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robertogreco + english   309

Sorry, there's no such thing as 'correct grammar' | Michael Rosen | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Many people yearn for correctness & this is expressed in the phrase "standard English". The honourable side to this is that it offers a common means of exchange. However, this leads many people to imagine that because it is called standard, it is run by rules & that these rules are fixed… In fact, there is no agreed list, a good deal of what we say and write keeps changing and nothing is enforceable. Instead, language is owned and controlled by everybody and what we do with it seems to be governed by various kinds of consent, operating through the social groups of our lives. Social groups in society don't swim about in some kind of harmonious melting pot. We rub against each other from very different and opposing positions, so why we should agree about language use and the means of describing it is beyond me.

…This is not a neutral activity. It is part of how a certain caste of people have staked a claim over literacy."
paradigmwars  society  elitism  power  colonization  colonialism  language  communication  standardization  rules  class  literacy  2012  michaelrosen  dialect  education  english  grammar  castes  via:litherland  from delicious
march 2012 by robertogreco
CiteULike: 'No Number Can Describe How Good It Was': assessment issues in the multimodal classroom
"Within an outcomes based educational system built on the principles of redress, social justice, multilingualism and multiculturalism, issues of equity in teaching, learning and assessment are increasingly on South Africa's educational agenda…

Through a case study discussion of a multimodal project with disaffected Soweto youth, the authors argue that new criteria for assessment need to be developed in order to address the complexity of thinking about communication as a multiple semiotic practice and students as designers of meaning. Such criteria place human agency and resourcefulness at the centre of meaning-making, and focus on the recruitment of resources, generativity across modes, linkages and connections across modes and genres, voicing of self, community and culture, the processes of making and reflectiveness, as well as taking account of the 'community of arbiters'."

[via: http://www.flickr.com/photos/teachandlearn/6842871555/ ]
assessmentforlearning  multimodalclassroom  tcsnmy  learning  equity  politicsofrepresentation  casestudy  robertmaungedzo  pippastein  davidandrew  denisenewfield  communication  expression  languagearts  english  art  soweto  multiliteracies  understanding  making  reflectiveness  reflection  culture  community  designersofmeaning  communication  research  teaching  multiculturalism  multilingualism  education  assessment  southafrica  meaningmaking  from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco
New Rules: Writing Well In The 21st Century | A.T. | Cleveland [via: http://ayjay.tumblr.com/post/16364252528/there-have-been-three-major-changes-to-21st ]
"…three major changes to 21st century writing: (1) writing is more informal, or “looser”…; (2) writing is more voice-driven, more personal (you can get a sense of what the people above are like by reading their tweets & Facebook posts, and (3) writing is more audience-specific. The tweets & Facebook replies above were composed as part of a conversation with a person or specific group of people…All were written to me particularly (and they knew when they wrote them that I am a professor of writing and a writer interested in new technologies. Their responses may have been different if the question was asked, say, by their children). And, as @jbj and @wynkenhimself show, sometimes one reply to me leads to a new conversation between two other people.

It can be hard to know how to engage in this type of writing. You might feel a bit lost and unsure of the tropes of twitter, say. But chances are, you are more comfortable with writing than you were 10 years ago. Why? Because you do it more."
english  communication  howwewrite  conversation  informality  informal  practice  web  socialmedia  twitter  facebook  writing  via:lukeneff  from delicious
january 2012 by robertogreco
Text analysis, wordcount, keyword density analyzer, prominence analysis
"Welcome to the online text analysis tool, the detailed statistics of your text, perfect for translators (quoting), for webmasters (ranking) or for normal users, to know the subject of a text. Now with new features as the anlysis of words groups, finding out the keyword density, analyse the prominence of word or expressions. Webmasters can analyse the links on their pages. More instructions are about to be written, please send us your feedback!"
english  wcydwt  classideas  onlinetoolkit  text  software  analysis  research  language  tools  writing  from delicious
december 2011 by robertogreco
Learn 40 Languages for Free with Free Audio Lessons | Open Culture
"How to learn languages for free? This collection features lessons in 40 languages, including Spanish, French, English, Mandarin, Italian, Russian and more. Download audio lessons to your computer or mp3 player and you’re good to go."
languages  language  learning  arabic  spanish  bulgarian  catalan  chinese  mandarin  danish  dutch  english  esperanto  finnish  french  free  gaelic  german  greek  hebrew  hindi  hungarian  indonesian  irish  italian  japanese  korean  latin  lithuanian  luxembourgish  maori  norwegian  polish  portuguese  romanian  russian  swedish  tagalog  thai  ukranian  urdu  vietnamese  yiddish  lessons  from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco
15th Century Collective Nouns
language  english  collectivenouns  15thcentury  from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco
In Battle to Save Chinese, It's Test vs. Test - China Real Time Report - WSJ
"Chinese students’ obsession with learning English is apparent. Chinese cities are littered with billboards and fliers for teaching institutes, and the demand for native-speaking teachers and tutors seems endless. For many, the TOEFL, or Test of English as a Foreign Language, ranks second only to the infamous gaokao college entrance exam as a driver of candle-burning study habits.

Worried that this preoccupation with English is contributing to a decline in native language skills, officials at the Ministry of Education are now trying to get students to return to their linguistic roots. How? By introducing another test."
china  english  chinese  testing  education  trends  languages  culture  from delicious
october 2011 by robertogreco
Save The Words
language  words  wcydwt  classideas  english  writing  from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco
Simple English Wikipedia - Blog - Matthew Culnane
[A great reminder from Matthew Culnane on the value of Simple Wikipedia, even for native speakers of English. I also like the "Further Reading" component of the post.]<br />
<br />
"When I need a clear, straightforward summary of a topic, I’ve started reading the ‘Simple English’ version of Wikipedia. It’s primarily written for people whose first language isn’t English, but I’ve used it profitably."<br />
<br />
[Followed by an example.]
wikipedia  simplewikipedia  classideas  rampingup  forbeginners  2011  matthewculnane  learning  anything101  english  starting  brevity  simplicity  language  from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco
Newswordy: Word of the day
"Buzzwords are frequently used in news media. These are words that do not typically occur in everyday speech, but are common among newscasters, talking heads, and pundits on cable news.<br />
These ‘news words’ are accepted by audiences for their implied meaning. But often loaded words are misused or used out of context. The actual definitions can be different than what is implied.<br />
Newswordy is a growing collection of these words, updated every weekday. Along with each word is a definition, a quote with its use (or misuse) in the media, and a news and Twitter feed on the subject."
education  media  language  misuse  outofcontext  writing  journalism  classideas  wcydwt  english  news  twitter  definitions  vocabulary  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
prepone - Wiktionary
"1. (India) To reschedule to a time earlier than the current scheduled time."<br />
<br />
[Also listed here (worth mining): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English ]<br />
<br />
[Related, also interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi_English and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinglish ]
prepone  words  india  english  indianenglish  language  definitions  time  meetings  scheduling  adelanto  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
PHRAS.IN - Say this or say that?
