The CELE team also gave a number of talks. Mike Groves discussed the theoretical ideas and ideals behind the development of a new EAP module for foundation. Wong Yao Hing and Salomy Krishna delivered a workshop on using film for the teaching of Critical Thinking, and also a talk on the results of a controlled intervention of Critical Thinking with some students earlier in the year. Saleha Abdul Rahman spoke of the need to nurture students’ critical thinking dispositions as well as their skills, while Melissa Yoong identified sexist language used in the education supplements of local newspapers- and argued that students need to be aware of this if there are to interact fruitfully with the wider global academic community.

Three of the team were also on a panel discussion about the idea of critical thinking, alongside colleagues from Nottingham School of English, Swinburne and INTI.

It was an interesting few days, and as always, it was good to meet people form the community, and be reminded what a diverse community the “English Teaching” one really is. In addition, it would be remiss of me not to mention the key role that Sarawak Laksa played in making the trip to Kuching such a pleasure.

Slides of the presentations are available at here

It’s an old question- what is the plural of “computer mouse”- is it “mouses” or “mice”? My 1996 Collins dictionary says it’s “mice”, while my 2010 Oxford Learner’s dictionary says either. A number of websites suggest avoiding the issue altogether, and calling them “pointing devices”.

There is a theory that mouse is an acronym of “manually-operated user-select equipment.”, and therefore should not be an irregular plural.  But to me this is too clumsy, and I think that it is actually a “bacronym”- an acronym made up to fit the word. It is much more likely that the thing is called a mouse because it looks like one- with its buttons looking like ears and its cord looking like a tail.

I think there is a more satisfactory answer- but we need to look at the nature of irregular plurals, especially when they are used in other contexts. A lot of this comes from Stephen Pinker’s excellent book- The Language Instinct.

According to him, we are comfortable with irregular plurals. For example, the plural of man is men. The plural of fireman is firemen. This is easy, because (gender specific language notwithstanding) they still keep their essential “man-ness”. The plural of snowman  is snowmen- again because there is enough of the quality of the original noun to merit the irregular plural.

However, imagine you have three sets of friends coming for dinner. They are Mr and Mrs White, and Mr and Mrs Man and Mr and Mrs Child. You would refer to them as The Whites, quite naturally, and The Mans- crucially not The Men. The same would go for Mr and Mrs Child. You would not say The Children are going to bring the wine, unless you were referring to their offspring- The Childs’ children. This is because in the case of Mr and Mrs Child, and Mr and Mrs Man, their names are so far removed for the original concept of Child-ness or Man-ness that they are  no longer connected to the irregular plural- the name is now its own word in our mental lexicon, and therefore follow the normal regularity rules for nouns.

So how does this apply to the computer mouse? My contention is that the thing connecting the computer mouse to the conceptual mouse in our minds is the physical resemblance, in other words the shape of the mouse with the cable. Therefore, a mouse with a cord has enough “mouse-ness” to carry the irregular plural. However, if the mouse does not have a cord, there is not enough “mouse-ness” and it loses its irregularity.

So the short answer is this. If your mouse has a cord, the plural is mice. If it is cordless, the plural is mouses.

Case closed.

(Image by Jim Mead under creative commons. http://ko.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-6832252441)

What is time? Or more precisely, what is your perception of time? Does time pass in a line? Or in cycles? Can you know the future? Can you know the past?

It seems like a simple question, but in fact the perception of time is part of a deep cultural imprint which we may rarely consider explicitly.  In other words, the way we see time is culturally specific- we learn it- it doesn’t just exist as truth, even if that is how it feels.

Some cultures will see time as money, a commodity to be managed and exploited, while other may see it as a tool to help build human relationships. Some will be unable to see that a 10.00 am meeting could possibly start at any other time that 10.00. Others will be unable to see why they should rush for a meeting that will happen anyway, eventually.

However, if we are working with people from other cultures, this can cause friction- for example if one member of a team regards a deadline as sacred, and another regards it as flexible.  Or if one member thinks of a period of inactivity as “wasting time” whereas another may see it as an important process of “walking around the pool”- or careful consideration before a decision is made.

Time is only one of many deep cultural imprints, and working in a multi-national, multi-lingual and multi-cultural university, these unspoken assumptions are constantly interacting. There are a number of frameworks to describe them, although these frameworks do bring risks of oversimplification and over-generalisation.

However, I do believe it is important to understand certain things we regard as “true” are in fact not universal, but specific to us and our culture. Once it is understood that there are certain “truths” that  are in fact only “ways of seeing”, then it becomes easier to deal with people from other cultures and other ways of seeing the world.

