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Kristin Bergsagel

Does Your Language Shape How You Think? - NYTimes.com - 3 views

  • if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about.
  • When your language routinely obliges you to specify certain types of information, it forces you to be attentive to certain details in the world and to certain aspects of experience that speakers of other languages may not be required to think about all the time. And since such habits of speech are cultivated from the earliest age, it is only natural that they can settle into habits of mind that go beyond language itself, affecting your experiences, perceptions, associations, feelings, memories and orientation in the world.
Berylaube 00

MoMA | Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language - 0 views

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    "Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language brings together historical and contemporary works of art that treat language not merely as a system of communication governed by grammatical rules and assigned meanings, but as a material that can be manipulated with creative freedom, like paint, clay, or any other artistic medium. The exhibition is divided into two sections. The first is a historical overview of 20th-century art that experiments with the graphic, sonic, and kinetic possibilities of letters and words. With a few notable exceptions, these works are confined to the two-dimensional parameters of a page. The second section presents an installation of contemporary works, most of which do away with the page; some do away with writing altogether. The artist and poet Emmett Williams observed that "the poem as picture is as old as the hills," citing its beginnings in hieroglyphics,"
The0d0re Shatagin

Signing, Singing, Speaking: How Language Evolved : NPR - 5 views

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    Article, Voice, and Transcript on the Origin of Language / Speech - emphasis on sign language and singing
Adam Babcock

Does Your Language Shape How You Think? - NYTimes.com - 5 views

  • Native American languages impose on their speakers a picture of reality that is totally different from ours, so their speakers would simply not be able to understand some of our most basic concepts, like the flow of time or the distinction between objects
  • rash-landed on hard facts and solid common sense, when it transpired that there had never actually been any evidence to support his fantastic claims
  • new research has revealed that when we learn our mother tongue, we do after all acquire certain habits of thought that shape our experience in significant and often surprising ways.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about
  • You may well wonder whether my companion was male or female, but I have the right to tell you politely that it’s none of your business. But if we were speaking French or German, I wouldn’t have the privilege to equivocate in this way
  • but I do have to tell you something about the timing of the event: I have to decide whether we dined, have been dining, are dining, will be dining and so on. Chinese, on the other hand, does not oblige its speakers to specify the exact time of the action in this way, because the same verb form can be used for past, present or future actions.
  • When speakers were asked to grade various objects on a range of characteristics, Spanish speakers deemed bridges, clocks and violins to have more “manly properties” like strength, but Germans tended to think of them as more slender or elegant.
  • gendered languages” imprint gender traits for objects so strongly in the mind that these associations obstruct speakers’ ability to commit information to memory
  • When French speakers saw a picture of a fork (la fourchette), most of them wanted it to speak in a woman’s voice, but Spanish speakers, for whom el tenedor is masculine, preferred a gravelly male voice for it.
  • Nonetheless, once gender connotations have been imposed on impressionable young minds, they lead those with a gendered mother tongue to see the inanimate world through lenses tinted with associations and emotional responses that English speakers — stuck in their monochrome desert of “its” — are entirely oblivious to.
andrew bendelow

My Languages: Social Media And Creativity In The Language Classroom - 3 views

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    Isabella Jones' excellent slides on social networking creative ideas for the language classroom--pertinent to Eng teachers, too.
Julia Robert

What Is TOEFL Test - 3 views

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    TOEFL is the test of English as a Foreign Language.It is designed to evaluate the English proficiency of people whose native language is not English.It is the most widely respected English language test, highly recognized by more than 7,500 colleges, universities and agencies in more than 130
Nik Peachey

Nik's Daily English Activities: Study a Classic of Literature - 8 views

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    "Many great works of literature have been translated into other languages, but there is nothing quite as good as reading a book in the original language. In today's activity you are going to study a classic of English literature; 'The Old Man and The Sea' by Ernest Hemingway."
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    Many great works of literature have been translated into other languages, but there is nothing quite as good as reading a book in the original language. In today's activity you are going to study a classic of English literature; 'The Old Man and The Sea' by Ernest Hemingway.
Berylaube 00

