Archive for the ‘Popular linguistics books’ Category

Continuing my occasional series (as occasional as reality coming into TEFL theory):

“…it is relatively rare for language teachers to negotiate overall learning goals with their classes at the beginning of courses in an open, direct manner. However… it is commonplace for language teachers to adjust their lesson goals in accordance with student needs in a subtle, ongoing way.”

The Experience of Language Teaching pg 164

Thank the Lord (and Lady Rose M Senior of TEFL) for this book, which is turning out to be more readable than the “popular” linguistics book “Lost for Words” by John Humphreys. 

The question that a whole book of TEFL reality checks has posed to me more than any other is, why does the DELTA take none of this reality of what good teachers do into account? Understood with the CELTA as it’s all about basics, but if most experienced teachers don’t stick to lesson plans and rely on instinct, how is one supposed to put that on a Diploma lesson plan?? And looking at it another way, what is the chance of them saying “Yes, your impeccably planned lesson to produce self motivated learners was fine in theory, but if you were a really experienced teacher you just would’ve been slipping that in as the best times came up”?

More making up for the fact that Dr Johnson was never lucky enough to be a TEFL teacher, this time with one of my favourite TEFL games ever, Call My Bluff. In the classroom version you get the students to make up the wrong definitions to try and fool the other student or team with, but even on my last day in my previous job I wasn’t slack enough to get my students to write my blog for me so you have to choose the real definition from Dr Johnson’s dictionary via Henry Hitchings, not being fooled by the fake definition made up very quickly by me to stop wasting any more time on the TEFL otaku topic… (answers at the bottom of the page)

1. Is an amatorcultist (a) a little insignificant lover, or (b) a lover of the art of gardening?
 
2. Is a bellygod (a) one who makes a god of his belly, or (b) a drug that calms the troubled gut?
 
3. Is deosculation (a) the art of kissing, or (b) losing an eye or part of an eye?

4. Is kissingcrust (a) a crust formed when one loaf in the oven touches another, or (b) a soreness upon the lips caused by an excess of kissing?

5. Is gazingstock (a) a person gazed at with scorn or abhorrence (related to ‘laughingstock’), or (b) cattle that stare at you as you pass?

6. Is potvaliant (a) heated with courage by a strong drink, or (b) culinary adventurousness?
 
7. Is subderisorious (a) scoffing or ridiculing with tenderness or delicacy, or (b) contemptuous of someone below you?
 
8. Is vaticide (a) a murderer of poets, or (b) a murderer of popes?
 
9. Is rhabdomancy (a) divination by a wand, or (b) Scottish witchery?
 
10. Is suppedaneous (a) placed upon the feet, (b) connected to the evening meal?
 
11. Is anatiferous (a) producing ducks, or (b) the burning of phosphor? (more…)

Even with all the things written about Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, I think I might be the first to try adding some TEFL-style pointless elicitation. And so here goes… Try to work out which word he was defining in each case then scroll down the screen to check (it’s a bit like the classroom activities The Definition Game and Taboo):
 
1. belonging to an ass
—————
—————
————–
asinine
 
2. a hog dressed whole, in the West Indian manner
—————
—————
————–
barbecue

3. a stone in the bladder
—————
—————
————– (more…)

Here are some actual sentences taught in the Lonely Planet Korean phrasebook which, while not quite “My hovercraft is full of eels”, tickled me once I realised that trying to find silliness was another whole motivation for using language learning materials. If it doesn’t amuse you so much first off (and you don’t have the more sensible motivation of learning Korean), try picturing saying these things to immigration or the receptionist in your hotel:

p’ibu e t’ongjung-i issoyo = I have a pain in my skin
 
maengjangul umjigilsuga opsoyo = I can’t move my appendix

chon changnogyo indeyo, kohoenun chal annagayo = I’m a Presbyterian, but I’m not practicising

imshinjung ishin-gayo? = (more…)

- The basic meaning of klots, from where the English word klutz comes, is “wooden beam”
- “Jezebel…means ‘daughter of garbage’ [in Hebrew]; her name was probably [really]… Jebaal, daughter of Baal…” (Born to Kvetch pg 22) 

