Sender: |
|
Date: |
Wed, 6 Sep 2006 15:34:50 -0400 |
Reply-To: |
|
Subject: |
|
MIME-Version: |
1.0 |
Content-Transfer-Encoding: |
quoted-printable |
In-Reply-To: |
|
Content-Type: |
text/plain; charset="us-ascii" |
From: |
|
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
Patty,
From my standpoint, at least, I think a useful analogy might be with
movement: humans who are not developmentally disadvantaged will
automatically learn how to walk, move about etc. -- but that, by itself,
does not make one a good basketball player (as a confirmed klutz, I can
vouch for this!). And people who play basketball a lot or who teach
others to play basketball have a very large inventory of terms for
movements and muscles to let them talk to each other about it.
When we "teach English" to students who are already English-speakers, we
are not, in fact, teaching them the basics of the language -- we're
teaching them how to do some very specialized things with it, things
that in many cases are *not* natural (writing, and communicating with
audiences that aren't there, for example). It's much more like
basketball than like walking.
-- Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
|
|
|