Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology | Video on TED.com

My lesson for today will be about this interesting post.
The students will watch the video, then I will give them the transcript to fill in the blanks for the missing articles.  Afterwards there should be time to watch the video again and go over the transcript.

an uncertain History of the English article

The history of the definite article ©Adam Knott, 2006-06-09

In Old English there were many different kinds of articles, these could be definate or indefinate, but they also declined. In Old English if you wanted to say ‘the’ there was only one kind of ‘the’, which however depended on where it was. You could also say ‘the’ by saying ‘a’, although this also declined. This is called the definate article. ‘The’ is called the indefinate article.

The form of the article depended on where they were. If they came before something else they were definate, and if they came after it they were called either definate or indefinate. It was also a matter of sex. If the article came before something of the female gender then it would have different forms dependant on wether the female was an object. The same happened with male genders and neuters like ships. Ships were neutered in Anglo-Saxon. Gloves were invariantly feminine. Bishops could be anything. This is called infection.

Many articles could mean at least two things, and there was also a great deal of ambaguity in the system. For example if you wanted to refer to a female object, such as a glove, you said ‘tha’, and if you wanted to refer to two male objects you also said ‘tha’. This meant that the Anglo-Saxons didn’t know whether someone was male or female (with the exception of ships, that were always neutered). However this ambaguity was eventually unhelpful.

Unfortunately scholars do not actually know where the indefinate article ‘the’ actually came from. Some people think is came from the masculine ‘se’, because ‘the’ was easier to say. But some people think that it was imported into England, maybe in the saddle-bags of a monk. Some people also think that the indefinate article was actually borrowed from the Norse.

The definate article ‘a’ is easier to say therefore it was more widespread. It also had a varient form, which was borrowed from the Norse. This is ‘an’. You used the ‘an’ type before words not beginning with a sharp sound, and you used ‘a’ in front of words beginning with a soft sound or a glottal stop. However the variant form ‘an’ became ‘a’, because if there were two sharp nasals in a row you only could say one of them. An example of this is the word ‘an Norse’. This eventually became ‘a horse’, because there were two sharp nasals there in the beginning. This development logically gave rise to further ambaguity, because the Vikings were not actually horses. Therefore ‘the’ was preferred by many speakers., because it was less meaningful and it was also easier to say. This is called the Easy Articulation Argument.

Some people think that the word ‘ye’ was also an indefinate article. This is actually untrue, despite the existance of words like ‘Ye Olde Cocke Inne’. But ‘ye’ is in fact definately a definate pronoun, and it was only used by printers who were trying to justify their pages. Because it only has two letters ‘ye’ was also easy to say, and it saved space when you were trying to justify things. Nevertheless it was never a widespread article, and in fact later it became a pronoun in its own rite. Although it is still used in hymms like ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’. Here, ‘ye’ can mean either ‘you’ or ‘the’, which is indefinate and ambiguious.

By 1126 the system of articles had matured and there was only the distinction between the indefinate form ‘the’, whose underlying article was ‘an’, and the definate form, whose underlyer was ‘the’ or ‘an’. These forms had nothing to do with sex anymore, but they were highly responsive to phonologists, since these kept interfering.

Posted this without permission, but I'm not claiming any credit for this erudite piece...

Snap!

Today we are playing snap!, rules are here.
The game is here.
I chose the most frequently missed questions from the article test I gave them at first lesson we had.

The article test

I have half the tests graded now, and am in the middle of going through the data, trying to categorize the results to see what there is to be learned from them.
I found a fairly good game for practicing articles here.

Yes, I met students again

In fact the same students...I meet my real students at 1545 tomorrow...it's only a day away.

From Teaching in Rivne

They look like nice kids don't they, too bad they're not my students...