- “Beelzebub…,lord of the flies,was a takeoff of Baal Zevul, lord of heaven” (Born to Kvetch pg 22)
- “Schlong” is a yiddish word (it also has the innocent meaning of “snake”), and “schmuk” and “putz ” also means penis
- “Chutzpah” is an entirely negative word in Yiddish
- “Bubkes” as in “He isn’t worth bubkes” literally means “beans” or “goat droppings”
- “Glitch” possibly comes from the Yiddish word “glitsh”, from glitshn ’slide’, similar to the German word “glitschen”- “slither”
- “Maven” comes from the Hebrew word “mevin” “one who understands” via the the Yiddish word “meyvn”
- The London slang word “nosh” comes from the Yiddish word “nashn”, similar to the German word “naschen”
- Another Cockney classic is “schlep” from from the Yiddish “shlepn” to make a tedious journey, similar to the German word “schleppen”
- The original (Yiddish) meaning of “schmaltz” is melted chicken fat
- “Schnoz/ schnozz/ schnozzle” comes from the Yiddish word “shnoits”, snout, similar to the German word Schnauze
- “Shtick” comes from the Yiddish word for ‘piece’, similar to the German word “Stück” 
- “Spiel”/ “shpiel” comes from the Yiddish word “shpil”, play, similar to the German word “Spiel”
- “Glitch” comes from the Yiddish word “glitsh”, meaning slip,” “skate,” or “nosedive,
- “Kibbutz” is the Hebrew word for “collective”
- “Tush”, the American slang for bum, comes from the Yiddish word “tuchis”/ “tuches”/ “tokhis”
- “To keep shtoom” comes from the Yiddish word “shtum”- silent or speechless
- “Shyster” and “gazump” also come from Yiddish

Other random facts from Born to Kvetch

- Why brideGROOM? It was a completely different word that disappeared from the English language, so they just changed the pronunciation to make it the same as the closest word by pron (technically, assimilation) pg 35

- The showbiz term ‘a turkey’ means a show that “flaps its wings but never flies” pg 23

New words (for me) from Born to Kvetch
the Tetragrammaton- YHVH- the real name of God
antiphrasis- saying the opposite of what you mean, as a kind of euphemism

ale tseyn zoln dir oysfaln, nor eyner zol dir blaybn af tsonveytik- all your teeth should fall out,but you should keep one to get a toothache with

hak mir nisht ken tshaynik-don’t knock me a teakettle-stop rattling on about the same thing all the time (like the lid of a boiling kettle rattling)

yeytser-hore-bleterl- a small blotch of the evil inclination- a lovebite

zol dir dreyen farn nopl- you should go dizzy in the navel

a dank dir in pupik- thank you in the navel- thanks for nothing

vi got in frankraykh- like God in France- “living in sin”

der malekh ha-moves zol zikh in dir farlibn- the Angel of Death should fall in love with you

shtarbn in fremde takhrikhim- to die in someone else’s shrouds- to die in debt

mayn kadish, kadishl- my little mourner- my son (the person who will say the Kaddish when I die)

zolst mir megulgl vern in a henglaykhter, bay tog zoltsu hengen un bay nakht zolstu brenen- You should be reincarnated as a chandelier (you should hang by day and burn by night)

All from Born to Kvetch, both the funniest and the most serious book I have ever read about Yiddish.

Coming up: Phrases that really should exist in English Part Two- Japanese English and Random Facts about Yiddish- someone please nag me if that turns into the usual promise of posts that I get distracted from…

I thought so.  Try these with your classes, then:

Student A: How are you?
Student B: Old

Student A: How are you?
Student B: How am I? How should I be?

Student A: How are you?
Student B: How should I be, with my feet?

Student A: How’s your brother?
Student B: Dead

Student A: What’s doing?
Student B: Nothing
A: Nothing?
B: Nothing.

Student A: How was your weekend?
Student B: It should happen to my enemies

Student A: What time is it?
Student B: What am I, a clock?

In case you haven’t guessed they are all from Yiddish, specifically mainly from the surprisingly readable popular linguistics book Born to Kvetch. More good stuff from there coming on TEFLtastic soon.