In my next post I will explore how intercultural awareness and EAP (English for Academic Purposes) interact.

There is a recent TED video, in which Anne Curzan, a Professor of English from Michigan University discusses how words move from being neologisms to established words. It’s witty, informed and well worth a watch.

One of the most interesting points she makes is that people often say that it is a legitimate word if it is “in the dictionary”- as if “The Dictionary” is a single object, somehow independently existing. She reminds us that dictionaries are constantly being revised, and revised by people that are as human as the rest of us. She explains the process for a word to be adopted into a dictionary, and what decisions have to be taken in these cases.

She also mentions a certain Trussian* sniffiness to do with new words, such as “hangry” or “defriend”, expressed by casual acquaintances. However, it occurred to me that, in many ways, neologisms  are the life blood of much of academia. When scientists discover new principles or engineers create new inventions they need to name them.  Social Sciences and Humanities are constantly merging and melding concepts, and defining their space by use of new coinages- my most recent favourite being “pluriculturality”.

Anne Curzon also makes the very sensible point that new words are always going to be invented, and old words are always going to be taking on new meanings.  You can be as sniffy as you want, but language is always going to change.  Personally, I think that to prosper in Academic life, we need to be comfortable with new words and meanings. And it is pure snobbery not to accept them when they come from other walks of life.

*Don’t look the word up, I just invented it. It’s based on Lyn Truss

How many languages are spoken in the world?

It’s quite a hard question to answer, because of definitional issues a between language and a dialect, but the answer is probably around 6,000 – 7,000. One thing is very certain, however. As shown in a piece in the Guardian, this number is dropping.

Language death is perhaps inevitable in some cases, but when it does happen, it is irreversible (since most of these languages are not written down), and will mean the loss of a human culture – which is surely to be regretted. This is especially important in a country such as Malaysia, whose indigenous linguistic diversity is both fascinating, and also under threat.

The reasons for language death are complex and interlinked, as well as politically charged. One reason that is often given for language death is the spread of very powerful lingua francas – of which English is by far the dominant one. So, this raises the question: is the teaching of English at a campus like Nottingham contributing in any way to language death?

I think it is useful here to draw some parallels. The spread of global trade can lead to exploitative trade practices, but it doesn’t have to. Modern food production can lead to frankly unspeakable exploitation of the vulnerable by the powerful but at the same time it doesn’t have to.

In the same way, a global lingua franca can lead to language death, but it doesn’t have to. It is important, in my view, for the powerful in society to remember this, among many other considerations.

Language death becomes inevitable if it is not ever considered.

It sometimes seems that you can’t move without tripping over a MOOC, or another form of online learning. Rightly or wrongly, online learning is taking more and more space in the HE curriculum.

An EAP (English for Academic Purposes) syllabus will typically have features that reflect a traditional university experience- reading, listening, writing essays and the like. Even the most innovative syllabi, which bring in notions of learner autonomy, and an examination of the academic self tend to focus on face to face interaction on the physical campus- not the digital one.

However, as more and more Higher Education moves online the community of practice needs to ask itself if it is getting left behind. If we are preparing our students for a world where concepts are dispersed in a lecture hall and discussed in a seminar room- should we also be preparing them for a world where concepts are dispersed in an online video, and discussed on a bulletin board?

Clearly, in many ways, this helps students who are not studying in their first language- they are able to rewind and review videos, and take time to read and digest the content of the discussion before they reply. However, just as there are advantages, there are also questions to be answered.

The EAP community has been telling students for years not to dive for the dictionary when they are reading and encounter a word they do not understand. Should the same be true of a video? We have been telling students for years to follow the organizational conventions of an essay, but is a post in an online discussion the same? Does it have the same conventions of style and argumentation? It is very clear that the conventions of spoken discussion, like turn taking and holding the floor, do not apply, even though it is referred to as a discussion.

If the job of EAP is to prepare the neophyte for entry into the academic community, and the community is changing, is it not our job to change the way those preparations work?

In my previous post, I invited students to consider if social pressure to conform to idealised forms of masculinity and femininity could be affecting their classroom behaviour. Yesterday, at a workshop on Gender-Neutral Teaching, I turned the spotlight to ourselves as teachers, with particular regards to the attention given to male and female students as well as the language used in the classroom.

