What is English? (Repost from Cambridge English South East Europe's blog)

I've been thinking recently about the word 'like'.  It's a confusing word for students, because really early on, they will come across it as a verb and as a preposition (e.g.  I like vegetables like carrots and tomatoes.)  Then, they will come across the verb followed by both the gerund AND the infinitive. (e.g.  I like swimming in the sea.  I like to swim in the evenings.)  And I was wondering how long it would be till 'like' as a noun appears in the dictionary.  (How many likes did that photo get?)  
So today, I thought I'd repost a blog post I received in my inbox today because I thought it was really  interesting and it starts off by talking about the frequency of use of the word 'like'!

What is English?

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English speakers who are 18 or under use the word ‘like’ in conversation over five times as often as speakers who are over 70; ‘because’ is the most misspelled English word globally; the word ‘love’ is said and written over six times more frequently than the word ‘hate’. We know all of this because of a multibillion-word database called the Cambridge English Corpus.

If the Cambridge English Corpus, created by Cambridge University Press, were to be printed on single-sided A4 paper and stacked into a tower, it would stand 600 m high, almost twice the height of the tallest building in the UK. If it was read aloud at an average reading speed, it would take 88,766 hours to read; working 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, that’s 49 years.

The multibillion-word Cambridge English Corpus is a constantly updated record of how English is being used today in all its forms – spoken, written, business, academic, learner and e-language. Amassed over two decades, the electronic database draws on sources that range from the more expected (books, newspapers, journals, radio, television) to the more surprising (song lyrics, junk mail, voicemail messages and recordings from flight control).

Cambridge University Press researchers use the Corpus to investigate the most common words, phrases and grammatical patterns in English, and then use the results to improve English language teaching books.

“Context in English is important,” explained Dr Claire Dembry, Language Research Manager, “we analyse patterns in language and how English changes depending on context and circumstances. For learners of English to become proficient, these sorts of subtle differences can be extremely important, and it is only by amassing a vast number of examples that our writers, lexicographers and researchers can determine how best to describe the patterns of English in our learning materials.”

It all began in the 1990s, when a few CDs of American newspapers in electronic form were loaded into a database that both stored the data and ‘queried’ it, working out the relationships between words. Gradually, the embryo corpus was extended with further material and, today, almost any conceivable form of English can be found in the database.

At an early stage, Cambridge University Press realised that just as important as knowing how English is being used, is the knowledge of the features of English that learners find difficult. “This decision, which led to the Cambridge Learner Corpus, had far-reaching effects and has become probably the single most important unique selling point for the Press’s English Language Teaching publishing,” said Ann Fiddes, Global Language Research Manager.

It turns out that words such as because (misspelled as becouse), which (wich), accommodation (accomodation), advertisement (advertisment) and beautiful (beatiful) are the top five words most commonly misspelled by learners globally.

To arrive at conclusions like this has taken years of painstaking identification (and tagging with computer readable codes) of misspellings and grammatical errors made in Cambridge English Language Assessment Examinations in the Cambridge Learner Corpus.

Comprehensive information about the learners who originally wrote the exam scripts – first language, nationality, age, gender, scores, and so on – is stored.  These data, along with the ‘error tagging’, has enabled Cambridge University Press to publish materials addressing directly the different types of errors of individual markets and individual language groups.

“This is hugely important for the Press and has meant that we have, for example, been able to publish the successful English for Spanish Speakers editions of global products, and become the market leader in Corpus-based publishing,” explained Fiddes.

Now, Cambridge University Press and Cambridge English Language Assessment have joined forces and set their sights on academic English. 

The Cambridge English Corpus already contains over 400 million words of academic English – the largest and most extensive collection of its kind.  It takes as its source written and spoken academic language at undergraduate, postgraduate and professional level from a range of academic disciplines and worldwide institutions. New research is pulling in data from sixth-form students as well as other academic levels, covering a much wider range of disciplines, genres and language backgrounds.

“Some interesting patterns have already emerged,” said Fiddes. “In our collection of academic English samples, the size adjectives significant, considerable, substantial and serious are much more frequent than big, massive, enormous and tremendous. In spoken English, however, big tops the list. We also found that in academic English, verbs such as solve, pose, face, resolve, tackle and circumvent frequently occur with the noun problem. These kinds of insights help us to develop a better understanding of the language skills needed by students at English-speaking universities.”

As part of their current research, the team welcomes contributions of academic English to the corpus, and invite anyone interested in participating to contact them for more information (www.cambridge.org/camcae).

“Corpus work is very closely linked with advances in technology and we are investigating automating many of our manual systems, such as error tagging and speech transcription,” added Fiddes. “Our research has already allowed us to partially automate the mark up of errors in learner writing.

“These technologies will increase the speed at which we can maintain our grasp on what English is now, and what it might be in the future. ”

For more information about the Cambridge English Corpus, please visit www.cambridge.org/corpus

Amazing colours

I have been finding out what arrangements need to be made (and steps taken) for a colour blind student who will shortly be taking the Cambridge English: Starters Test in a school here in Cantabria.  Cambridge English Language Assessment have procedures for dealing with many different special needs

Obviously, because colour plays an important part in the Young Learner Tests, colour blind candidates would be at a great disadvantage if they took the test without these considerations being made.

Back in March, I wrote about types of colour blindness and recommended loading pictures onto Vischeck to see what they look like to a colour blind student.

Recently, I was reading about the Stroop Effect in a hotel magazine.  Click on this link to take a test and find out for yourself what the Stroop Effect is!

Fun and intriguing I found!

