The hidden nuances of English

Have you ever wonder what's behind language? Surely it is no inocuous, inoffensive tool, but language can hide the whole ideology that holds a system. As English teachers we must be aware of it. English is nowadays a Lingua Franca, a global language, a means to communicate with people from many different parts of the world. But we mustn't forget that it was once and it still is an imperial language. During the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, Great Britain had many colonies, it was an Empire. One of these colonies was India, where the British first arrived with the East India Company:

The brits didn't just exploit different territories and extract their goods, but with their arrival  they also brought their language. India was one of its most important sources of wealth. At the turn of the 19th century, the British, overconfident with the Industrial Revolution, began to think that they needed to change India: values, superstitions... During the second half of the 18th century the English get involved in Indian politics. 

Although showing resistance, in the end Indians are defeated, crushed and there is a switch in power from the East Indian Company to the British Crown. In 1858, with the Indian Mutiny, starts the British Raj, which is the period of British Sovereignty and it will last until 1946 when they will achieve independence. Throughout these years of power, the English brought not only their traditions and values, but also their language. Such has been its influence, that even nowadays, English is still one of the official languages in India. Although some may argue that the British brought many improvements and enhanced the lifestyle of the Indian, they also exerted their power to such extent that even nowadays it is materialised in the diglossic situation among its languages. 

By diglossia we understand a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community, an everyday or vernacular language variety -the "low" variety-, and a second, highly codified variety, often considered "high", which is used for more formal contexts. In such situation, English still prevails as the "high" language, synonym with having received an education and thus having economic capital. When teaching English we must bear these aspects in mind, and teach it as global language, but also as a powerful system of oppression.

SOME OF THE PICTURES TAKEN WHILE WE WERE WORKING ON OUR BLOG...

AFTER WORKING ON THE BLOG FOR MANY HOURS...

WE HAVE WORKED A LOT...IT HAS BEEN A GREAT EXPERIENCE...

New York Latino English

New York Latino English is an unknown but fascinating variety of English. Here you can find out more about it:

 We decided to pick this variety because we were very concerned with the election of the new president in the USA. We wanted our students to watch the video and understand the origins of this fascinating variety and after having watched it, starting a debate about English and its different varieties but overall focusing in the USA current situation. We decided to do that because in that way they won't only be reflecting about English variety but also about what is happening now in USA.

Bibliography:

Newman, M. (2001). The New York Latino English Project Page. New York, EU. Retrieved from: http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/~mnewman/NYLE.html

Manrique, M. (2013). NYLE: New York Latino English [Prezi Presentation]. Retrieved from: https://prezi.com/fahozsmzyv0d/nyle-new-york-latino-english/

Slomanson, P. & Newman, M. (2004). Peer Group Identification and Variation in New York Latino English Laterals. English World-Wide, p.199-216

Remeseira, C. (2014). Latino & Latin American Culture and Community. The Hispanic New. Retrieved form: http://www.hispanicny.com/

History of the English Language.

Here we add a video in which the history of the history of the English language narrated in less than three minutes. The voice is recorded by a native speaker from Orlando.

Much more than RP...

Although it seems that RP is always questioned and not used as a standard accent, a recent survey has shown that native British speakers prefer RP over the rest of the accents. The survey shows a list of the 10 most popular accent in the UK. Here we add the list of those accents:

BRITAIN'S FAVOURITE ACCENTS

1. Received pronunciation (RP)

2. Edinburgh

3. Australian

4. Irish (Republic of Ireland)

5. Yorkshire

6. American

7. Geordie

8. Mancunian

9. Glaswegian

10. Welsh

For further reading and information go to:

DAILYMAIL

MICHAEL RUNDLE: PLAIN SPEAKING

Gifted Students

What do normally people think about gifted kids?

Usually, people think that gifted students are those who have high capacity and, because of that, they have many facilities which allow them to get very good marks and go beyond the rest of their classmates. The truth is that this is not always like this, in many occasions, these children are not recognized, they are viewed as students who are not interested in the subject and even there are a percentage of gifted children who have had academic failure. 

What are their real characteristics these kids have?

It is true that these children have high intellectual capacities, and this makes them gifted students but sometimes they are difficult to recognize because they are children that due to their defining characteristic, this means, due to their high capacity, they are often bored in class and they do not want to go to school because what they already know are studying. They are children very restless and curious, who ask about everything to their parents and also to their teachers. They are children who, when they have a special interest in a subject, they love to study it and learn about it, but if they do not have this interest, it is difficult to get them to focus and concentrate on this topic.