"Because spell checkers only do 80% of the job.<br />
If you, like me, speak English as a second language, you know that using correct spelling doesn't protect you from writing those awkward sounding lines.<br />
Tell me, how many times did you come up with two ways to say the same thing, and couldn't decide which one was the best fit?<br />
My solution was to google both expressions and check out the number of web results.<br />
<br />
Low figures meant that very few people ever phrased the sentence that way, thus it was probably incorrect.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, higher numbers indicated common use, and the 3 line preview in the results helped me figure out if I was using the right form.<br />
This tool does just that, in a much quicker and convenient way."<br />
<br />
"Tip: You can get results straight from the address bar, just type http://phras.in/phrase1/phrase2"
phras.in  writing  comparison  language  english  phrasing  usage  commonuse  classideas  wcydwt  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
Cool Tools: Writing Tools
"This two-sided page contains the wisdom of an entire book on how to write better. Nay, it distills an entire shelf of the world's greatest writing manuals (and I have them all). After 30 years as both a writer and editor I can't think of much I would add to these 50 short tips. This PDF is now my favorite guide to writing well. You can print it out for free. If you want its pithy reminders fleshed out with more examples, see the book form, or the website. But the free tip sheet itself -- one paper printed both sides -- rewards a quick review anytime you get down to serious writing."
writing  language  kevinkelly  cooltools  classideas  howto  english  tools  from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco
Mobile Media Toolkit
"The Mobile Media Toolkit shows you how to record audio, from finding a good recording environment to recording phone calls, editing audio, and listening to and sharing reports with others."
mobile  media  tools  audio  video  mobilemedia  onlinetoolkit  recording  journalism  editing  via:danielsinker  english  español  spanish  arabic  from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco
Amazon.com: Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures (9780415214216): Bill Cope, Mary Kalantzis: Books
"Multiliteracies considers the future of literacy teaching in the context of the rapidly changing English language. Questions are raised about what constitutes appropriate literacy teaching in today's world: a world that is both a global village yet one which local diversity is increasingly important.<br />
<br />
This is a coherent and accessible overview of the work of the New London Group, with well-known international contributors bringing together their varying national experiences and differences of theoretical and political emphasis. The essays deal with issues such as:<br />
<br />
• the fundamental premises of literacy pedagogy<br />
• the effects of technological change<br />
• multilingualism and cultual diversity<br />
• social futures and their implications on language teaching.<br />
<br />
The book concludes with case studies of attempts to put the theories into practice and thereby provides a basis for dialogue with fellow educators around the world."
multiliteracies  via:anterobot  billcope  marykalantzis  teaching  pedagogy  english  language  languagearts  books  toread  newlondongroup  literacy  culturaldiverisity  diversity  multilingualism  socialfutures  1999  from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco
Bring chaos theory to English language teaching | Education | Guardian Weekly
"By relying on grammar rules in class, learners are in danger of becoming detached from the dynamism of spoken language"
language  english  grammar  teaching  writing  classideas  deschooling  unschooling  languagearts  via:rushtheiceberg  rules  rulebreaking  slang  change  dynamic  from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco
Railspeak should be terminated | Media | The Guardian
"If anyone from Network Rail or the Misassociation of Train Operating Companies is reading this, I simply ask if it is beyond them to devise a clear, simple system of announcements, in plain English, restricted to essential information rather than the incessant outpouring of all this aural ordure. I am happy to volunteer my services and willing to undercut whatever was paid to the tin-eared idiots responsible for the development of train and station announcements over the last 20 years or so.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, someone should tell the announcer at Waterloo station that the ever-lengthening list of things we can't do – smoke, run, cycle, skateboard, find a rubbish bin, find a seat – does not, so far, extend to playing boules or yodelling. Is this an oversight?"
language  communication  transportation  english  wordchoice  via:preoccupations  uk  trains  2011  from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco
Implementing Harkness - Jodi's school docs
"Day One - An introduction to a new discussion method<br />
Day Two - How you read and write is just as important as how you speak and listen<br />
Day Three - Preparing a more formal demonstration discussion<br />
Brief interlude - Meet my classroom<br />
Day Four - Introducing discussion tracking"
via:lukeneff  discussion  education  teaching  pedagogy  debriefing  reflection  writing  english  reading  classideas  huma8  conversation  facilitating  tcsnmy  harkness  seminar  seminarmethod  harknesstable  jodirice  2007  from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco
YouTube Playlist: The History of English in Ten Minutes
Description: Where did the phrase 'a wolf in sheep's clothing' come from? And when did scientists finally get round to naming sexual body parts? Voiced by Clive Anderson, this entertaining romp through 'The History of English' squeezes 1600 years of history into 10 one-minute bites, uncovering the sources of English words and phrases from Shakespeare and the King James Bible to America and the Internet. Bursting with fascinating facts, the series looks at how English grew from a small tongue into a major global language before reflecting on the future of English in the 21st century.
language  history  english  classideas  via:thelibrarianedge  cliveanderson  humor  openuniversity  open  from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco
Manga Artist’s First Foray into English | PRI's The World
"A few days after the earthquake and tsunami, the New York Times published an illustration by Mizuki on its op-ed page. It shows a hand emerging from an eddy at sea, outstretched, grasping for help.<br />
When I asked Mizuki to explain it, he said, “Modern Japan is drowning. It’s lost its sense of traditionalism. Though,” he reflects, “during World War II, Japan might have been too Japanese.” Mizuki believes perhaps Japan is now entering an international era.<br />
Somewhere between being subsumed by the rest of the world, and being too Japanese, Mizuki sees a middle space, where the bright lights of modern Japan don’t blind its citizens from the past. And where a story like the one Mizuki tells in “Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths” may inspire younger manga artists address Japan’s many current challenges."
