I'm pleased to announce a new page on 'Teacher Greg's Education Home'.

The motivation for it came from my desire to engage the many colleagues with whom I work, in a conversation about ELICOS (English Language Intensive Course of Study) and EAP (English for Academic Purposes) programs and how they operate at my institution. Like many workplaces, the pressures of just keeping on top of the teaching have meant that opportunities for genuine discussion, sharing and reflection have become rare, formal meetings have become ineffectual, and inefficiencies have naturally arisen as a result.

'TESOL forums' will be a chance to recover lost ground, to re-ignite the discussion, and to move forward in more practical ways. It will take some effort to 'sell' the idea and overcome the hesitation of others, but I'm taking the first steps while hoping this will lead them to continue the conversation.

Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history. -Joan Wallach Scott
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. -Maria Robinson

Today I read an interesting article on "The Web of Language" site entitled "The gender-neutral pronoun: grammatical necessity, consciousness raiser, and after 150 years still an epic fail" written by debaron@illinois.edu.
The article surveys the problems English has in finding an enduring third person singular pronoun that is gender-free, as well as some of the novel solutions offered throughout history.
I couldn't resist the chance to give a tounge-in-cheek comment, partly to spark further discussion. Here is my post which I hope will be uploaded by the moderator soon. Any comments will be enjoyed!
Greg wrote: I don't see why all the fuss about avoiding "he" or "she" when the gender of the person is known, though I agree using the form "he or she" is clumsy.
Well if the pedants of the world won't accept what many grammars already allow i.e. the use of the singular "they", then there is another gender neutral third person singular pronoun already available, with no complications of being considered plural as well as singular, and perfectly acceptable in the case of all other life forms on Earth. The pronoun I refer to is "it".
Both male and female animals, birds, fish, insects, etc can be referred to in this way, so why not humans as well? Would a construction such as "it has left it's book here" be so shocking? confusing? Are we so concerned about gender recognition that this would be unacceptable?
While I myself routinely use "they" in these situations, I feel "it" would be a useable alternative for consideration.

Based on a post by Dave Sperling about the difficulties ELL's have with reading material, I wrote the following comments:
I suspect the Dogme way will result in severe regurgitation. It can have that effect in other contexts too, but that's better kept for another discussion.

And yes, I'm prepared to confess that it once took me eight hours to put together an Ikea single bed. Of course, I had to nip out and get some tools Ikea didn't provide.

Jason, you are certainly right when you say there's more to reading than knowing the vocabulary. Without context, cultural knowledge, and in some cases technical knowledge, students may be unable to comprehend entire passages. Good teachers will know this and provide appropriate scaffolding, or alternative readings.

You reminded me of the strange outcomes I hear when some Chinese phrases are translated into English. They have great significance within the culture, but to me simply sound like nonsense. The movie title "Lost in Translation" comes to my mind.

As for the cooking, my expertise doesn't extend far beyond barbeques and making toast, so I'd recommend getting some expert input elsewhere, sorry. Otherwise, three weeks of take-aways will be very expensive and not good for the diet.

Good luck with your mammoth task.

Posted by: Greg Quinlivan | July 10, 2010 at 01:49 AM

http://jasonrenshaw.typepad.com/jason_renshaws_web_log/2010/07/easy-says-who.html is where you'll find the original article and comments.