Yes, I met students

But not MY students!  It's only the 3rd time I've gone to the university thinking it's time to get into my job, and here it's the wrong group they had me lined up for...oh well I sat in on the lesson and talked to them a bit, listened to them talk and so on.  My real class is tomorrow...1535

Meeting my students

Today I'm invited to new students in a situation where I'm to monitor a class where they're being taught by their regular teacher. As I think about that I like this shared by Jim Scrivener:

I remember the first time I worked as a teacher in Ukraine; I'd had no training and I wanted them all to be my friends. I tried to be scintillating and fun, but I never felt like my efforts were repaid by genuine friendliness. I'm more realistic about that now, but still it's always exciting and interesting to meet a group of students for the first time...

from Pat

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AfJcji740qJ5ZGNrbm05Y2tfOWdwcXBzcmZk&hl=en

An interesting video

English in Romania


link

How to teach article tips

http://bogglesworldesl.com/indefinitearticles.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_4883905_teach-definite-indefinite-articles-english.html
http://esl.about.com/library/beginner/blathe.htm
article game
more games
tips

Ukrainian Grammer chart

This is off the topic of this blog, but nevertheless very useful if you are interested in the Ukrainian language:  a nice chart to consult when learning to speak Ukrainian
This is still incomplete.  Let me know about changes and errors.

one stop english

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?catid=58134&docid=145089

Sites I found dealing with the English article

stuff on the web on the article
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/540/01/
http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/articlestext.htm
http://esl.about.com/library/beginner/blathe.htm
http://usefulenglish.ru/grammar/part-3-specific-use-of-the
http://www.rpi.edu/web/writingcenter/esl.html http://www.english-test.net/esl/learn/english/grammar/ei008/esl-test.php
English Grammar Tests - Learn English Online at English-Test.net
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/allexercises/Grammar/Grammar-articles.asp
http://www.cosmolearning.com/videos/english-grammar-noun-article-agreement/
http://www.english-zone.com/index.php?ID=1
http://www.learn4good.com/languages/evrd_grammar/articles.htm
http://www.englishpage.com/grammar/Articles/Exercises/

The plan:

Researching methods of correcting typical errors made by Ukrainian students who study English as a foreign language.
These errors are typically use of the article and preposition, also pronunciation and collocation errors which have created a specific “Ukrainian English”.
This course will focus on these types of errors, by alerting students to the error, correcting the error, and with various types of practice hopefully eliminate the error before it becomes fossilized in the students' speech.
The university has agreed for me to work with the fourth year psychology students who are studying English as their only foreign language. The class is split into 2 subgroups, group A and group B. I will work with one subgroup, the other group is the control group.
At the beginning of the course both groups will take the same test. I will work with group A once a week; group B will not participate in my course.
My work with group A will consist of fill in the blank exercises, drills, communicative games, role play and other types of activities to teach and reinforce the correct forms in the students' minds. My weekly lessons will follow the set curriculum of the group's normal English classes.
After working with the fourth year students for one year I will administer a test again to both groups to check if there is any improvement in group A in comparison to group B. If students do well on this test I would recommend giving them enough points to raise their mark one point at the end of the spring term.
If possible I would like to repeat this experiment again the next year with the next group of fourth year students.

Materials used will include:

• news articles from the internet
• various textbooks including:

1. English Prepositions for Ukrainians by A.D. Sherick
2. Speak Authentic English by D. Puffalt and V. Starko
3. English Prepositions for Ukrainians by A. D. Sherick and V. F. Starko
4. Use of the Article in English compiled by A.D. Sherick
5. Practical English Usage by Michael Swan
6. The English Article in communicative patterns by H.I. Stoudenets, Kyiv - 2006

Advice from a seasoned teacher

I was telling a friend of mine about my assignment, here are her suggestions-

Methods of correcting errors made by students learning English:

1. Carry a yard stick during the lesson, when the student makes a language error hit him with the stick.
2. When the student makes a mistake go off into gales of laughter, encourage his fellow students to do likewise.
3. While the student is reciting make a list of his incorrect utterances, after he is finished read off all his errors to the class, slowly and painstakingly explaining each one.

This being all in fun of course. (read: "The fun of the course".)  Another fun thing is I get a week extra of summer time as my boss is in Moscow til next week some time!

The Assignment

My job for the next few months is to research a method to help Ukrainian speakers of English overcome the most frequent errors they make in English. These are mostly errors of article and preposition usage.
Why blog about it? People blog about lots of stuff and find an audience. Maybe the blog will serve to inspire me in this seemingly dull and monotonous task. Also I hope it will help me to be organised in my approach as I prepare to publish my weekly lesson plan here. Perhaps I will find others who are interested in the same subject. This would make it all very interesting if we could then corraborate.
Let the fun begin!