. Overall, the model of productivity understood in institutions instanced by the case studies tended to reflect a 19th Century economic paradigm of capital, raw materials (students) and labour (dispensable classroom workers) rather than any more sophisticated grasp of knowledge worker productivity.

It was demonstrated in the context of the case studies that productivity, and in particular knowledge worker productivity, is a complex concept whose facets require detailed analysis to arrive at a proper understanding of the role that foreign and second language teachers play in educational institutions.

Plain Speaking : Judging an Oratory Contest

by Thorold (Thor) May

Although first published in 1989, this paper retains relevance, especially for the "speech competitions" which are run (usually poorly) in countries where English is taught as a second language.

Abstract: This paper attempts to explain the criteria which judges are likely to apply in the Fiji National Oratory... more Abstract: This paper attempts to explain the criteria which judges are likely to apply in the Fiji National Oratory Contest. It comments upon some features of the 1989 contest, and suggests factors which may have underlain the performance of contestants. However, the analysis is not merely local to an historical time or place. Oratory contests are a special case of the “speaking competitions” which are widespread in countries where English is learned as a second language. The cultural beliefs and traditions which come into play in public speaking are especially important in cross-cultural situations. The solutions discussed here have universal relevance for speakers and judges.

Evaluating Linguistic Difficulty

by Thorold (Thor) May

This material was originally published in TESOL News Vol. 8 No. 3 1987 . In spite of the date, its content remains very current for language teachers and others.

While ESL teachers cannot eliminate linguistic difficulties, with an awareness of the factors involved it is possible... more While ESL teachers cannot eliminate linguistic difficulties, with an awareness of the factors involved it is possible to minimise the confusion of their students. This article systematically analyses some important problem areas in language learning. It itemizes a range of syntactic and semantic phenomena, considering in each cas how the rule or pattern might pose a difficulty for some learners. This paper has been published for a number of years now, and the writer has become aware that many teachers themselves have found it a useful aid in preparing and presenting course material.

Table of Contents: INTRODUCTION // orders of complexity // LEXICAL DIFFICULTY // Syllabic length:// Clusters // Irregular spelling // Irregular stress // Affixes // Multiple denotation // Range of connotation // Specialized application // Frequency of lexical items // Selectional restrictions // Subcategorical restrictions // MEASURES OF STRUCTURAL COMPLEXITY IN SENTENCES // Sentence length // Qualifying words // Adverbial and prepositional phrases // Conjunctive sentences // Equi-deletion // Deletion by convention // Permutation // Transposition // Embedding // Sentential complements // Topicalization // Presupposition // Tense // Aspect // Agreement (concord) rules // Anaphoric, cataphoric and exophoric references // DISCOURSE COHESION // CUEING // IDIOM // CONCEPTUAL DIFFICULTY // More accessible reference // Less accessible reference // Types of Inference // REFERENCES

Fluency Vs Accuracy OR Fluency AND Accuracy for Language Learners?

by Thorold (Thor) May

This document is also available on the blog, Thor's Language & Teaching Notes at http://thorslanguageandteachingnotes.byeways.net/
// This is the outline of a seminar on teaching methodology given as a teacher inservice for Chinese English teachers in Zhengzhou, Henan, China, in November 2009.

Abstract : This seminar paper indicates a fundamental difference in objectives between language learning for... more Abstract : This seminar paper indicates a fundamental difference in objectives between language learning for certification and learning for live use. Whereas accuracy is an absolute goal within schooling contexts, its value on the street is highly variable. This difference is reflected in teaching perspectives.

Reality Over Imagination in Muhammad Haji Salleh’s Rowing Down Two Rivers

by Arezou Zalipour

Zalipour, Arezou. 2010. Reality Over Imagination in Muhammad Haji Salleh’s Rowing Down Two Rivers. Journal of Malay Literature. Vol. 23, No.1.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you need the full article.