shigerumizuki  manga  japan  illustration  english  japanese  ww2  wwii  classideas  history  future  traditionalism  from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco
Logical punctuation: Should we start placing commas outside quotation marks? - By Ben Yagoda - Slate Magazine
For at least two centuries, it has been standard practice in the United States to place commas and periods inside of quotation marks. This rule still holds for professionally edited prose: what you'll find in Slate, the New York Times, the Washington Post—almost any place adhering to Modern Language Association (MLA) or AP guidelines. But in copy-editor-free zones—the Web and emails, student papers, business memos—with increasing frequency, commas and periods find themselves on the outside of quotation marks, looking in. A punctuation paradigm is shifting…<br />
<br />
But the main reason is that the British way simply makes more sense. Indeed, since at least the 1960s a common designation for that style has been "logical punctuation." …<br />
<br />
[Example] …<br />
<br />
"Tales of the City" and "Out in the Silence" are units—consisting of the words and the quotation marks. Insinuating a period or comma within the unit alters it in a rather underhanded manner. 
writing  language  punctuation  classideas  change  logicalpunctuation  it'sabouttime  english  usage  2011  from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco
Drinking the Kool-Aid - Wikipedia
"According to scholar Rebecca Moore, early analogies to Jonestown and Kool-Aid were based around death and suicide, not blind obedience.[5] The earliest such example she found, via a Lexis-Nexis search, was a 1982 statement from Lane Kirkland, then head of the AFL-CIO, which described Ronald Reagan's policies as "Jonestown economics," which "administers Kool-Aid to the poor, the deprived and the unemployed."<br />
<br />
The widespread use of the phrase with its current meaning may have begun in the late 1990s. In some cases it has taken on a neutral or even positive light, implying simply great enthusiasm. In 1998, the dictionary website logophilia.com defined the phrase as "To become a firm believer in something; to accept an argument or philosophy whole-heartedly."<br />
<br />
The phrase has been used in the business and technology worlds to mean fervent devotion to a certain company or technology."
english  wikipedia  suicide  drinkingthekool-aid  kool-aid  phrases  jonestown  obedience  criticalthinking  srg  devotion  enthusiasm  from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco
Learning Spanish and English unites children - latimes.com
"To join or not to join — a grand L.A. Unified experiment in dual-language immersion."
lausd  losangeles  education  languages  language  schools  teaching  learning  spanish  english  bilingualism  bilingual  dual-languageimmersion  2011  from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco
tcsnmy6 - When the topic of phonetic spelling (and calendar...
"When the topic of phonetic spelling (and calendar systems and the metric system) came out of our A Little History of the World discussion this morning I promised to share with you a video which points out the absurdity of our spelling conventions and the call to change them. It’s above. There is a better quality verision here.<br />
<br />
The man in the video is Ed Rondthaler who recently passed away at the age of 104. He promoted a system of phonetic spelling called Soundspel.<br />
<br />
Related: Back in April I pointed out another “Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling.” And here is a poem that pokes fun at English pronunciation."<br />
<br />
[Can't ever find this when I need it. Hope this bookmark helps.]<br />
<br />
[See also: http://tcsnmy6.tumblr.com/post/49067328/frustrated-with-spelling-youre-not-alone-watch ]
edwardrondthaler  spelling  english  phonetics  poetry  soundspel  pronunciation  tcsnmy  tcsnmy6  unschooling  deschooling  from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco
Los idiomas de Borges « Eterna Cadencia
Nos hemos acostumbrado a tal grado a afirmar que Jorge Luis Borges fue un “escritor universal” que esta expresión y el nombre de Borges han pasado a ser casi sinónimos. Famoso y reconocido por la amplitud y la profundidad de sus obras, Borges fue un escritor a la vez profundamente argentino y cosmopolita.  En sus poemas y cuentos aparecen  compadritos del viejo Buenos Aires, sacerdotes mayas, vikingos de las sagas nórdicas o reyes anglosajones largamente olvidados. El conocimiento que Borges tenía de las diversas literaturas del mundo era poco menos que enciclopédico y las múltiples y diversas fuentes  de su inspiración continúan siendo investigadas por la crítica. Sin embargo, un hecho que a menudo se pasa por alto es que Borges logró acercarse a muchas de estas obras gracias a las numerosas lenguas que estudió durante toda su vida."
borges  language  universality  universalism  cosmopolitanism  languages  english  german  french  italian  portuguese  icelandic  japanese  from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco
Five Card Flickr
"This quasi experimental web site is designed to foster visual thinking. It is based completely, or more loosely... copied, from the Five Card Nancy game devised by comics guru Scott McCloud & the nifty web version at 741.5 Comics.<br />
However, rather than drawing from a hand of randomly chosen panels of the old Nancy comic, my version draws upon collections of photos specified by a tag in flickr. You are dealt five random photos for each draw, and your task is to select one each time to add to a selection of images, that taken together as a final set of 5 images- tell a story in pictures.<br />
When you are done, you the option to add a title and explanation, then you can save the story so you can put a link in your resume or send to your Mom…Plus we offer the ability to tweet your story or use an embed code to add it to your own web site.<br />
What do they look like? What a fantastic question you ask!<br />
We have a growing collection of mixed bag stories…"
writing  flickr  english  storytelling  classideas  fivecardnancy  scottmccloud  images  comics  photography  via:cburell  from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco
California English - Wikipedia
"California English (or Californian, Californian English) is a dialect of the English language spoken in California.[1] California is home to a highly diverse population, which is reflected in the historical and continuing development of California English."<br />
<br />
[Of particular interest is "freeway nomenclature" of Northern and Southern California: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_English#Freeway_nomenclature ] <br />
<br />
[via: http://latimes.tumblr.com/post/4102291799/10-freeway ]
language  english  california  linguistics  dialects  accents  vocabulary  usage  phonology  nocal  socal  losangeles  sanfrancisco  sandiego  orangecounty  inlandempire  freeways  carculture  cars  from delicious
march 2011 by robertogreco
FT.com / FT Magazine - Don’t touch me, I’m British
"But though Americans won’t touch strangers, they will talk to them. They will chat to people at neighbouring tables in restaurants, or in line at the supermarket. That conversation doesn’t turn the speakers into friends – a mistake Europeans sometimes make. Generalising grossly: to Americans, conversation doesn’t imply intimacy.<br />
Applying Carroll’s theories to Britons, you understand why foreigners think we are repressed. Americans won’t touch strangers, the French won’t talk to them, but Brits will neither touch nor talk to them. Passport to the Pub, a semi-official guide for foreign tourists to the UK, warns: “Don’t ever introduce yourself. The ‘Hi, I’m Chuck from Alabama’ approach does not go down well in British pubs.”<br />
Nor are Britons permitted to make eye contact…<br />
Latins are luckier. They can touch and talk to strangers even when sober…"
culture  rules  sex  cultureshock  france  germany  finland  uk  english  england  touching  conversation  americans  us  relationships  speaking  talking  kissing  interpersonal  norms  culturalnorms  from delicious
march 2011 by robertogreco
Uncleftish Beholding - Wikipedia
"Uncleftish Beholding (1989) is a short text written by Poul Anderson. It is written using almost exclusively words of Germanic origin, and was intended to illustrate what the English language might look like if it had not received its considerable number of loanwords from other languages, particularly Latin, Greek and French.<br />
<br />
The text is about basic atomic theory and relies on a number of word coinings, many of which have analogues in modern German. The title "uncleftish beholding" calques "atomic theory". The text begins:<br />
<br />
"For most of its being, mankind did not know what things are made of, but could only guess. With the growth of worldken, we began to learn, and today we have a beholding of stuff and work that watching bears out, both in the workstead and in daily life.""
