Mon Bridge – Sangklaburi
Uttamanusorn Bridge or commonly known as Mon Bridge in Kanchanaburi Province is the longest wooden bridge in Thailand. I tried getting a different angle for the bridge picture.
Vocabulary building in young learners
(933 Words)
For this writing task, I was asked to give my response to 5 statements about how young learners can help build their vocabulary. I will answer true or false statements 1- 5 and explain why.
1. In a young child, a single word may constitute a considerable degree of meaning.
Is this True or False?
2. Words categories and concepts normally exist in isolation from each other.
Is this True or False?
3. Vocabulary development comprises at least three stages.
Is this True or False?
4. All languages have the same relationship between time and tense.
Is this True or False?
5. Where possible we should draw upon as many of the senses as possible when teaching vocabulary.
Is this True or False?
1. In a young child, a single word may constitute a considerable degree of meaning. T/F
This is true. The ability to use words is partly tied to the young child’s ongoing cognitive development, so the use of words will have a degree of meaning. Thus, for a child, a word stands for a concept, but that concept is open to interpretation in that they select a category of relatively similar objects and apply the lexical item throughout. A child can learn the word dog or as a young child puts it ‘doggy’. This refers to a four-legged animal. This word can exist for any type of dog either big or small or type of breed. For example, a dog may refer to beagles and scotties, but not to poodles. This aspect of children’s thought associates a word with an object, but they may then, in the future, use that word to describe a number of other similar objects in their environment. The child can also use the word ‘doggy to mean ‘there is a dog’ Notwithstanding, it can mean ‘come here’ said with a rising tone. Young children tend to utilise rising intonation to signal yes-no questions.
2. Words categories and concepts normally exist in isolation from each other. T/F
This is false. Words do not live in isolation, individual words can be categorised in many ways that remove the word from the original meaning or at least a child’s only idea of the meaning. The word ‘game’ can be attached to words such as card (game), ball (game), Olympic (games), and also football (game). As such the Olympic Games conjure up thoughts of many competitors from around the world competing together, although a ball game can involve one person banging a ball against a wall. This looks at two ends of the game spectrum. Winning the Olympic Games has men and women getting gold medals; the ball game respectively has no winner or loser. Furthermore, the game of poker has skills of a different kind compared to kicking a football around the football pitch as well as less physical energy.
3. Vocabulary development comprises of at least three stages. T/F
This is true. Word learning is the product of a set of cognitive and linguistic stages that include the ability to acquire concepts, an appreciation of syntactic cues to meaning, and a rich understanding of the mental states of other people. These capacities are powerful and early emerging. Firstly the child must make sense of new vocabulary. When words are first met by young learners, there are concepts that are given labels in English and may be new to the child, or only partially developed. The teacher or parent may not be merely teaching vocabulary, but teaching concepts. The labels and concepts need to be incorporated into schemas that already exist. The child has to learn this new vocabulary. Learning and retaining new vocabulary is made easier by grouping words together into families. While learning all this new vocabulary the child has to retain and recall this vocabulary for the various situation they will find themselves in. The single most effective way of helping students build vocabulary is by increasing the amount that they read. The child revisits the groups of words; adding to them and reorganising them provide ways of giving learners both the repetition and the development that is needed as they grow into English through the primary years and stages.
4. All languages have the same relationship between time and tense. T/F
This is false. Various countries of different lexis in different parts of the world that have relatively little contact with each other, will have experienced a different environment. Each country will invent words for the things in its environment that matter to it, and naturally, they find words for different things in their country. England has four seasons, other countries have three. Some countries are dark for many months. Learners from different countries don’t have some words in their vocabulary because they have never encountered such aspects of life. Basically, the learners have to develop categories and concepts for the new words they encounter. For this situation, when children encounter new words teachers need to provide support for understanding. New vocabulary needs to be presented in a context that helps the child understand the meanings and associations that help explain time and tense.
5. Where possible we should draw upon as many of the senses as possible when teaching vocabulary. T/F
This is true. Children learn words by seeing, feeling, tasting, listening, enjoying, and experiencing. These various means at a teacher’s disposal bring the reality of words to the fore. For example, a child can know the word ‘apple’ but this does not show the learner every aspect of the object. They can learn that it is a fruit and other fruits are in the same family. They can see pictures of apples so they see the shapes and colours. They can eat an apple then they know the taste and feel. Is it soft? Is it hard? It can be shown that the apple starts going rotten after a while, but it is also good for your health before going rotten. An apple pie can be cooked for the child to show how apples can be used. Granny Smith apples come from England. Other apples come from other countries. They can go on a field trip and see apples growing. The child realizes they grow in trees. They can go shopping at a supermarket and buy apples. They can be shown they are bought in weight.
.