Dyslexia has a language barrier | Education | The Guardian - 1 views

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    " dyslexic in one language but not another. It shows that readers of Chinese use a different part of their brains to readers of English. eported prevalence of dyslexia is much higher in English (about 5-6%) than Chinese. I surveyed 8,000 schoolchildren in the Beijing region, with Yin Wengang of the Chinese Academy of Science, and found that about 1.5% were dyslexic. English, French and Italian dyslexics all showed the same abnormal activity involving the brain system underlying phonemic analysis. In Alan, this theory predicts accurately that the affected language will be English, since Japanese does not require analysis into phonemes.a key peak in brain activity in Chinese readers fell outside the network typically used by European readers. The second surprise was that dyslexics showed lower activation in several key reading areas compared with normal Chinese readers, but this was in a very different brain area from Frith's European dyslexics. Chinese dyslexia may be caused by a different genetic anomaly than English dyslexia."
Berylaube 00

Visuals for Foreign Language Instruction - 1 views

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    This site contains hundreds of visual aids (illustrations) that can be used to support instructional tasks such as describing objects and people (i.e., teaching vocabulary) or describing entire events and situations (i.e., teaching grammar). Illustrations pour l'enseignement des langues étrangères"Ce site contient des centaines de supports visuels (illustrations) qui peuvent être utilisés pour supporter les tâches pédagogiques tels que des objets qui décrivent et des personnes (c.-à-enseignement du vocabulaire) ou décrivant des événements et des situations entières (c.-à-enseignement de la grammaire)."Plus de 400 dessins au trait, consultables et consultable, libres d'utiliser à des fins éducatives, repéré par Larry Ferlazzo. The illustrations were created as part of the Visuals for Developing Communication Skills in Foreign Language Classes project, initated by Paul Toth, former Director of the Less-Commonly-Taught Languages Center.
Suzanne Rogers

AP Language materials - 14 views

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    AP Rhetorical device AP Language argumentation ppt Sample Language test AP style analysis notes Rhetoric of Marc Antony in JC appeals
suzain johan

Online English Training Center - 10 views

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    learn English language step by step,improve your writing reading conversation skill in English language,free download English grammar books,free English learning software, practice latters,application CV in English & prepare your self for interview in English, & many more free English language material:
Dennis OConnor

Memrise vocabulary learning and memorable dictionary - 13 views

  • Ready to grow yourvocabulary?
  • Learn vocabulary in any language 5 times faster Smart science means you won't forget Learning's a game — grow a language garden
Melissa Tredenick

Project LA Language Arts Activities - 10 views

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    Great collection of Language Arts grammar PowerPoints, worksheets, online activities, and games for grades 3-5
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    Great collection of Language Arts grammar PowerPoints, worksheets, online activities, and games for grades 3-5
Nik Peachey

Nik's Quick Shout: The Web 2.0 School of the Present - 6 views

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    "The 'Web 2.0' age has brought us more than a bunch of social networking apps and free web tools, it has also brought about a fundamental shift in the way many web based companies do business. I started to wonder if that change could be mirrored in the physical market place by moving towards a new approach to the language school and the way technology is used in it and how it fits into the face to face business model."
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    The 'Web 2.0' age has brought us more than a bunch of social networking apps and free web tools, it has also brought about a fundamental shift in the way many web based companies do business. I started to wonder if that change could be mirrored in the physical market place by moving towards a new approach to the language school and the way technology is used in it and how it fits into the face to face business model.
The0d0re Shatagin

A Visual Word Puzzle From Radiolab : NPR - 9 views

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    Companion Visual Puzzle to NPR's story on the Origin of Language / Speech
Dana Huff

Gene Weingarten - Goodbye, cruel words: English. It's dead to me. - 7 views

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    The English language, which arose from humble Anglo-Saxon roots to become the lingua franca of 600 million people worldwide and the dominant lexicon of international discourse, is dead. It succumbed last month at the age of 1,617 after a long illness. It is survived by an ignominiously diminished form of itself.
Mary Worrell

Open Culture - 12 views

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    All sorts of free stuff here! Free podcats, foreign language lessons, etc.
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    All sorts of free stuff here! Free podcats, foreign language lessons, etc. I haven't sifted through everything, but I found it through a tweet by @todbaker - there might be some good lesson ideas or resources in here.
Nik Peachey

1 Week workshop: Easy Web 2.0 tools that you can use in your classroom - 14 views

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    "Over the course of this event we will be looking at a small range of web based tools that will enable you to create motivating online language learning activities for your students. These can be used either in class or set as homework. You will have the chance to understand how these tools work, find out how to use them with students and be able to try your hand at creating and sharing activities with other teachers. By the end of the event you should have a small 'toolkit' of resources and ideas that will enable you to enhance your lessons though the effective and pedagogically sound use of technology."
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