language  history  english  linguistics  via:migurski  uncleftishbeholding  1989  poulanderson  theory  german  germanic  constraints  classideas  writing  literature  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
Between the By-Road and the Main Road: Books to Teach Writer's Craft with in Middle School
books  lists  classideas  tcsnmy  teaching  writing  english  middleschool  languagearts  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
Eastern Seaboard, West Coast (full episode) | A Way with Words
"Does sanction mean “a penalty” or “an approval”? Well, both. Martha explains the nature of contranyms, also known as Janus words. Here’s an article about them in the periodical Verbatim.

Listeners share their suggestions for the game What Would You Serve? Hosting a golfer for dinner? Tea and greens should be lovely!

William Faulkner used adjectives like shadowdabbled, Augusttremulous, and others that can only be described as, well, Faulknerian. Grant and Martha trade theories about why the great writer chose them.

The University of Virginia has an online audio archive of Faulkner, recorded during his tenure as that school’s Writer-in-Residence.

Also, check out this splendid 1956 Paris Review interview with Faulkner about the art of writing."
faulkner  writing  words  wordgames  games  play  waywithwords  contranyms  classideas  language  English  wordplay  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
12 Dozen Places To Educate Yourself Online For Free
"All education is self-education.  Period.  It doesn’t matter if you’re sitting in a college classroom or a coffee shop.  We don’t learn anything we don’t want to learn.<br />
<br />
Those people who take the time and initiative to pursue knowledge on their own are the only ones who earn a real education in this world.  Take a look at any widely acclaimed scholar, entrepreneur or historical figure you can think of.  Formal education or not, you’ll find that he or she is a product of continuous self-education.<br />
<br />
If you’re interested in learning something new, this article is for you.  Broken down by subject and/or category, here are several top-notch self-education resources I have bookmarked online over the past few years.<br />
<br />
Note that some of the sources overlap between various subjects of education.  Therefore, each has been placed under a specific subject based on the majority focus of the source’s content."
education  learning  online  free  reference  homeschool  unschooling  deschooling  via:caterina  glvo  edg  srg  references  opencourseware  opencontent  law  humanities  history  classideas  science  health  lcproject  business  money  compsci  engineering  math  mathematics  english  communication  books  autodidacts  self-education  self-directedlearning  internet  web  openeducation  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
See the Elephant (full episode) | A Way with Words
"A woman in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, remembers a ditty she learned from her mother about “thirty purple birds,” but with a distinctive pronunciation that sounds more like “Toidy poipel blackbirds / Sittin’ on a coibstone / Choipin’ and boipin’ / And eatin’ doity oithworms.” Here’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers version.<br />
Martha offers excellent writing advice from the former editor of People magazine, Landon Y. Jones…<br />
<br />
Another Argentine idiom goes arrugaste como frenada de gusano. It means “You were scared,” but literally, it’s “You wrinkled like a stopping worm.”"
argentina  words  writing  rhymes  rhcp  thirtypurplebirds  tonguetwisters  pronunciation  english  from delicious
january 2011 by robertogreco
Museum - Wikipedia
"The English "museum" comes from the Latin word, and is pluralized as "museums" (or rarely, "musea"). It is originally from the Greek Μουσεῖον (Mouseion), which denotes a place or temple dedicated to the Muses (the patron divinities in Greek mythology of the arts), and hence a building set apart for study and the arts, especially the Musaeum (institute) for philosophy and research at Alexandria by Ptolemy I Soter about 280 BCE. The first museum/library is considered to be the one of Plato in Athens. However, Pausanias gives another place called "Museum", namely a small hill in Classical Athens opposite the Akropolis. The hill was called Mouseion after Mousaious, a man who used to sing on the hill and died there of old age and was subsequently buried there as well."
etymology  words  english  history  museums  muses  art  arts  philosophy  ancientgreece  ancientgreeks  latin  from delicious
january 2011 by robertogreco
American English Dialects
As Michal Migurski puts it: "Completely ludicrous dialect superpage:"<br />
"This is just a little hobby of mine, that I thought might be interesting to a lot of people. Some people collect stamps. Others collect coins. I collect dialects. Please let me know what you think of this page. - Rick Aschmann (Last updated: December 27, 2010.)"
language  linguistics  metafilter  dialect  maps  mapping  english  northamerica  us  canada  hobbies  hardcorehobbyists  location  regional  from delicious
december 2010 by robertogreco
Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices :: Map your voice - about
"We need your voice. By adding your voice you can help with research into how language works. We hold recordings that capture the sounds of spoken English all over the world.<br />
<br />
We are asking people all over the world to read a children's story: Mr. Tickle by Roger Hargreaves. It's been chosen for the range of English sounds it contains when read out loud. Read more about why we chose it.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can just read out a list of six words. If you are keen, you may read both."
language  english  accents  mapping  maps  reading  classideas  regional  via:thelibrarianedge  from delicious
december 2010 by robertogreco
WCYDWT English? « Bionic Teaching
"Every question I come up with ends up with possible skills all over the place but missing the requirement for a specific skill or set of skills. In English it often seems like you can accomplish an answer but it’s less a puzzle to figure out that will require specific skills and more of a task to accomplish that can be completed to a greater or lesser degree depending on a variety of skills2.<br />
<br />
I wonder if it doesn’t come down to the fact that in English we often lack a definitive “right” answer. It could be I’m just failing to think properly about this. …<br />
<br />
There’s something to be said for just having fun with the language and letting some things be messy. That’s good and fine but I still think there are ways to get at more specific understandings using the WCYDWT format."
