Category: applied linguistics
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Living abroad for three years will still only get you half the native speaker vocabulary size
It seems the average non-native speaker of English only has a vocabulary size of about 4,500 words. And over half of these learners will have a vocabulary size of greater than 7,826 words. This is a somewhat depressing picture for language learners considering the worst of native speaker adults still will have a minimum size…
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Some thoughts on language and culture
Language is culture. So if you want to learn to speak a language you need to understand the culture in which it is spoken. And it is this that many don’t understand about their first language, that their ability to speak it is from their immersion – being in the midst of the culture –…
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The Origin of English Words
Here is a version of the chart I made of the origin of english words. I am guessing these are type counts and not token counts. It would be interesting to see a token count chart of this and see where the blowout (if any) is.
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Hideo Kageyama Rocks
According to The Japan News (formerly The Daily Yomiuri) renowned Japanese educator Hideo Kageyama (homepage in Japanese) will be release a rock song entitled ‘Benkyo Shiyoze’ (Let’s Study!) on 8 May. You have to hand it to Prof. Kageyama who is now advisor to the Osaka Prefectural Board of Education. His techniques for motivating students are…
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English Phonetic Chart
Here is an English phonetic chart I had created based on Adrian Underhill‘s Sound Foundations. I highly recommend this book as a workbook for teachers.
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Motivation is one ingredient to learning any language
Just finished participating in a four-person panel talk about learning Japanese. Here are some points of commonality among panelists: regularity of study motviation through some interest in the target language’s culture enjoying the learning (relates to #2) authentic material or authentic situations For me learning is like being the anthropologist Levi-Strauss: you emmerse yourself in…
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Three ways to improve your use of prepositions
Here are three quick and dirty ways to get to know your prepositions: Read a Book There are books out there, like anything else, specifically geared towards learning and understanding prepositions. One that I recommend is English Prepositions Explained by Seth Lindstromberg. It approaches it from a cognitive linguistic perspectives that, in my opinion, works…
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What has Zen got to do with English language teaching?
Everything. “Revisiting” my master in Zen on YouTube the other day I was compelled to think about what it means to be a language student and how it relates to Zen. It seems to me many of the students I teach unnecessarily limit themselves with a psychological barrier – they believe they will never achieve…
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Manage your extensive reading lending library with BookBuddy
Do you run an extensive reading (ER) course? Do you have trouble keeping track of book in your lending library? If you said yes, to both questions then this may be the solution for you. BookBuddy 4.0 is an iPhone and iPad, iPod Touch app. Features include: barcode scanning online ISBN search and save backup…
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Learning languages: the importance of motivation, repetition, authenticity, proportion of time
Yesterday’s Hiroshima JALT monthly meet was a good one. Four non-native speakers of English talked about their experience and how they went about learning the language. One point was common to all four speakers: motivation. And three of the speakers had repetition and authentic material use as a commonality. Motivation is ultimately a most factor…
ghoti 