Re: Grammar

On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 23:48:17 -0800, "Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion
in lieu of the frontal attack )"  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>
>
>Alberto Moreira wrote:
>> 
>> Said  "Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack
>> )"  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> :
>> 
>> 
>> >We have people who have native dialects. All I'm saying is that it helps
>> >the learning process for the instructor to know where the student is
>> >coming from. Just calling the student a moron over and over while
>> >walloping him on the knuckles with a ruler isn't going to change
>> >anything except where he keeps his hands.
>> 
>> Language is about communication and communication goes both ways. If
>> I'm not communicating because my accent is too thick or my dialect is
>> incomprehensible, the load's on me to make myself understood. Want to
>> speak your dialect ? Go speak it to people who understand it, or else
>> make a jolly good effort to be understood by the rest of us !
>> 
>Well, I admit I'm not understanding you.

 If a student moves to an area that speaks dialect ,he should adjust.
but if a teacher moves to an area that speaks dialect "He" should
adjust also to the slang . My two cent ! don't try to change the
neighborhoods dailect, you may get ran out of town !






>
>
>
>> >Who said *anything* about 'pandering' to anything? You invented that.
>> 
>> Letting a student get away with speaking dialect is pandering, unless
>> everyone speaks that dialect - in which case it's a dialect no more.
>> 
>Who is letting the student get away with speaking dialect? All I said
>was that the teacher should understand where the student is coming from
>so that the teacher can make the best progress possible.
>
>
>
>> >You are diverging into other topics here. My original point stands, that
>> >the teacher should have a clue *why* the student is making an error so
>> >that the teacher can more easily apply the right corrective measures.
>> 
>> The whys are pretty irrelevant to the teacher. It's a simple question
>> of common sense: want to be understood ? Be understood. It's up to the
>> student, not to the teacher.
>> 
>So if the student doesn't understand something, that's not the teacher's
>problem?!
>
>
>
>> >Imagine walking into class with an idiolect which had tense as optional
>> >and aspect as mandatory, the opposite of the situation in Standard
>> >American English. Imagine not having understood that some of your
>> >dialect's constructions are camouflaged in  meaning compared to near or
>> >even identical constructions that the teacher knows in Standard American
>> >English. Would you be surprised that you might have trouble? That the
>> >teacher might become frustrated?
>> 
>> I have this kind of situation every semester with my Chinese students.
>>
>I hope you aren't an ESL teacher.
>
>
>
>> Yet they must change, and I can't do much about it - so, my class is
>> in English, and if they can't handle it, their problem. You know,
>> there's nothing like placing some demand on the student's survival
>> instinct, it does wonders.
>> 
>Fine, but that doesn't address my original point at all.

Al Gore, Ex-Vice President and dumbass liberal !