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The Grammar Wizard

  10/07/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

A poster posted: “I remember being taught, and therefore have always taught my students, that when you modify a body part, you need the definite (Continue Reading)

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Connections between culture and language

  10/07/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I read the following post on a Latin list: “I tell my students, as some of you have heard me say, that language does not (Continue Reading)

Culture

Why stories are good for us

  10/03/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Frank Smith wrote the following: “Stories are our way of making sense of the world. If we can’t make up a story about something we (Continue Reading)

Anecdotes

“my” as possessive pronoun

  10/02/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

A discussion on one of the listservs revolves around whether the neat categorization of ’my’ as a possessive adjective and ’mine’ as a possessive pronoun (Continue Reading)

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Subjunctive

  09/25/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

A post on a language teacher Listserv referred us to a site dealing with Spanish grammar. There the subjunctive is treated. I got frustrated reading (Continue Reading)

Anecdotes

Memorization

  09/24/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Here’s a post on language learning that reflects the common belief that we learn our native language the same way we learn algebra. “It’s not (Continue Reading)

Anecdotes

Hold it! Hold it! Hold it!

  09/24/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Protests. Warnings. Outrage. Denials. Empathy. Sympathy. More outrage. More protests. Jena, Louisiana? No, Columbia University. Guess who’s coming to speak? Good ol’ that guy whose (Continue Reading)

Politics

Spreading Democracy to Jena and…..?

  09/22/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I am a sixty-five year old African American woman and a retired school counselor. I am just appalled at what is going on around the (Continue Reading)

Politics

Anytown

  09/13/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Back in 77 or so, I volunteered as an advisor to a human relations youth camp. The kids were all 16, about 120 of them, (Continue Reading)

Anecdotes, Culture

Response to David’s post

  09/08/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

In a message dated 9/8/2007 8:26:57 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, pbarrett@COX.NET writes: David, the attack of 9/11 led to the attack on Afghanistan, not on (Continue Reading)

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Response to Godfrey’s post re multiculturalism

  09/08/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Here is Godfrey’s post: So it seems you are saying that informing American students about other people and their cultures will not have a strong (Continue Reading)

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Ebonics Redux

  09/01/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Here it is again. The Houston Police Department has put out an oh so clever “ghetto dictionary of Ebonics”. Just as we saw in 1994, (Continue Reading)

Politics

Two Days in Middle School

  08/31/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I had to throw over my job teaching Sp at a charter school so I’m subbing now, 2 days at a Middle School, and how (Continue Reading)

Anecdotes

Reply to Godfrey

  08/25/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I don’t have the room here to demonstrate how languages balance themselves when some form is “lost” i.e. becomes moribund and eventually dies out. I’m (Continue Reading)

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Adding new words

  08/25/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Two examples from my own speech of how words can be misinterpreted. About 45 years ago I made a friend (he’s still a very close (Continue Reading)

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Reply to Alex’ post – what is communicative teaching?

  08/23/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Talk about Pandora’s box!! It’s like asking a politician what he’ll do for us. OK, communicative approach…. With a teaching certificate, you must have taken (Continue Reading)

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similarities between teaching and psychotherapy

  08/20/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

True confession time: I’m a bit of a mystic. Not in the sense that I believe in things unseen but in the sense that I (Continue Reading)

Anecdotes

To consider

  08/19/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Just off the top of my head, an example of folk etymology on my part. I thought “sleight of hand” was spelled “slight”. Altho both (Continue Reading)

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How People Slide Around in Arguments

  07/28/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

In a recent long and heated exchange on a listserv I saw something over and over which seems to be inherent in human thought processes. (Continue Reading)

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Proficiency and Mastery

  07/27/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

My own take on them is that proficiency is a term from SLA (second language acquisition) and refers to what a student can do with (Continue Reading)

Anecdotes

How Much To Practice – a post

  07/26/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Here are some examples to add to my response to Amy Pento’s response to Mary Young re: practice. Go to the flteach list and read (Continue Reading)

Anecdotes

Now We Know What It’s Like….

  07/23/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Josh Rushing, reading from his book, Mission Al-Jazeera, tells of operating out of Washington, D.C. for the English-language service of Al-Jazeera, the Middle Eastern news (Continue Reading)

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Good Old Timothy Mason

  07/22/2007       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Back in the 90s, Timothy Mason was a frequent contributor to flteach. He has a series of responses to the battle between Krashen and Ron (Continue Reading)

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