When I came to Kansai Gaidai last month, I had to start teaching TOEFL again, which I hadn't taught since prior to joining USC, and when my director raised the question of adapting the curriculum to a hybrid class that also includes "structure," I questioned whether the TOEFL still limited its scope to English. Of…
On Practice
Trevize leaned his head back and laughed heartily. Pelorat’s quiet face took on a trace of hurt. “Why are you laughing at me?” “Not you, Janov,” said Trevize. “I was laughing at my own stupidity. Where you’re concerned, I am completely grateful. You were perfectly right, you know.” “To take up the importance of human origins?”…
Learner Self-Evaluated Videoing (LSEV)
Recently, video has played a larger role in my communication classes as a result of an increase in focus on students' interactive competence. In part, this stems from educational technology such as Flip, which has made it easier to incorporate short, focused video feedback in a communication class. Therefore, I was delighted when Kim Alejandro…
The Ramifications of Post-Modernism in Music
On April 26th, linguist John McWhorter took issue with the 12-tone approach to music and the damage it wrought on modern art music in The New York Times: https://twitter.com/JohnHMcWhorter/status/1519885682759639041?s=20&t=jUJdk9_3-2HVCKakvRZR6Q He alluded to the political undercurrent of atonal classical music, pointing out the comments of Pierre Boulez and the historical fascist response to 12-tone and atonal…
Where to Start with Classical Music
Someone on the r/ClassicalMusic subreddit asked where someone who lacks a background in music should start if she wants to get into classical music. As someone with a degree in music, I've always deemed the music appreciation curricula taught in college electives misguided. The courses I've seen teach appreciation as music history lite. However, the…
Mapping the musical mind: the link between musical and language processing — Music Education Works
I've posted before on the link between linguistic syntax, music, and the research opportunities music could afford a conversation of syntactic acquisition. This article from Music Education Works discusses research out of Japan on the link between music and language. Researchers in Japan have found a specific link between musical processing and areas of the…
Three Tips to Become a Better Communicator
Developing substantive content in EAP communication classes presents unique challenges. Elementary English classes can fall back on rudimentary features of language, but advanced English-language students and native English speakers need something several orders of magnitude higher if they want to grow and improve as communicators. So, I stay vigilant for new approaches that can work…
Is Parenting Futile?
The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do by Judith Rich Harris | Goodreads If you want to vet someone's commitment to empirical evidence, the topic of parenting will rile people like little else. More specifically, the argument that parenting has limited influence over the character of children -- a proposition that…
MEXTESOL 2019: Santiago de Querétaro, Estado de Querétaro, México
MEXTESOL marked my last conference of the 2019 calendar year. Somehow I pulled off three presentations of various mediums in the middle of the fall semester. I chose practical topics this time around--a demonstration on various styles of written corrective feedback, a poster session on computer assisted language teaching (CAPT) with MS Class Notebooks, and…
The language carrot …
“I don’t speak,” Bijaz said. “I operate a machine called language. It creaks and groans, but is mine own.”"Dune Messiah" (1969) by Frank Herbert Today, the BBC published an article on what it means to be fluent in a language. Fluency might be the unicorn sighting of the second language universe--that thing everyone carries on…
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