Grammar nazis?

[quote=“monkeytastic”]
are there any books on optimized immersion ironlady? I’m trying something like it with adult students I am teaching at the moment and trying to work out a methodical system so I don’t have to script everything I say. Can you recommend any shortcuts please?[/quote]

The continual conversational echoing of their non-grammatical statements with correction and without belittling worked very well for me for years with both adults and high school kids (one-on-one or small groups). It’s far less easy, perhaps impossible, to give that level of attention effectively to more than four or five at a time. And I don’t think you really need to analyse where each particular student’s head is at when you reply… they will all have different constructs inside their mind from whence their particular errors will flow, but the correction-echoing method doesn’t need an analysis of each one, and all the others hearing it will learn and reinforce from it too, even if that is not their own particular form of error.

Did you intentionally use “from whence” in a thread titled “grammar nazis”?

Yes, and it’s so nice of you to notice that my written expression and my (drunken drawling) spoken expression are totally different!

[quote=“urodacus”]
The continual conversational echoing of their non-grammatical statements with correction and without belittling worked very well for me for years with both adults and high school kids (one-on-one or small groups). It’s far less easy, perhaps impossible, to give that level of attention effectively to more than four or five at a time. .[/quote]

I don’t think so. Even in a larger group, if you do any correction, you can still do it by modeling.

I agree with that, but I do think that it is less effective in a larger group as each student then receives less correction of their own problem set. They still get reinforcement of correct phrasing, etc, and can see how it applies to other students’ problems, which will of course work if they have similar concerns.

I don’t know, I’m not a language education specialist. Perhaps using the word ‘impossible’ was a mistake, because, as we all know, “Impossible is Nothing”.

I think I get what you guys mean by optimised immersion in an EFL setting:

TPR or realia used always for introduction of new language. Students passively take in language until they feel comfortable to speak.
No correction of errors, as long as communication is achieved.
English is used everywhere in the school, front desk, mealtimes etc.

Is that basically correct?

No.

OK.

A Google search of the term “optimized immersion” shows that it can mean the optimal use of certain chemicals in the preservation of paper documents, the optimal chemical content of water used in the rapid cooling of poultry carcasses, the optimal use of a bamboo-leaf-derived antioxidant in the preparation of crisps and French fries, and a number of other things.

But I think in the context of this thread, it means something like the following:

[quote=“ironlady”]"[O]ptimized immersion" . . . means total comprehension of what’s going on at all times as a foundation for acquisition. Doing that usually requires some use of a native or common language. . . .[/quote] forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopi … 1&start=40

Cheers, I understand what’s going on now.

I’m not clear if you’re referring to modeling correction only or all individual correction. I agree that what you say is true of individual correction in general. I’m not ready to move to “no correction” myself, although I have been taking measures to make it more focused and less intrusive. What I like about the modeling is that my students perceive the correction as important and so pay quite close attention to it. I can communicate the corrections in a variety of different ways; it often winds up being as close to authentic communication as you can come in a classroom situation. Over the years it seems to have good effects on the students’ listening and responding skills.

Teaching children as I do, with them advancing in a group, and as I often partially focus on a particular grammatical construction, “similar concerns” definitely comes into play for me.

My groups in the past tended to be advanced adults with a very wide range of language learning and using backgrounds… so the corrections all stemmed from very different underlying errors. I sometimes taught Media Studies classes to 30-40 uni students in English, but then i did not care specifically about their English problems, as I was not teaching them English. I did still use the correction-echoing method with them, though, and noticed some improvement over a semester, but that probably came more from the fact that they were forced to actually use English in a more real-world manner.

I guess different styles work better for different ages and groups, but as I have said before, I don’t claim to be an expert in language pedagogy.

Real grammar nazis (a spook of course) lol. This is a downfall spoof made by a teacher on grammar nazis. Quite amusing for those with a sense of humor. I like the bit about not ending the sentence with a preposition. I have heard that one a few times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8fbrUjjivw

Should I get irritated by Business Insider qualifying Superlatives, or am I being pedantic?
I make many mistakes, but Teaching / writing for a Publication ?

“The Most Ugliest Car Ever”

TopCars

Ha. The quality of grammar for nearly all mainstream and non-mainstream news websites is just pathetic, pure and simple. No other reason than to say that the rise of text messaging (“imho”, “iirc”, etc.) and smartphone use (auto-correct, etc.) has led to this phenomenon. Parents nowadays need to be more proactive in correcting their children’s writing exercises, because it’s also coming from the schools.

This is serious. Time to call in the cats…

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“Otto Correct” made me laugh.

Laughing would be a serious error.