One important function of imagination is to understand reality. Imagination and reality are inherently related and... more One important function of imagination is to understand reality. Imagination and reality are inherently related and poetry is one zone where imagination and reality meet. Complementary changes in the nature of reality, as well as cultural and ideological configurations, especially in postcolonial writing which aim to reconstruct a sense of nationalism and nationhood, call for a re-evaluation of the concept of creative imagination perhaps differently from its earlier configurations. Having said that, this paper aims to raise the issue of the difference between the two ideologies of poetry with reference to the imagination and reality, and argues that the difference is related to the concept and state of imagination in the poem. This paper focuses on Muhammad Haji Salleh’s Rowing Down Two River (2000) to investigate the dominance of reality over imagination. The relevant concepts that relate reality to imagination in the domain of artistic creation will be used as the conceptual framework of this study. The analytical procedure will consist of examining the types of images and their associations in the selected poems in order to explore Muhammad’s mode of conveyance of the elements of reality. The analysis demonstrates that Muhammad’s overreliance on sensory images and idea images results in the dominance of reality over imagination in his poetry. The significant motifs in his poems in Rowing Down Two Rivers such as road, journey, the traveller, home, quest, and identity are embodied in words or descriptions denoting sensory experience which leads to familiar associations with Malaysian reality. Imagination in poetry is considered to be a human faculty concerned with creating autonomous aesthetic artefacts which can represent directly or indirectly the human experience. This study identifies that for Muhammad, this notion has now been turned into an agency that is used solely for nurturing and insulating the intellectualism and idealism of social Malaysian identity and life.

The Road Not Taken: Shedding Xenophobia, Embracing the Other in Umm Zakiyyah’s If I Should Speak

by Arezou Zalipour

This is a co-authored paper.

In Umm Zakiyyah‟s If I Should Speak (2000), the protagonist, African American Christian Tamika Douglass experiences... more In Umm Zakiyyah‟s If I Should Speak (2000), the protagonist, African American Christian Tamika Douglass experiences travelling down the road not taken when she befriends her two minority Muslim American college flatmates, Dee @ Durrah and Aminah. Raised in a predominantly Christian society, Tamika develops a great mistrust of Islam and Muslims. However, her close and personal encounter with the two Muslims transforms her appreciation of the religion. Through Tamika‟s dialogue with them and personal observations of their daily living, Tamika journeys into the road less travelled by most Americans, one which is foreign albeit close to home. In the course of the narrative, Tamika learns to shed some of the xenophobic attitudes she has adopted growing up in the predominantly non-Muslim environment and embrace the internal conflicts that have crippled her awareness of the “other.” This paper considers the motif of the road as a metaphor for life and explicates how in journeying the road less travelled, Tamika finds a new sense of appreciation of herself and the other.

El Extraño Caso Del Dr. Jekyll Y Mary Reilly

by Margarita Carretero González

Liberman and Levickij: Towards comparative etymological lexicography of English and Germanic

by Marek Stachowski

A comparative review of: (1) Liberman A.: An analytic dictionary of English etymology. An introduction, 2008; (2) Liberman A.: A bibliography of English etymology, 2010; (3) Levickij V. V. : Ètimologičeskij slovar' germanskix jazykov, 2010.

So Noxious a Premonition

by Mohamed Eno

Excerpted from my forthcoming volume Guilt of Otherness: A Brief Personal Memoir in Poetry

Strong and weak leadership exist everywhere, in every profession, and academia is not an exception. This verse is... more Strong and weak leadership exist everywhere, in every profession, and academia is not an exception. This verse is dedicated to all men and women academics who at some point in their professional life felt oppressed, frustrated or marginalized for one reason or another by the powers that be in their respective institutions.

A Bond So Sacrosanct

by Mohamed Eno

This is another excerpt from my poetry project in progress entitled A Verse for Zayed: Lessons on Leadership and Its Legacy

Leadership traits are judged by the strength of the bond and reciprocal loyalty between the leader and the followers. Leadership traits are judged by the strength of the bond and reciprocal loyalty between the leader and the followers.

Charlatans Chicanery

by Mohamed Eno

Thr poem is an excerpt from my forthcoming volume Guilt of Otherness

The volume is under review with a subject area expert and a literary critic. The volume is under review with a subject area expert and a literary critic.

ELTS Post-Graduate Student Conference on English Literature and Translation Studies 17-18 May 2012 Cankaya University Turkey

by MUSTAFA KIRCA

www.elts.cankaya.edu.tr

We are pleased to announce POST-GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE ON ENGLISH LITERATURE AND TRANSLATION STUDIES, jointly... more We are pleased to announce POST-GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE ON ENGLISH LITERATURE AND TRANSLATION STUDIES, jointly hosted by the Departments of Translation and Interpreting Studies and English Language and Literature at Cankaya University in Ankara. We kindly invite you to send 250-word abstracts by 5 March 2012. Please send proposals (and enquiries) to one of the email addresses below:
elts@cankaya.edu.tr or eltsconferences@gmail.com
For further details, please visit: www.elts.cankaya.edu.tr
We look forward to welcoming you in the friendly atmosphere of Cankaya University.
Kind Regards,
Organizing Committee
Prof. Dr. Aysu ERDEN
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ertuğrul KOÇ
Assist. Prof. Dr. Mustafa KIRCA