wcydwt  teaching  english  writing  reading  language  classideas  messiness  communication  grammar  rules  from delicious
december 2010 by robertogreco
Language Log » A doubtful benevolence: Mark Twain on spelling
"Mark Twain:<br />
<br />
"As I have said before, I never had any large respect for good spelling. That is my feeling yet. Before the spelling book came with its arbitrary forms, men unconsciously revealed shades of their characters, and also added enlightening shades of expression to what they wrote by their spelling, and so it is possible that the spelling book has been a doubtful benevolence to us."<br />
<br />
He leads up to this conclusion with a curious theory of orthographico-genetic determinism, illustrated from personal experience:<br />
<br />
"The ability to spell is a natural gift. The person not born with it can never become perfect in it. I was always able to spell correctly. My wife, and her sister, Mrs. Crane, were always bad spellers. Once when Clara was a little chap, her mother was away from home for a few days, and Clara wrote her a small letter every day. When her mother returned, she praised Clara's letters. Then she said, "But in one of them, Clara, you spelled a word wrong.""
language  spelling  marktwain  english  genetics  humor  rewards  childhood  dyslexia  writing  intelligence  cv  from delicious
december 2010 by robertogreco
"SpellCheckPlus" Online Spelling and Grammar Checker for English as a Second Language
""SpellCheckPlus" is a grammar checker that finds common spelling errors and grammatical mistakes in English.<br />
Simply type (or paste) your text into the window below and hit the "check text" button."
grammar  english  spellcheck  writing  spelling  onlinetoolkit  teaching  classideas  spellcheckplus  editing  from delicious
december 2010 by robertogreco
Haberdasher - Wikipedia [New word… to me. Probably because I have little interest in clothes shopping (American variation). But I do like the first meaning]
"A haberdasher is a person who sells small articles for sewing, such as buttons, ribbons, zippers, and other notions. In American English, haberdasher is another term for a men's outfitter. A haberdasher's shop or the items sold therein are called haberdashery."
words  english  vocabulary  sewing  glvo  ribbons  zippers  buttons  from delicious
november 2010 by robertogreco
Children of the Code Video
"Our premise is this: regardless of particular methods of instruction, the better educators and parents understand the challenges involved in learning to read the better they can help children through those challenges. Thus, the mission of the Children of the Code Project is to help educators, parents, and all who care for children develop a deeper first-person understanding of the challenges involved in learning to read."
dyslexia  learning  schools  education  reading  learningdisabilities  emotionaldanger  english  language  history  literacy  behavior  disability  brain  cognition  differentiation  neuroscience  specialed  teaching  disabilities  children  from delicious
november 2010 by robertogreco
Semicolon squalls - Bobulate
"People have the idea that mastering the semicolon is the acme of prose artistry, as if the mark itself could call a logical structure into being. As one grammarian put it, the semicolon is the mortar that joins two ideas into a greater one. But semicolons don’t create a structure; they just point to one. It’s nice to know where a semicolon is supposed to go, but it’s nothing to swell your chest over. The artistry is in being able to write sentences that require one."
writing  punctuation  grammar  janeausten  english  change  flux  from delicious
november 2010 by robertogreco
OK: How Two Letters Made 'America's Greatest Word' : NPR
"OK, it's quiz time: You probably say it dozens of times every day. It may be the most widely used expression in the world. And yet it's so simple.<br />
<br />
OK, ready for the answer?<br />
<br />
That's it — the word "OK."<br />
<br />
Allan Metcalf is so enthralled by those two letters that he's written an entire book about them: OK: The Improbable Story of America's Greatest Word.<br />
<br />
Metcalf tells NPR's Guy Raz that he sifted through a handful of conflicting stories and discovered the birthplace of "OK" — a 19th century Boston newsroom."
language  us  english  international  ok  words  history  humor  books  linguistics  acronyms  from delicious
november 2010 by robertogreco
Community and Writing in an Age of New Collectives | DMLcentral
"Writing researchers have known for a long time that writing is a community practice. Cohen & Riel (1989, cited by Charney & Miller in Bazerman, 2008) have shown how middle-school students wrote better when their audience was a community, rather than just their teacher. This process of engaging with an audience is crucial, both to writing and community formation. As Nystrand writes in an essay in this collection, "speakers address their audiences…through particular texts but become members of their speech communities by learning the ways-of-speaking of these groups, and especially the potential for making many texts" (p. 15; cited in Charney & Miller). In other words, audiences are communities, and the best way to engage with an audience is to enter the community and absorb its "ways-of-speaking.""
writing  wikipedia  digitalmedia  education  english  community  tcsnmy  teaching  from delicious
november 2010 by robertogreco
The Best Language Tools for Geeks
"No matter your command of the English language, we all have trouble defining, pronouncing, or even remembering certain words, which makes writing tough. Here are some of the best tools to help you out.<br />
<br />
We talked about online language tools for nerds a couple years ago, and today we're revisiting it with newer and better options. This list isn't exhaustive, but it's some of our favorite tools we've found—and even make use of on a daily basis—to help in our writing."
dictionary  language  lifehacker  reference  classideas  english  vocabulary  tools  research  wolframalpha  search  definitions  wordsearch  pronunciation  phrases  spelling  grammar  thesaurus  dictionaries  definition  words  via:robinsloan  from delicious
november 2010 by robertogreco
English Opens Doors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"English Opens Doors, or Inglés Abre Puertas in Spanish, is an initiative of the Chilean Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) to apply technical expertise and improve English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching, making it more accessible to all school-age Chileans. The English Opens Doors Program was created in the country of Chile in 2003 and is supported by former President Michelle Bachelet and Minister of Education Mónica Jiménez."