Sounds in Language
Words are made up of units of sound. English can be very distinct from other languages by the way the mouth is used to articulate a word. A speaker of English can distinguish between a B and T in words such as ‘den’ and ‘ten’. They can also hear the vowels in words such as ‘pat’ or ‘pen’. These two previous words would be examples of using vowels in English, but English has words like ‘dead’ or ‘dared’ which include vowels sounds but not in the general sense of the vowel sound rules AEIO and U. The units of sound are now put into categories as short vowels or long vowels.
The words sounds and slices can be used to describe how a word such as ‘pat’ includes three sounds; the ‘P’ sound then ‘A’ and ‘T’. This word is then a slice of a sentence. The main factor is that a phrase with the words ‘those three oranges’ highlights where successive vowels and consonants can be heard with some with higher stresses on them.
Moreover, attention can be drawn to the use of the mouth and tongue when enunciating any word. English speakers have a distinct use of the mouth that enables them to say their vowels and consonants in words. There are sound differences even within English, but there are further differences if a native speaker wanted to learn Italian. Using an Italian word such as ‘babbo’ for daddy, the English person would say it in a normal English speaking way, but as with the Italian language, the vocal cords begin to vibrate before the mouth is opened. The crossover of languages shows the use of the same letter sounds which can be easily heard as other letters by other speakers of another language.
One final aspect of language is the movement of the lips and the posture of the tongue. Phrases like ‘three cleans’ or ‘two clues’ draw attention to the use of the lips and tongue. There is certain timing for both which is in the mouth position when carrying over from word to word or syllable to syllable. This shows the main crux of language when talking about sound units; we are looking at the way the speaker constructs a voice utterance.
(372 Words)
Syntax – a Reflective Essay
(589 words)
I see syntax as an important part of language study and reading books like The Language Instinct by Stephen Pinker has inspired me to take a closer look at how we use our language and how a sentence is formed. I hope with this essay I can give a little insight into how syntax is used.
It is clear to see that the sentence ‘Man hits animal’ is not the same as ‘Animal hits man’. We know this because we use a code, or set of rules, to translate between orders of words and combinations of thoughts. Generally speaking, this set of rules is called a generative grammar. Syntax works on a prescriptive use of grammar although spoken English is not as formal as we think and works along the lines of a more descriptive method. Descriptive syntax is about understanding the rules that a speech community employs by examining the way that the members of that community actually do talk.
English language holds rules that can create larger more complex structures. It is by learning phrase and clause structures that gives us a clearer picture of syntax. These structures are what make the syntax rules. We find that it is possible to create an infinite number of sentences, all of which can express meaningful thought. Thus it is possible to construct sentences that the speaker has never used before. It can be said that English has a finite number of rules which facilitate an infinite number of sentences. Syntax shows that sentences and the relationship of their component parts works in English. To understand a sentence one cannot merely pay attention to the order of words. For example, in the class we learnt about complex, compound and simple sentences and components in them.
1. They were the boys who arrived to see and I knew all of them who came.
And = FANBOYS (For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So)
Independent Clause (x2) = They were the boys / I know all of them
Dependent Clause (x2) = who arrived to see / who came
Who arrived = the WHO is subjective case
Infinitive phrase = to see
Sentence type = compound complex
As above, syntax is the system that speakers and writers use when they combine words into phrases and clauses, ultimately creating meaning in their structures.
To conclude I have noticed that all sentences have basic patterns. I can now say that in many respects there is a mechanical basis in the brain, and all thought has a syntax, or code. So, we see that our utterances represent this internal coding by way of our common syntax.
On what basis can or should we treat a text a canonical? Discuss with reference to two texts
(Words 1271)
The treatment of a text considered canonical can take many individual forms, particularly when it is appraised as life-enhancing. A canonical text reaches thoughts and ideas that the reader might never have imagined. It should possess a value that makes it meaningful to our understanding of what it means to be human, while remaining accessible to the modern reader. For a contemporary reader, Dante’s Inferno and Milton’s Paradise Lost are two works of immense structural and narrative complexity that take the reader on a journey into another world. They rank as canonical texts and can be treated as such.
A canonical story must possess structure, contrasts, and literary devices that help to develop and inform its major themes and motifs. One of Dante’s major concerns was political conflict. He lived through the political turmoil of Italy, and the reader can see how he uses these circumstances in his epic poem to condemn political figures by placing them throughout the circles of Hell. He gives them what he considers to be their just retribution. The poem speaks for Dante, allowing him to transform contemporary political events into poetic subject matter. His belief that Church and state should exist as separate powers on Earth is expressed through a courageous and highly personal political vision. For good measure, he also incorporates ancient literary figures, referring to classical writers and poets such as Homer, Ovid, and Virgil.
