LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE TEACHING

LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE TEACHING

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

"Being a Linguist" and "A semilingual starts" by Crystal, D (My reflections).

Reflections before the class

To start with my reflections I must confess, that I was scared and worried when I looked at my M.A schedule at first and it said "General Linguistics". Inmeadetely I thought "Gosh I have to buy that Saussure's book/manual or whatever" again and starting over reading trying to figure out the words and terminology which were not very clear for me as my Linguistics teachers were all the time talking in such a boring way that everybody ended up by falling asleep. Fortunately, honestly talking, I felt in love with the syllabus as It made me feel that there is something else behind so many readings and words which try to give Linguistics an unreachable status like a beautiful star you can't get. I haven't been so anxious about a Linguistic class never before. I think as Crystal, D said being a Linguistic is not just talking languages and master them, actually is being interested in them, and for me my dear friends being interested in languages is being interested in Linguistics. 
Every time we wonder about what activities incorporate to our classrooms or which strategy could work better to our students, we are wondering about what applied Linguistics, for example, always thinks about. Teaching and Learning a second/foreign language actually means not only to take into account the approaches and methods but also learning to decode the language so it could be interesting, useful, meaningful and logic to our learners and that means somehow to enrolled into Linguistics and all what that means.
We can say that Linguistic, as the science of Language, is not only a matter of knowing so many things that you don't even understand the real use of them. Being a Linguist is like a superhero of the language. Crystal D  (2008) describes it as dream words "(...)acoustics, anatomy, medicine, education, psychology, sociology, anthropology, geography, mathematics, computer science" (p.14) that push you to ask, wonder, look for, observe and enquire about almost everything that is connected to the language which actually means everything.
Since we are children, we are face to many things related to the world of words. The how's, when's, why's start to go around like a bunch of treasures waiting to be opened. We want adults to sort out problems and friends to help us in the discovery of those worlds and words. As humans, we start to get "linguistic intuitions" to understand and communicate. And when we are just starting to understand, there is another language waiting for us at school and then our small bodies start catching "ways of talking" and that process in one way or another make us different and more sensible to issues that learning a language could carry out.
To finish the reflections I have some questions to be brought to class.
  •  Have we ever wondered about how we get into the world of Languages?
  • Has Linguistics or the study of languages changed our minds or ways of thinking? Does that make us different from others?
  • Is this Crystal's personal description of Language processing a way to understand better what Psycholinguistics is looking for?


2 comments:

  1. I certainly enjoyed reading your blog. I became really engaged in what you reflected. Your writing style also captivated me as a reader. Being a teacher and becoming a teacher is something different. Our own paradigms, knowledge and assumptions need to be reconceptualised, and this certainly involves refreshing former conceptions about both the structure and use of language. It is also true that this particular time inquires teachers to come up with a new understanding, practice and reflection. And that is precisely what a M.A should do. Hope you invite some blog followers and I am sure that this is simple a good way to create a critical teacher community. I am proud of your first entry and I am sure there in much more ahead. Carry on.

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  2. Thank you professor. I think, we as human beings learn everyday and there are many things about the language waiting for us.
    Your comment made me think of how right/wrong we are about conceptions of the language. It think it has been somehow too global that ther is not a total truth about it, but there are issues that should be considered as they are based on experience which enhance our process and enrich our expererience as teacher.
    Have a nice day!

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