Dreamer Deceiver

"Opportunity makes a thief."- Francis Bacon

Wow just this time next week and all this hoopla will be over, this thing we know as Christmas, the time of the year for people to share and forget and all that good stuff. For others it is the time of year to alienate. Well as of tomorrow perhaps there will not be a significant change, but maybe something that will get people's attention, perhaps get people talking. Of course, it could all be for nothing, however i have got to try and do something and perhaps out there i will find that one person out there who will return something that i cherish and want to have back in my possession.

While i was busy with other things today, i am still in the midst of getting used to reading again. My book has been a decent read. H. Douglas Brown's 12 principles reflect current research/ theory about the aquisition of a second language. Brown's principles are intended for teachers in training as in those who intend to be teachers but who have little or no classroom experience and for teachers who train teachers. Well since some of my teaching needs work...hey im being honest, i thought it was a good place to start. Here are some brief samples of the twelve principles of Brown's. Remember that principals are widely recognized theoretical assumptions about second language aquisition.


Brown's 12 Principles:

1) Automaticity- The over-analizing of language, thinking too much about its forms and too much lingering on the rule of language. Automaticity is what is needed to be efficent. Second language learning should involve a timely moment of control of a few language forms into an automatic processing of an unlimited number of language forms.

2) Meaningful Learning- Better long-term retention- role learning, content-centured approaches to language learning.

3) The Anticipation of Reward- Human beings anticipate rewards. The power of immediate rewards in a language class. The task of the teacher is to create opportunities for the rewards by keeping classrooms intertesting and exciting.

4) Intrinsic Motivatation- Instrinic as in you, yourself- the teacher. A more powerful category of reward is one intrinsically drawn within the learner. When behavior stems from needs, wants and desires within oneself, the behavior has the potential to be self-rewarding. Externally administered awards are thought to be unnecessary. Learners are likely to maintain the behavior beyond the presence of teachers, parents and other tutors.

5) Strategic Involvement- The successful mastering of a second language is a result of the learners own personal investment of time, effort and attention to the second language- an individual strategy for the comprehension and production of another language. The time and learning strategies learners invest into the language learning process.

6) Language Ego- As people learn a second language, they develop a new kind of thinking, feeling and action and they form a second identity. A new language ego can create within the learner a sense of fragile, defensiveness and a raising of inhabitions.

7) Self-Confidence- Success for learners because of their belief that they can accomplish the task. Self-esteem lives at the root of eventual attainment. Success in learning something can be equated to the belief in learners that they can learn it.

8) Risk-Taking- Successful language learners become or must become gamblers in the game of learning language so they can attempt to produce and interpret language that is a bit beyond their certainty.

9) The Language-Cultre Connection- Whenever you teach a new language you also teach a system of cultural beiefs, customs, values and ways of thinking, feeling and acting.

10) The Native Language Effect- The native language of learners is a highly effective and significant system on which learners will use to protect the target language system. A learner's native language creates both facilitating and interfering effects on learning.


11) Interlanguage- Students will go through a systematic developmental process as the procgress to competience in the target language. Successful interlanguage development is a factor of utilizing feedback from others. Teachers can provide feedback and help leaners to generate their own feedback outside of the classroom.

12) Communicative Competience- The instruction needs to point towards all of its components. Communicative goals are achieved by giving attention to language use and not just usage, to fluency and not just accuracy, to authentic language contexts and to the needs of the students to apply classroom learning to the new world. Fluency and use are just as important as accuracy and usage - instruction needs to be aimed at organizational, pragmatic and strategic competence as well as psychomotor skills.

Again..heavy eh?

In other news...

The Harlem Globetrotters will be coming to Halifax on March 24th of this coming year!!! Old Man Robb will be taking the day off for that one... i haven't seen the Glotetrotters in years, i believe me and Dad went to see them at the Metro Centre years ago..what a time for Hfx eh? Guns N Roses are coming and now this...Beach Boys in PEI in the summer...The Steve Miller Band is coming..Art Garfunkel?!?!?!?! The oldies are back in Halifax..this is great if your my age...or 60...

Anywho folks, gots to go to bed..gotta rest up cause it is my REAL day off tomorrow and i don't intend on sleeping in on it..