chile  education  language  languages  english  volunteerism  mandarin  chinese  glvo  from delicious
november 2010 by robertogreco
Pleonasm - Wikipedia
"use of more words or word-parts than is necessary for clear expression: examples…black darkness, burning fire, digital download or redundant pleonasm. Such redundancy is, by traditional rhetorical criteria, a manifestation of tautology. The term "tautology" is derived from 2 Greek words meaning It says this, i.e. the same thing.<br />
<br />
Often, pleonasm is understood to mean a word or phrase which is useless, clichéd, or repetitive, but a pleonasm can also be simply an unremarkable use of idiom. It can even aid in achieving a specific linguistic effect, be it social, poetic, or literary. In particular, pleonasm sometimes serves same function as rhetorical repetition—it can be used to reinforce an idea, contention or question, rendering writing clearer & easier to understand. Further, pleonasm can serve as a redundancy check: If a word is unknown, misunderstood, or misheard, or the medium of communication is poor, pleonastic phrases can help ensure that the entire meaning gets across"
english  grammar  language  linguistics  words  semantics  pleonasm  writing  via:thelibrarianedge  from delicious
october 2010 by robertogreco
Synecdoche - Wikipedia
"Synecdoche (pronounced /sɪˈnɛkdəkiː/; from Greek synekdoche (συνεκδοχή), meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech[1] in which a term is used in one of the following ways:<br />
*Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing (Pars pro toto), or<br />
*A thing (a "whole") is used to refer to part of it (Totum pro parte), or<br />
*A specific class of thing is used to refer to a larger, more general class, or<br />
*A general class of thing is used to refer to a smaller, more specific class, or<br />
*A material is used to refer to an object composed of that material, or<br />
*A container is used to refer to its contents."
synecdoche  metaphor  grammar  linguistics  literature  words  writing  philosophy  metonymy  language  communication  definitions  english  relationships  containers  rhetoric  device  from delicious
october 2010 by robertogreco
Understanding Shakespeare / Approaches
"The goal of this approach was to provide an overview of the entire play by showing its text through a collection of the most frequently used words for each character. A scene is represented by a block of text and scaled relatively according to its number of words. Characters are ordered by appearance from left to right throughout the play. The major character’s speeches are highlighted to illustrate their amounts of spoken words as compared to the rest of the play."
shakespeare  visualization  processing  text  classideas  statistics  data  english  language  from delicious
september 2010 by robertogreco
Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education | Video on TED.com
"Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education -- the best teachers and schools don't exist where they're needed most. In a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching."
holeinthewall  outdoctrination  sugatamitra  unschooling  deschooling  education  teaching  learning  engagement  ted  technology  computers  india  africa  italy  autodidacts  self-directedlearning  motivation  intrinsicmotivation  interestdriven  interests  collaboration  internet  hyderabad  curiosity  speech  english  accents  speech2text  arthurcclarke  computing  cambodia  southafrica  games  play  gaming  from delicious
september 2010 by robertogreco
Cookies by Douglas Adams [Something for the first week of school?]
"This actually did happen to a real person, and the real person was me. I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, U.K. I was a bit early for the train. I'd gotten the time of the train wrong.<br />
<br />
I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packet of cookies. I went and sat at a table. … [Funny story]"
anecdote  douglasadams  stories  writing  humor  funny  psychology  perspective  classideas  via:preoccupations  life  society  uk  english  england  tcsnmy  from delicious
august 2010 by robertogreco
Gargantua/Chapter XXV - Wikisource {Follow-up to: http://www.waywordradio.org/spendthrift-snollygosters/]
"did injure them most outrageously, calling them prattling gabblers, lickorous gluttons, freckled bittors, mangy rascals, shite-a-bed scoundrels, drunken roysters, sly knaves, drowsy loiterers, slapsauce fellows, slabberdegullion druggels, lubberly louts, cozening foxes, ruffian rogues, paltry customers, sycophant-varlets, drawlatch hoydens, flouting milksops, jeering companions, staring clowns, forlorn snakes, ninny lobcocks, scurvy sneaksbies, fondling fops, base loons, saucy coxcombs, idle lusks, scoffing braggarts, noddy meacocks, blockish grutnols, doddipol-joltheads, jobbernol goosecaps, foolish loggerheads, flutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels, gaping changelings, codshead loobies, woodcock slangams, ninny-hammer flycatchers, noddypeak simpletons, turdy gut, shitten shepherds, and other suchlike defamatory epithets"
insults  language  english  gargantua  literature  words  classideas  from delicious
august 2010 by robertogreco
Stevedore - Wikipedia [Follow-up to: http://www.waywordradio.org/spendthrift-snollygosters/]
"Stevedore, dockworker, docker, dock labourer and longshoreman can have various waterfront-related meanings concerning loading and unloading ships, according to place and country.<br />
<br />
The word stevedore originated in Portugal or Spain, and entered the English language through its use by sailors. It started as a phonetic spelling of estivador (Portuguese) or estibador (Spanish), meaning a man who stuffs, here in the sense of a man who loads ships, which was the original meaning of stevedore; compare Latin stīpāre meaning to stuff, as in to fill with stuffing. … Stevedore has also become common as an appellation for a person who is over-muscular or foulmouthed."
stevedore  etymology  words  dockworkers  longshoremen  spanish  portuguese  estibador  estivador  packing  loading  foulmouthed  over-musculat  language  english  from delicious
august 2010 by robertogreco
CamelCase - Wikipedia [Follow-up to: http://www.waywordradio.org/spendthrift-snollygosters/]
"Cartoon illustration of "camel case" (medial capitals) style<br />
<br />
CamelCase (camel case or camel-case)—originally known as medial capitals[1]—is the practice of writing compound words or phrases in which the elements are joined without spaces, with each element's initial letter capitalized within the compound, and the first letter is either upper or lower case—as in "LaBelle", BackColor, "McDonald's", or "iPod". The name comes from the uppercase "bumps" in the middle of the compound word, suggestive of the humps of a camel. The practice is known by many other names. In computer programming if the first letter is capitalized, it is called Pascal case; if not, then camel case."