Although we would like to think that we treat our students equally and fairly, we are all part of society and therefore have our own hidden biases and social expectations which we bring with us into the classroom. This could affect the way we perceive and respond to our students. For example, certain teachers might unconsciously believe that female students are more conscientious than males (Boys will be boys!) and consequently, spend more time developing the former while reprimanding the latter. This may not necessarily benefit the female students either since they are held to higher standards of behaviour and any attempts to push boundaries may be interpreted as greater failing than if a male student had committed the same act. While it is difficult to identify our prejudices, it is a valuable exercise to reflect on our (previously unconscious) perceptions of our students and our reactions towards them in order to reduce prejudice.

In our workshop, we also discussed the use of gender-neutral language both in our teaching materials and classroom talk. In addition to avoiding masculine generics, it is important to ensure that we do not draw on gender stereotypes – whether complimentary (Women are natural caregivers, Men are good with cars) or otherwise (Men are cheats, Women are shopaholics) . When preparing examples of language use, it is also worthwhile to check that we do not over-represent males or only have males occupying positions of power (The President claimed that he …).

Neuro-Linguistic programming. Visual/ Audio/Kinaesthetic. These are concepts that will be familiar with anyone in the world of English language teaching. They are sometimes championed by some of the big names in the field- and are often touted as the panacea for language learning. Increasingly, they also seem to be entering more mainstream higher education.

However, at IATEFL, the UK’s massive English teaching conference this month, Russell Mayne gave a blistering attack on these ideas– much in the same vein as Ben Goldacre does in his blog and books. It’s a very interesting talk, even for those not part of the language teaching community.

Reflecting wider trends in education and social policy, he calls for a more evidence based approach to deciding what is effective in the language classroom, and what is just snake oil. This is a call that CELE fully supports.

Dave Willis, a pioneer of Task Based Learning in Language teaching, wrote “Fluent language use depends not simply on knowing a lot of words, but also on knowing a lot about a lot of words” (as quoted recently by  @scottthornbury)

What did he mean? Well let’s take the word “analyse” What do you need to know, as a learner of English?

• That it means examine something in critical detail
• That the stress is one the first syllable ANalyse
• Americans (and increasing numbers of other countries) spell it Analyze.  British English purists will insist on  analyse
• That the process is called analysis
• That it is a formal/neutral word
• That the person is an analyst, but that people generally define this, as in systems analyst. Otherwise, people will  often think it means psychoanalyst
• That the adjective is analytical, and the adverb is  analytically
• That in academic English it goes with adjectives like strong, flawed, original, extensive and detailed , but not with ones like big, bad, wrong or heavy
• That phrases like  In the final analysis and analytically speaking  are common
• On the first analysis sounds as if it should be common, but isn’t
• The stress pattern is different between ANalyse, anALysis and analYTical
• That it isn’t the same as calculate, investigate or examine, despite what MS Word might give as synonyms
• Painstaking analysis doesn’t hurt (usually)

You probably don’t need to know the history of the word, unless that sort of thing interests you.

Analysis is quite a simple word, because it really only has one meaning. However, a word like “contract” can have three:  a binding agreement; to get smaller and to catch a disease, each of which needs the same level of word knowledge as above.

Therefore, I feel, for learners of English, it is important to remember that “I know what this word means” is not enough. And for  those who are assessing work done when English is not a student’s first language, it is important to remember the achievement of already knowing the amount that they know- even if it there is still some way to go.

Check ozdic.com for more about this

There is a TED video where a second generation Vietnamese immigrant suggests that his view of life is different to his parents because Vietnamese doesn’t have a subjunctive, and English does. This allows him the luxury of speculating and imagining, as well as adding layers of subtlety to his language, whereas his parents speak directly and to the point.

He’s not actually talking about the subjunctive- he’s talking about modality, but that is probably of interest only to grammar geeks.

However, it is a new take on an old question- that of linguistic determinism, sometimes known as the Sapir- Whorf hypothesis. Does the language that we speak shape our personality and culture, or is it the other way round?

There is some evidence that the words in our language for colours determines the colours we can actually perceive, and it has been found that this also extends to smells. However, what the speaker in the video is discussing is far more complex. In fact, the whole issue of language and identity is highly problematic.

For me, the speaker makes two basic errors. Firstly, he assumes that his family’s direct no-nonsense approach to life is because of the way they use language, not the other way round. He also ignores the wealth of other personal, social and cultural factors involved. Secondly, and much more importantly, he assumes that because Vietnamese does not express imagination and subtly in the same way as English, then it cannot do it at all. Just a brief reading of some Vietnamese poetry  gives the lie to this assumption.

Modality, speculation and hypothesis work differently in different languages. To assume that one language group cannot think a certain way because of their grammatical structures  is, I would say, a wholly false assumption.