Dante’s poem is an overarching allegory. It explores its themes through dozens, even hundreds, of symbols, with one of its most important ideas being the punishment of sinners. Inferno is canonical because of the quality and scope of the poem, which creates and explores something far more substantial than the particular characters and places it describes. We find in Dante a fundamental idea: the creation of an imaginative correspondence between a soul’s sin on Earth and the punishment it receives in the afterlife. Dante’s complexity creates an entire universe.
This new universe is a crucial characteristic of Dante’s imagery. Dante took some of his ideas from another epic, The Odyssey, and established a relationship with Homer’s famous travel narrative. To put the matter simply, Dante thrusts before us a worldview and a sense of cultural completeness. As we move through the work, we find the universe arranged from the presence of God down to Earth and then into increasingly confined circles, stage by stage, towards the depths of sin.
Dante makes us experience the exploration of complex questions about individual and social purpose. The poem concerns a system of belief, the relationship between past traditions and future prospects, and the major events that help define a culture and its path towards Christian understanding. Dante presents a remarkable complexity of ideas. The aesthetic unity and breadth of the epic bring before us a comprehensive picture of an entire culture in a way that an ordinary narrative, no matter how exciting, cannot.
Dante’s subject matter makes the reader recognise the moral implications of abandoning an understanding of the world and the heavens that is loaded with spiritual meaning. The enormous scale of the poem is coupled with the clarity and variety of its immediate details. The dramatic quality of human conversation is placed alongside sections of theological doctrine, while the emotional tone constantly shifts between humour, terror, disgust, anger, and fear. There is also a constant sense of movement, up and down and around, all coordinated by the developing awareness of the pilgrim narrator, who must make emotional and conceptual sense of everything he encounters. Inferno is therefore a truly canonical work.
Milton was a rebel because he identified with the revolutionary cause, and his masterpiece, also of epic proportions, is concerned with rebellion and its consequences. As a Puritan, Milton’s political and religious convictions were often opposed to royal authority. Paradise Lost explains an entire theology. It is concerned with the coming of sin into the world through the temptation of Adam and Eve by Satan after his defeat in Heaven. If Milton has attempted to “justify the ways of God to men,” then our questions about humanity’s relationship with God are addressed through the poem’s theological framework.
The success of Milton’s explanation, of course, depends on whether the reader accepts the Christian worldview, and even whether the reader accepts Milton’s particular form of Christian individualism. Like Dante, Milton creates his own universe. The world is not simply the Earth; it is the entire universe within Milton’s imagined cosmos.
Milton’s achievement and the poem’s canonical status must also be considered in relation to its subject matter and its position within the epic tradition. Milton introduces the central theme of the entire poem and presents us with Satan and the fallen angels. He also makes it clear that the reader is encountering an epic poem. In order to place himself within the canonical epic tradition of The Odyssey and The Aeneid, Milton employs devices such as the invocation, epic similes, and catalogues. These are used heavily in the first two books to establish the credentials of Paradise Lost as an epic.
Paradise Lost begins with Milton’s prose summary, “The Argument.” He uses the word “argument” in the sense of “subject matter” rather than the modern meaning of a verbal clash. The prose summary tells the reader the story and can therefore be used as a reference point. In the poem, the reader encounters one of its central characters, Satan. Milton encourages the reader to consider whether Satan is a hero or a villain.
It is obvious from the first book that Satan possesses qualities that many readers admire. He is a fearless leader, eloquent, inspiring, resourceful, and even sympathetic to the suffering of his followers. Is he portrayed with these virtues because Milton wants to demonstrate how easily we can be deceived by heroic qualities? Has the reader ever found themselves attracted to people who ultimately proved harmful to them? It is unfortunately easy to identify with Satan when the reader first encounters him in the imaginary landscape of Hell.
Milton makes this experience accessible to the modern reader. All readers have experienced anger, bitterness, and a desire for revenge after a confrontation with authority. These may be small-scale personal grievances, but the emotions can still be intense. Satan’s grievances, however, result from his conflict with God and therefore have universal consequences. He wants to strike back at God for casting him into a dark and desolate place, and he intends to do so by bringing others down with him.
Like Dante, Milton was trained within the strictest academic education that his age could provide. The sources of Paradise Lost reflect Milton’s enormous range of reading. The story of Adam and Eve and the temptation comes from the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis. The vast majority of the poem’s allusions and references are to the Bible and to Greek and Latin classics. There are also references to Arthurian legend, Italian epics, and earlier English literature, especially the work of Spenser, the author of the moral epic The Faerie Queene. This immense catalogue of literary, religious, and cultural references contributes to the depth and complexity expected of a canonical text.
The reader could argue that Milton and Dante emerged from similar intellectual traditions. Milton drew some ideas from Dante, but each poet created a powerful epic that responded to the political, religious, and cultural circumstances of his own time. Their poems remain relevant because they continue to raise questions about politics, morality, religion, rebellion, sin, human nature, and our relationship with the divine. Their continuing ability to challenge and engage readers helps to establish them as enduring canonical texts.
.