 When should teacher identify them?

When a teacher observes a child who already knows how to do something that was explained a few sessions ago and the rest of the class does not understand it yet, when a child says he does not want to go to school because he is bored because he already knows what they are studying there, when a child does not stop asking the teacher questions and even contradicts him or her... In all these situations we can be dealing with children with high capacities, sometimes they are seen as pedantic children, or lazy children because they do not want to go to school and they can even seem as rude by their way of asking and answering, but we must be careful because we may be confusing ourselves and what we have is a child with high capacities.

What type of gifted kids exist?

 They can have two types of personalities, they can be divergent or convergent. The ones that are divergent are more difficult to deal with. When they reach adolescence, they are always questioning authority and questioning any information they receive. On the other hand, the convergents have a easier adolescence, the don't stand out, they don't question everything. They normally try to please teachers with their good behaviour or simply they just behave as any other kid and it's very difficult to identify them.

                                                                                     What should teachers do?

 The first thing teachers should do is identifying those kids. After that they should create tasks that are more challenging for them. This kids have a special need, they can't be taught in the same way as the rest of their classmates. If teachers don't provide them any challenge, these kids get bored and demotivated. Nowadays, society luckily seems to have started working with kids that have difficulties and there are adjusted materials and special classes.  Nevertheless, these kids have also necessities that are completely ignored. For instance, we saw the statistics in the Comunitat Valenciana and there are very little cases reported of gifted people, when they know with certainty that there is a huge number.

Are there any associations?

Yes there are many, for instance in Valencia we have AVAST (Asociación Valenciana de apoyo al superdotado y talentoso).

Our opinion/ comments on the video La campana de gaus

The video is very interesting, since it shows the situation of gifted children in Spain. Their situation appears as something very dramatic, a great percentage of them have suffered academic failure, and they are not always detected. In addition, as we have seen in the case of Enna, schools do not always try to make things easier for them and solve their problems. The result from this, therefore,  is that gifted children cannot be developed as what they are. For us, a change at schools should change and schools and teachers should try their best so that gifted children can be developed and they can feel that they are in a good and comfortable atmosphere in their classrooms.

Building up a teacher identity: How we felt as students

Today we've decided to share our thoughts about our own experience as EFL learners.We all agree that there are good and bad techniques, and all of us have learned more under specific contexts or with a specific type of exercises. But what are these exercices?

What to do:

A relaxed atmosphere is key to encourage learning

Something very positive is the combination between the L2 and the L1 in case problems arise. We feel that the classes can be conducted in the foreign language except if some problem arises. We've all gone through this switch between languages: We would have to speak in English but we weren't pushed. So long mistakes aren't seen as something negative and the teacher acts encouragingly, students can feel at ease. If activities carried out in class are entertaining and updated, and the topics interesting, students feel encouraged and relaxed at once. Carrying out activities to do at home and then showing them to our classmates promoted collaborative work and a relaxed atmosphere.

Hanging posters

Another good technique we've come up with is that of hanging posters in the classroom with pictures of the vocabularyof the unit. The posters are displayed for two weeks approximately, so that the learning of words happens smoothly and almost unconsciously, it is just a natural consequence of seeing these posters every day. A very useful follow-up of this technique would be mentioning one of the words displayed in the posters so that students run and touch the poster (very positive for kinaesthetic learners) where the picture is. That way, students have fun while learning in a relaxed and motivated way.

Speaking in small groups

A further positive technique is small-group work, especially for speaking activities. Having an extra half-hour lesson can improve oral skills. Students would pick up a topic from a list with some questions meant to activate their background knowledge. This can be followed by a 1 or 2 minutes monologue, a speaking exam drill. A relaxed atmosphere with few students and no pressure because of marks can encourage students to engage into improvised conversations, helping in terms of fluency and providing a more 'natural environment'. 

WHAT NOT TO DO

Long lists: Long lists of vocabulary without any context whatsoever. Rewarding because of memorisig such lists or punishing because of failing to do so made students feel very uncomfortable. We memorised everything but after doing the exam we forgot what we had been learning because we only studied to pass the exam and not to improve our English.

Above all, no senseless and purposeless memorisation of lists!

Above all, no senseless and purposeless memorisation of lists!

In-class drills: Repeating words isn't always useful. Rather than learning English, by repeating dialogues or enacting them, students simply learned fixed structures which make no sense. It probably has to do with the fact that it isn't comprehensible input. Nonetheless, it may be useful in terms of intonation.