New Thoughts..Old Thoughts..Bah it's all the same....

Good afternoon peeps and assorted wormslime! What is new in the world of Old Man Robb? Well this weekend is HOMECOMING at my alma mater Acadia U and that means Saturday i will be partaking in the annual Homecoming football game which will be a battle for #1 in the AUS between the Axemen and Mount A...who would have thought eh? Two weeks ago the Axemen had their heads handed to them by SMU, but bounced back nicely with comeback 26-19 victory over the Mounties in Sackville last Saturday..at one point the Axemen were down something like 18-0 and everyone was keeping a running commentary going as i was watching the game on Eastlink...but the Axemen survived and i hope will keep a Stranglehold (Awesome Ted Nugent tune) on first place...sitting in VIP again too meaning comfy seats and watered down Yankee beer...

So what else is a happening? Well Education 4683- Linguistics for Teachers keeping rolling along at a steady pace for Old Man Robb.. now i am at the end of Chapter Three which was on Phonology and this means my first major assignment is up on tap next, it won't be easy times, but yet i like a good challenge..there are five questions and i must answer two of them... sounds simple enough, but it can be a challenge, especially if you have limits..i am going to a question defining the word "language" and the other question will cover phonological rules..i hope to have these questions finished up and submitted by this weekend coming.. yes i am a big ol nerdy old man homework geek the rest of the week...but i am Working For the Weekend so to speak...

Of course there were questions to be answered for chapter three and one of them was what is the significance/ function of phonological rules in language?  Phonological rules help describe how sounds in words change for people, not just new learners of English, but also established English speakers who read and speak the language do this as well. The phonological rules are what we call a native speakers hidden knowledge, it is something the speaker knows and preconceived and these occur in order to help with pronunciation. These rules help a teacher, this is a part of everyday speech and both student and teacher recognize these sounds segments and this knowledge can be quite beneficial when it comes time to explain these rules to the classroom.

The other question for Chapter Three was how do you think your understanding of phonology could be applied to the classroom? A teacher should first understand phonology and its rules before they can properly teach it in the classroom. When you understand, then you can better understand your students and where their areas of needs are. A teacher must know the basic sounds of a language and the letters. You must remember that when teaching in the ESL classroom that your students are going to come from different ares of the world where they have been taught language in a certain way. As a teacher, you can help your students learn the language, but have an understanding that there are going to be difficulties for them in remembering the language rules.

What a teacher needs to do is break the words down for students, why does this word sound the way that it does? Students need to be taught in a relaxed atmosphere of understanding. Activities such as word games, group work, doing listening exercises from either tapes or watching short videos in the classroom, the teacher must explain to students the concepts of minimal pairs, intonation and word stress, perhaps using the pictures in order to explain these concepts to students, having a visual aid for example in the form of those cartoons can break these concepts down for students and make them easier to understand and form knowledge of the English language rules.

PS- Those are some of my boys from S Korea singing for the class...good little guys..too bad they and their parents can't come to grips with how bad they are being ripped off...S Korea had become such a hot spot for recent university grads to go teach in, it used to be Japan with the companies like NOVA and the rest was the spot to go to, but the S Korean schools offer one thing alot of the Japanese schools don't and that is free airfare to and from your native country, but they love to stiff their teachers..give them hell for things that they did not do and lots of the hagwons (Korean schools) love to stiff their teachers by firing them with like a month or so left in their contract...why? So that they do not have to pay the airfare and your promised bonus home...its a sham..i think i would like to go back to Japan and teach again instead of S Korea and there was lots i liked about S Korea..the weekends off and the sight seeing i did...but to teach in S Korea again? Thanks...but no thanks...

I cannot say that it is a situation that warms the heart...but im glad to see that there is a Canada-wide warrant for the arrest of Graham James in response to more allegations by former NHL star Theo Fleury.. is it right that someone like James gets a pardon and gets to go on with a new life in Mexico while Fleury and former NHL's Sheldon Kennedy have to bear the psychological scars of what James did to them as teenagers...how many more lives did this molester ruin? Look at the way we handle these people...Karla Homolka gets to walk free and recieve an education...why why why?!?!?!And why is one of the McDonald's murderers allowed out of jail on parole? For shit sakes he and those two other pieces of shit murdered three people and left one permanently disabled for the rest of her life...he will be free by 2012 i imagine...why should he be getting a free education? I had to pay for mine and im still paying, no student loans for this scumbag....and me as a taxpayer..i imagine i am paying for his vocational school training...life sure has a sick sense of humor...

To those people who complained about road hockey in the streets and have had their house egged recently...are you really suprised? Here you are trying to cut offf a bunch of kids from enjoying a game of our country's national passtime and you have nothing better to do...what do you want kids to do? Sit home? Text and play videogames? Or for those not lucky enough who do not have the good homelife...shoplifting, dope and maybe Halifax's newest passtime...swarming...yeah just keep up the complaints...get something better to do with your time...

In other news worth shaking my head at...Kim Jong II and his little fat son...doesn't anyone else find it at least a little sad that here we have one of the most impoverished countries in the world..North Korea's residents are all starving to death but yet these two don't seem to have missed very many meals...now i am one to talk cause i have a few extra..wait no no no..i admit it..im fat too... according to the UN, one out of three young children in North Korea is stunted by malnutrition...shame shame...

In other news...well i am going to make a very brief public service announcement from Old Man Robb..the author and be all end all of Robbblogs..this very site..if you are a passenger in a car..please please please do NOT touch the stereo...the driver (if it is me) is the ruler and master of that stereo... then again what else would i expect from someone who probably doesn't know anything that goes on in my life anyways and just makes assumptions...people do not assume..you only make an ass out of you and me...what else can i expect from someone whose life's motto seems to be i don't like heavy metal, i don't like rock and rolll..i ever listen to is Barry Manilow (Whose theme music was that? The Ragu Brothers right? ) to re-phrase a comment from one of my childhood heroes, Rowdy Roddy Piper, "Just when you think you have all the answers, i change the questions."

Anyways that is enough for one afternoon i thinks...i have homework to be finished and lawn to mow...have a good one folks!!!

PS- By the way...Old Man Robb has cut his locks...don't worry ladies he still looks like a FOX!!! Haahahahahahahahaha!!!