camelcase  capitalization  programming  coding  computers  english  culture  words  writing  language  from delicious
august 2010 by robertogreco
To speak another language isn't just cultured, it's a blow against stupidity | Michael Hofmann | Comment is free | The Observer
"A leading translator argues that if we rely solely on English we'll lose the curiosity that drove Milton and Orwell"
michaelhofman  language  languages  english  history  words  learning  education  perspective  georgeorwell  stupidity  from delicious
august 2010 by robertogreco
10 Ways to Develop Expository Writing Skills With The New York Times - The Learning Network Blog - NYTimes.com
"Have you been knocking your head against the proverbial wall trying to teach – or learn – expository writing skills? New York Times models can help writers learn how to write an expository essay that is compelling, convincing and authoritative as well as engaging to read – not to mention authentic. Try a fresh approach with these 10 tips.<br />
<br />
1. Ditch the five-paragraph essay and embrace authentic essay structure. New York Times news and feature articles are excellent models for structure, including transitions and organization. Look at the guide to forms of Times news coverage to get started, and then deconstruct some articles to get a feel for how they are organized. …"
composition  education  english  writing  teaching  tips  nytimes  journalism  instruction  howto  classideas  via:lukeneff  from delicious
august 2010 by robertogreco
Sticking the world together with words | Tim Parks | Books | guardian.co.uk [via: http://plsj.tumblr.com/post/833198983/sticking-the-world-together-with-words]
"what if language & literature were as much a part of the problem as the solution? Consider. Invented, not part of nature, words are thrust upon us the moment we emerge from the womb. Heads stuffed with them, we start to imitate. The right sounds in the right sequences get us what we want. Soon these patterns of sound seem as natural as breathing. For stream of consciousness, read stream of words…<br />
<br />
Predictably, society prefers writers who don't meddle with the word sequences we all know and on which our identities depend, who treat syntax & grammar as if they were natural & inevitable, as if from birth the brain was made up of words, English words.…<br />
<br />
Foreign languages are unsettling. They remind us how arbitrary the mental world we live in is. Silence is worse. When we try to imagine consciousness without words, when we think of a day, even an hour, without any words in the head, we are overcome by a kind of vertigo. As when we think of death…"
timparks  words  conciousness  classideas  language  english  languages  culture  humanity  storytelling  literature  knowledge  stories  power  books  wisdom  from delicious
august 2010 by robertogreco
Language Log: Hed, dek, lede, graf, tk: live with it
"The legend is that the strange spellings of these words were developed in order to help distinguish meta-journalistic comments in copy (e.g. "dek tk") from the stuff that's meant to be printed. I have no idea whether that's true. But several of these terms are useful, however spelled. In particular, dek/deck and lede/lead don't really have any good alternatives; and graf and hed are conveniently reduced forms of paragraph and headline; and tk is a lot more succinct than "to be supplied at some point in the future", or whatever.
english  jargon  journalism  language  abbreviations  spelling  misspellings 
august 2010 by robertogreco
Purdue OWL [Purdue Online Writing Lab] [Grammar blog at: http://thegrammargang.blogspot.com/]
"The Purdue University Writing Lab and Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement. The Purdue Writing Lab serves the Purdue, West Lafayette, campus and coordinates with local literacy initiatives. The Purdue OWL offers global support through online reference materials and services."
language  grammar  howto  teaching  english  esl  education  references  purdue  citations  writing  tutorials  tips  via:javierarbona 
july 2010 by robertogreco
6+1 Trait® Definitions | Education Northwest
"The 6+1 Trait® Writing analytical model for assessing and teaching writing is made up of 6+1 key qualities that define strong writing. These are:
writing  narrative  presentation  literacy  english  education  curriculum  teaching  voice  conventions  organization  ideas  via:lukeneff  classideas 
july 2010 by robertogreco
What the Media is Saying About Bilingualism « SpanglishBaby [via: http://twitter.com/thepolyglot/status/18948185200]
"The El País article starts by mentioning words like “carpeta” and “rufo,” the type of sounds that make me cringe whenever I hear them, especially when they come from my daughter’s own mouth – as I’ve written about in the past. And then goes on to explain what Spanglish means, according to sociolinguist David Divita: “It’s not making up words like rufo or adapting bad translations because you don’t know the original term. More and more, the argument is getting stronger that Spanglish comes from being bilingual, from the knowledge of two languages, and not from the lack of command of one of them.”"
language  spanish  english  spanglish  languages  bilingualism  srg 
july 2010 by robertogreco
Latin American Literature Inclusion in the High School English Classroom [.pdf]
teaching  english  translation  latinamerica  latino  literature  filetype:pdf  media:document 
july 2010 by robertogreco
On The Devil To Pay In The Backlands, or Grande Sertão: Veredas
"My name is Felipe Martinez and I am an independent researcher from San Diego, California. I am investigating the absence of Brazilian author João Guimarães Rosa (1908-1967) in the English-speaking world. This investigation aims to acquaint the reader with a novel counted as one of the greatest of the twentieth century. I welcome any and all inquiries, submissions of articles, essays, translations, etc. concerning João Guimarães Rosa. I may be contacted at AMISSINGBOOK@gmail.com."
guimarãesrosa  grandesertão  literature  trandlation  english  brasil  portuguese 
july 2010 by robertogreco
I Write Like
"Check what famous writer you write like with this statistical analysis tool, which analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them to those of the famous writers.
analysis  language  literature  comparison  writing  fun  english  authors  classideas  via:robinsloan 
july 2010 by robertogreco
a m l - on translation [great piece by Ana María León that meanders back and forth between English y español]
"for the past few days i’ve been doing research at the cca, as part of a month’s long grant. already living in montreal becomes an constant bilingual challenge, but working at the cca brings the task of translation to another level. with italian, brazilian, spanish, mexican, and french (and one ecuadorian!) scholars doing research in the same place, our conversations constantly switch from language to language. politeness often makes us change language with the arrival of a new colleague—often at the expense of the flow of conversation. it is, of course, extremely fun and stimulating, but it foregrounds the bumps and wrinkles that translation involves, not only between languages, but also between disciplines and even research schools."
anamaríaleón  translation  aldorossi  english  language  spanish  languages  conversation  flow  manfredotafuri  marinawaisman  tone  meaning 
july 2010 by robertogreco
lukeneff's flipforlessonplans Bookmarks on Delicious
Another great stream of classroom material courtesy Luke Neff
lukeneff  classideas  english  writing  reading  literature  language  teaching  tcsnmy  words 
july 2010 by robertogreco
Tuttle SVC: The Common Core Will make High School English More Like This
"They have to change the structure of high school English to make in more amenable to "data-driven instruction." If you don't believe me, read the article, then look at the difference between the high school standards you use now and the Common Core." [At minimum, see the long quote that Tom provides.]
tomhoffman  commoncore  standards  nationalstandards  education  policy  english  teaching  schools  us  scary 
july 2010 by robertogreco
YouTube - David Crystal - Texts and Tweets: myths and realities
"Professor David Crystal, one of the world's leading linguistic experts, challenges the myth that new communication technologies are destroying language" [via: http://www.minddump.org/the-best-texters-tend-to-be-the-best-spellers via: http://twitter.com/TeachPaperless/status/17732152590]
davidcrystal  linguistics  twitter  texting  language  english  myth  communication  writing  reading  tcsnmy  chat  sms 
july 2010 by robertogreco
SpeEdChange: Learning the Names of the World
"watching World Cup 2010...hoping we are slowly moving towards solving long-term pet peeve...Calling other nations by bizarre, antique, mis-names...works against international understanding...
