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LING 113A SPRING COMPOSITION ORIENTATION THURSDAY JANUARY 21, 2016 SHADI GANJAVI, ANNE CRAWFORD, REBECCA ANDRADE, JOHN GIDES Why LING113? International students vs. Non-Native Speakers of English Goals of Stretch Courses: Critical Thinking, Reading and Writing skills Many of our students have problems with these skills. “My strengths that will help me seek my ideal job is analytical, yet it is based on thinking ahead and think of everything that could go wrong dealing with patients it is important to be aware of everything that could go wrong and everything that patients should be aware of for example letting my patients know reasons and causes for something is important for their health.” Non-Native Speakers have to learn English in addition to all the skills we teach in Stretch courses. (And do it all in two semesters!) Why LING113? With the help of the Undergraduate Studies Office, we can have all the Non-Native English speaking International Students (NNESIS) in the same sections. Pros: We can design our assignments knowing who our students are going to be (as opposed to the system we have now). Instructors can be linguists who are trained to deal with the issues of second language acquisition who are also trained in teaching academic writing. Cons Not all non-native speakers are going to struggle with the same aspects of English. Much depends on their first language. What’s working for us? The types of topics we use can be targeted toward who our students are going to be Example: comparing and contrasting cultural values through topics like successful ads, what is considered a good student, politeness cross-culturally/linguistically. Using these topics we can discuss things like: Plagiarism (vs. getting help from friends) Tardiness, absences How to address professors in person and in electronic communication Being engaged in class, asking questions What’s Working for Us? Writing profs who happen to be linguists! As linguists we study basic structure of different languages and know what types of problems to expect. We’re trained to find linguistic patterns that would allow us to address underlying issues rather than specific tokens of errors. A Global Approach vs. a Spot Treatment of Errors For Example Different word orders & word formation Processes Japanese Subject Noun – Object – Verb (John the book saw) – Postposition (table-on) Arabic Verb – Subject – Object Root Morphology More Examples Different ways to package information Persian does not mark definite vs. indefinite. John went to White House when he was in Washington DC. He read Bible in his hotel room. No ‘gender’ is marked in the language. U I = he/she/it ran into John and his girl friend Michelle. He told me that he is marrying him in August. More Examples Chinese does not mark tense and aspect overtly English (1) John walks to school (every day) (2) John walked to school (3) John is walking to school (4) John has walked to school Chinese (1) = (3) John walking to school 约翰走路上学 (2) = (4) John walk to school (have to use an adverb to clarify) 约翰步行 上学 From our knowledge of languages, we know much of what to expect and how to address the issues. From Me Talk Pretty One Day (Present Perfect vs Past Simple) Verb tense Time is expressed with adverbs yesterday, today, last week No distinction between actions completed in the past with and without a connection to the present. Past Simple Finished |Specific point in time X X Form: base verb + ed (regular verbs) Present Perfect Indefinite point in time Form: have/has + past participle Present Perfect Things that happened at an indefinite time in the past Life Experience I’ve spent quite a few summers in Normandy. I spent quite a few summers in Normandy when I was a boy. Have you ever spent summers in Normandy? When were you in Normandy? Present Perfect Things that happened at an indefinite time in the past Very recent I have just returned from Beijing. Have you been to the beach lately? Recently I’ve been responsible for paying the bills. (Lately and recently can also be expressed in the Simple Past.) I recently returned from Beijing. I was at the beach recently. Present Perfect Things that happened at an indefinite time in the past Connection to the present Have you finished writing your first draft? Anton has lost his job. (Anton is now unemployed.) Apartment rents have increased. (Is the draft written?) (Now the rents are high.) (You look so sad.) What has happened? Present Perfect To talk about things that happened in a period of time which is unfinished + result I’ve been a student for three