I then fed words from the Stroop Effect Test into an online tool (Vischeck didn't seem to be working so I found another site to do this: http://asada.tukusi.ne.jp/cvsconv/

http://informationbombardment.com/fun-stuff/stroop-effect/

Deuteranope vision

Tritanope vision

Notice how the words 'black' and 'purple' almost disappear if you have Tritanope vision!

And, of course, I found a great talk on Ted.com.  Fascinating.  I don't know if I could stand to have colour sounds playing in my head all day, but I suppose that Neil Harbisson's life has been enriched by being able to 'perceive' colour in a different way.

Artist Neil Harbisson was born completely color blind, but these days a device attached to his head turns color into audible frequencies. Instead of seeing a world in grayscale, Harbisson can hear a symphony of color -- and yes, even listen to faces and paintings

And of course, we often hear about colours being related to moods.  I found this image on pinterest the other day and that inspired me to bring together all my colour related pictures and videos and information and write this post!

The Educational Experiences That Change a Life

Almost a year ago now, I shared a blog challenge by Brad Patterson with you.  He set two challenges:

1) Challenge one: what is your “teaching is like____ ” metaphor?

2) Challenge two: what experience, activity, or lesson that is completely non-teaching related has brought more to your classroom than anything else?

I told you that for me, teaching is like gardening.  

I still haven't shared my answer to the second challenge.  

I must admit that I find it difficult to pin down one experience, activity or lesson that has brought more to my classroom than anything else.  

Anyway, back to the subject of today's post.  I was looking for something in my 'For later' bookmarks folder and came across a New York Times article that I'd saved a good while back.

'The Educational Experiences That Change a Life'.

I re-read the article - a collection of short stories and explanations by various people, and I thought I'd share one or two of their experiences with you.

Chris Kim

Just Ask. Then Keep Asking.

By LISA RANDALL, professor of physics, Harvard University and author of "Knocking on Heaven's Door"

I was shy the way many geeky girls can be. Professors hardly noticed that they rarely answered girls’ questions before some boy who didn’t actually know the answer interrupted. But a professor who later became my adviser gave me the best advice I ever received, which was to not be afraid to speak up and ask questions. Suddenly teachers were speaking directly to me, and my questions were usually good enough that I could detect the relief of other students who actually had the same ones, reassuring me I was doing the right thing. Now, as a professor, I know not to see classes as passive experiences. The occasional interruption keeps people engaged and illuminates subtle points, and in research even leads to new research directions. Just participating and questioning makes your mind work better. Don’t you agree?

The comment Lisa makes about boys interrupting girls brought to mind something my RSA Diploma Tutor said - that teachers statistically tend to pay more attention and listen to things boy students say in class.  I have always made a point of trying to listen to everyone and give all my students attention, even if they don't stick up their hand and ask.  There are always ways of (and moments for) reaching even the shyest, quietest students.

One or two of the other things Lisa says are worth bearing in mind.

 a professor who later became my adviser gave me the best advice I ever received, which was to not be afraid to speak up and ask questions.

Now, as a professor, I know not to see classes as passive experiences. 

Just participating and questioning makes your mind work better.

In the second short account that I have chosen to share with you, Michelle Rhee highlights the fact that in our classes, we have a wide range of personalities and types of students. It is important to reach and engage them all.  I think my analogy to gardening also mentioned this fact - that we need to be aware of the varying needs of our students to help them flourish.

Randy Sager

Calvin in Motion

By MICHELLE A. RHEE, founder and chief executive, Students First

When I was teaching second grade in Baltimore, there was an adorable but disruptive boy in my class named Calvin. He talked over me, talked over his friends and couldn’t participate in an appropriate way. I was constantly urging him to sit still and be quiet, and I even held one of those awfully serious what-do-we-do meetings with his father. Nothing worked. Until the day I put a dustpan in Calvin’s hand. It all started when he threw a pile of pencil-­sharpener shavings all over the room during story time. I gave Calvin the dustpan and a brush and told him to clean up the mess. Then, I proceeded with the story. As I read, I heard Calvin mumbling while he twirled around with that dustpan. After a few minutes, to my astonishment, I realized Calvin was answering my questions about the story. He sounded like a model student. Never before had I imagined that I would get Calvin on task by telling him to do an activity that was entirely unrelated to my lesson. Because Calvin was a kinesthetic kid, or a physical learner, he could only focus on school if he was up and moving. From that day on, Calvin would play with manipulative toys and sometimes even take a lap around the classroom while I was instructing. He taught me that all kids learn in wildly different ways and that all children are reachable and teachable.

For me, I would say that I had two teachers who changed my life - and certainly led to me interest in languages and teaching - Mrs Luscombe, who was my French teacher in my second year of grammar school.  She somehow managed to convince me that languages were my 'thing' and inspired me not only to learn as much French as I could, but also to start improving and excelling in other subjects too.

And the other teacher - Mrs Martínez.  She walked into the second year of our 'O' level Spanish class.  We were due to take our exam 2 months later.  Our previous teacher (whose name I can't remember - wonder why?!!!) had taught us Spanish by saying things like 'This is un lápiz'.  I don't think she ever said a whole sentence in Spanish.

Anyway, Mrs Martínez burst into our class, speaking in Spanish from the first moment.  She was appalled at how little progress we'd made after 9 months of class, but egged us on and brought along Mr Martínez after school to give us conversation practice.  The whole class got A's!  

For me, a great teacher manages to convince you that learning is achievable, not without hard work, but reachable.

There is nothing more rewarding than bumping into a former student (or their parents) and them telling you how useful English has been to them and that they still remember your classes!