english  geography  irasocol  classideas  language  languages  identity  naming  countries  cities  names 
july 2010 by robertogreco
NCTE Secondary Section: Knowing is Doing
"After 5 years of teaching, I can safely say that teachers who best know their subject are those who don't need the worksheets. Let me explain.
ambiguity  teaching  learning  tcsnmy  pedagogy  english  literature  worksheets  howto  via:lukeneff 
july 2010 by robertogreco
STANFORD Magazine: May/June 2010 > Features > Cognitive Scientist Lera Boroditsky
"Can language shape how we think? A Stanford researcher says yes, and her work speaks volumes about what makes people tick."
culture  language  neuroscience  people  perception  psychology  science  visualization  mindset  spanish  english  leraboroditsky  russian  mandarin  linguistics  languages  tcsnmy  topost  wcydwt  cognition  philosophy  framing  context 
june 2010 by robertogreco
Free Range: Hash : The New Yorker [via: http://twitter.com/tcarmody/status/17384240207]
"The sneakiest way to use a hashtag is to set apart a word or phrase or name in your tweet and make it look like you very accidentally blurted it out, which is an extension of the muttered-into-a-handkerchief usage, but with a slight Freudian twist. Here, the hashtag is like a bit of chicken wire between what you are consciously and deliberately saying, and what just happened to slip out, especially useful when you are making a comment and pretending that you absolutely, positively will not name names, and then, whoops, it just came tumbling out. A hashtag is not a secure perimeter, after all! Just look at how holey a hashtag is—it’s only chicken wire, and sometimes things—bad things, names and particulars, details, information, those sorts of things—do manage to make it through. To wit:
language  twitter  hashtags  susanorlean  english  punctuation  meaning  writing  communication  humor  2010 
june 2010 by robertogreco
De inventione punctus | Bookfuturism [Also at: http://snarkmarket.com/2010/5792]
"All signs suggest punctuation is in flux. In particular, our signs that mark grammatical (and sometimes semantic) distinctions are waning, while those denoting tone and voice are waxing. Furthermore, signs with a slim graphical profile (the apostrophe and comma, especially) are having a rough go of it. Compared to the smiley face or even the question mark, they're too visually quiet for most casual writers to notice or remember, even (or especially) on our high-def screens.
english  writing  punctuation  language  history  future  change  bookfuturism  technology  communication  reading 
june 2010 by robertogreco
Popular collective nouns on All Sorts
via: http://kottke.org/10/06/collective-nouns-illustrated
collective  wordplay  words  english  lists  language  humor  collectivenouns 
june 2010 by robertogreco
‘So’ Pushes to the Head of the Line « Anand Giridharadas [via: http://www.clusterflock.org/2010/06/meet-the-flockers-luke-neff.html]
"So, it is widely believed that the recent ascen­dancy of “so” began in Sil­i­con Val­ley. The jour­nal­ist Michael Lewis picked it up when research­ing his 1999 book “The New New Thing”: “When a com­puter pro­gram­mer answers a ques­tion,” he wrote, “he often begins with the word ‘so.”’ Microsoft employ­ees have long argued that the “so” boom began with them.
so  via:lukeneff  culture  english  semantics  slang  language  psychology  meaning  linguistics  journalism  writing  words  speech 
june 2010 by robertogreco
Universal acid « Snarkmarket
"The philoso­pher Dan Den­nett, in his ter­rific book Darwin’s Dan­ger­ous Idea, coined a phrase that’s echoed in my head ever since I first read it years ago. The phrase is uni­ver­sal acid, and Den­nett used it to char­ac­ter­ize nat­ural selection—an idea so potent that it eats right through other estab­lished ideas and (maybe more impor­tantly) institutions—things like reli­gion. It also resists con­tain­ment; try to say “well yes, but, that’s just over there” and nat­ural selec­tion burns right through your “yes, but.”"
robinsloan  snarkmarket  danieldennett  evolution  religion  capitalism  globish  english  computing  cloudcomputing  cloud  comments  naturalselection  universalacid  understanding  creativity  whoah  gamechanging  conciousness 
june 2010 by robertogreco
English Acquisition Among Immigrants to the U.S. » Sociological Images
"Is it true that Spanish-speaking immigrants to the United States resist assimilation?
us  assimilation  immigration  spanish  language  english  languageacquisition  history  via:javierarbona 
june 2010 by robertogreco
News for You Online
"News for You Online.com is an online news source designed for people who are learning to read, write, or speak English. Seven new stories are posted weekly for 48 weeks a year. These engaging articles are based on world and national news events. They are written at reading levels 3-6 and ESL levels high-beginning and low-intermediate.
education  english  ged  learning  listening  pronunciation  reading  vocabulary  literacy  news  currentevents  ell  esl  classideas  tcsnmy  wcydwt 
june 2010 by robertogreco
Tinkerings » Patient Problem Solvers [via: http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=6929]
"So I’ve been thinking of ways to make kids patient problem solvers in language arts. We drill and kill all these rules for spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, and more. But I’m afraid kids lose a fundamental truth needed to understand their importance: Why are we doing this?
education  english  grammar  howto  wcydwt  classideas  learning  teaching  tcsnmy  writing  language  languagearts 
june 2010 by robertogreco
The Pleasures of Imagination - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education
"So while reality has its special allure, the imaginative techniques of books, plays, movies, and television have their own power. The good thing is that we do not have to choose. We can get the best of both worlds by taking an event that people know is real and using the techniques of the imagination to transform it into an experience that is more interesting and powerful than the normal perception of reality could ever be. The best example of this is an art form that has been invented in my lifetime, one that is addictively powerful, as shown by the success of shows such as The Real World, Survivor, The Amazing Race, and Fear Factor. What could be better than reality television?"
psychology  culture  imagination  creativity  games  fun  fiction  fantasy  consciousness  brain  art  entertainment  emotion  play  empathy  escape  videogames  narrative  via:lukeneff  film  tv  television  reality  realitytv  storytelling  leisure  english  mind  writing  pleasure  behavior  science  paulbloom  humans 
june 2010 by robertogreco
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