years. Anton has written four papers today. (I’m still a student.) (The result = 4 letters) He’s been writing papers all day. (process) Role of SI in LING 113A SI Leaders are also Linguistics students, giving the metalanguage knowledge necessary to help non-native speakers. Because LING 113A is both a writing and a language class, the SI leaders will be taking an active role in ensuring that their classes are continuations of the 113 classes, teaching both writing strategies and grammar lessons as needed to support students. Essentially, LING 113 students will have a 2 hour class with a room and instructor switch between the first and second hours. Role of SI in LING 113A Writing strategies, reading discussions, and grammar lessons are held in both 113 and SI as appropriate. Weeks 3 & 4, e.g. SI leaders join instructors for one-onone conferences. Sample SI Lesson: Understanding a Text “If you have not meimslsxp or lgpdmurct by this time, then you should not be in this room. Has everyone apzkiubjxow? Everyone? Good. We shall begin.” What could the underlined words be? Sample SI Lesson I’ve spent quite a few summers in Normandy, and I took a month-long French class before leaving New York. I’m not completely in the dark, yet I understood only half of what this woman was saying. “If you have not meimslsxp or lgpdmurct by this time, then you should not be in this room. Has everyone apzkiubjxow? Everyone? Good. We shall begin.” Does this change your idea of what the underlined words could be? Sample SI Lesson The teacher marched in, deeply tanned from a recent vacation, and proceeded to rattle off a series of administrative announcements. I’ve spent quite a few summers in Normandy, and I took a month-long French class before leaving New York. I’m not completely in the dark, yet I understood only half of what this woman was saying. “If you have not meimslsxp or lgpdmurct by this time, then you should not be in this room. Has everyone apzkiubjxow? Everyone? Good. We shall begin.” - David Sedaris, “Me Talk Pretty One Day” Sample SI Lesson “If you have not meimslsxp or lgpdmurct by this time, then you should not be in this room. Has everyone apzkiubjxow? Everyone? Good. We shall begin.” What could the nonsense words be? What will you do if you can’t figure it out from context? (dictionary, friend, corpora, etc.) Have you ever had this experience in a language classroom? How did you feel? What did you do? Sample SI Lesson: Using Texts to Look at Grammar “Were you always this palicmkrexis?” she asked. “Even a fiuscrza ticiwelmun knows that a typewriter is feminine.” Grammatical Gender* How would you know typewriter is feminine in French? Are some nouns in your first language always feminine or masculine? Or are nouns usually neutral, with no gender? What does English do with gender? What nouns are feminine or masculine? This can lead to a practice of 3rd person singular pronouns if needed (recall the example from Persian). Sample SI Lesson “Were you always this palicmkrexis?” she asked. “Even a fiuscrza ticiwelmun knows that a typewriter is feminine.” Parts of Speech & Word Order When you were thinking of possible words to substitute for the underlined words, did you know which part of speech it should be? How did you know? In English, word order is so strict that you can often predict what kind of what will go in a given slot in a sentence. Sample SI Lesson “Were you always this palicmkrexis?” she asked. “Even a fiuscrza ticiwelmun knows that a typewriter is feminine.” Parts of Speech & Word Order This can lead to a lesson on role of parts of speech in English grammar and writing correct sentences. ‘a fiuscrza ticiwelmun’ must be a Noun Phrase – why? ‘fiuscrza’ must be an adjective or the first part of a compound noun, and ‘ticiwelmun’ must be a noun – why? The Bottom Line International students in a composition classroom have learning needs that are distinct from those of a native composition classroom. How LING 113A is different than ESL courses. Pedagogy and methodologies used in LING 113A are rooted in Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis. Theoretical underpinnings of language learning are applied in the context of a writing classroom. Teaching methodologies are modified to reflect student needs based on the four skills of second language learning: reading, writing, listening and speaking. These include tailoring the use of gesture, tone, and rate of speech to increase comprehension. Similarities and differences in assessment between ENGL 113A and LING 113A. Q&A Questions / Comments?! Shadi Ganjavi, LING Writing Coordinator ([email protected])