Kalaja, P., R. Alanen, H. Dufva & Å. Palviainen (2011) Englannin ja ruotsin kielen oppijat toimijoina koulussa ja koulun ulkopuolella. AFinLA-e publication 3 (2011). 62-74.

by Hannele Dufva

This paper reports on the past experiences of learning English and Swedish – in a study conducted as part of a... more This paper reports on the past experiences of learning English and Swedish – in a study conducted as part of a research project From Novice to Expert. Viewing language learning as a sociocultural activity, the study focused on agency, or the capacity to act, and its role in learning the two languages in school and out-of school. A questionnaire (with open-ended questions) was administered to students of English and Swedish at the beginning of their university studies. The questions concerned the students’ experiences of learning the languages when they still went to school. The data collected were subjected to qualitative content analysis. Importantly, the responses revealed differences in the exercise of agency and consequently in the learning opportunities seized by the two groups of students especially in their spare time. Other similarities and differences (both in experiences and beliefs) were found from one language to another, and also from one learning environment to another.

 Jean-Pierre van Noppen's Publications

by Jean Pierre van Noppen

Full list of publications, 1975-2011 (excepting book reviews) most of which are accessible (in published or preprint... more Full list of publications, 1975-2011 (excepting book reviews) most of which are accessible (in published or preprint form) via the ULB online resource http://difusion.academiewb.be/

'"One Drayton": Pope, Warburton and the History of a Put-Down', Notes and Queries 58 (2011), pp. 431-4 (DOI: 10.1093/notesj/gjr131)

by Sara Trevisan

Teacher learning for new times: Repurposing new multimodal literacies and digital- video composing for schools.

by Suzanne Miller

Miller, S. M. (2008).  Teacher learning for new times: Repurposing new multimodal literacies and digital- video composing for schools. In J. Flood, S.B. Heath, D. Lapp (Eds.) Handbook of research on teaching literacy through the communicative and visual arts, pp. 441-460, Volume II. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates and the International Reading Association.

This chapter discusses next what research suggests about professional development aimed at transforming teachers’... more This chapter discusses next what research suggests about professional development aimed at transforming teachers’ classroom uses of new multimodal literacies. I argue here that digital-video (DV) composing is a quintessential multimodal literacy that can play a key role in those professional experiences and have positive influences on students and classrooms. The term DV composing aims to conceptualize and emphasize the knowledge-assembling and communicative functions of this multimodal literacy practice.
The following first reviews the work on teacher professional development for integrating new literacies into the curriculum and then focuses on what research says about what does not work and what seems to be promising. In the remainder of the article, teacher professional development for learning to integrate DV composing into the curriculum as a new multimodal literacy practice is reviewed, followed by an overview of a growing body of work situated in a DV composing program that examines both teacher learning and subsequent changes in student engagement, learning, and school performance.

Towards a multimodal literacy pedagogy: Digital video composing as 21st century literacy

by Suzanne Miller

Miller, S.M. (2010). Towards a multimodal literacy pedagogy: Digital video composing as 21st  century literacy, pp. 254-281. In P. Albers & J. Sanders (Eds.) Literacies, Art, and Multimodality. Urbana-Champaign, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

In new times of digitally accessible multimodality for designing texts for social purposes, changes are needed in... more In new times of digitally accessible multimodality for designing texts for social purposes, changes are needed in schools.  Scholars examining these trends in research have reached a clear consensus: facility with interpreting and designing multimodal texts will increasingly be required by human beings to communicate, work, and thrive in the digital, global world of the 21st century. In this article I propose a framework and a method for drawing on these new social practices and developing performance knowledge for learning in schools. In a long-term project professional development a multimodal composing project provided point-of-need support for English teachers in workshops and in their classrooms to help them expand their beliefs about literacy and critically reframe their pedagogical practices. The focus on digital video composing provides teachers and students with multimodal learning in an authentic, high-status, social and media practice with powerful attention-getting qualities and expert models in the real world. Analysis of teachers successfully integrating DV composing for students in their classrooms revealed four principles representing the key changes needed for teachers to transform the teaching and learning in their classrooms towards multimodal composing.  The components that provide teachers direction toward this reframing include: (1) providing explicit multimodal design instruction and attention; (2) co-constructing authentic purposes for representing multimodal meaning for an audience; (3) designing multimodal composing activities that invite students to draw on their identity lifeworlds as resources; and (4) creating functional social spaces for mediating multimodal learning.