9 Mar
2000
9 Mar
'00
12:02 p.m.
That assessment is quite correct! What's not so obvious, is that the fact
that we have a special class of student, commonly known as "speakers of
other languages" hence the term ESOL for Education for Speakers of Other
Languages, is a federal-court-mandated effort to provide this somewhat
nebulous group of pupils with an additional opprotunity to secure the
education to which the constitution apparently entitles them.
However, what's not so widely recognized is that this program has priority
over mainstream classes. Consequently, as more kids' parents find a way to
get their children so-classified, local school admistrators (most the
principals) are forced to provide limited-size classes for the ESOL program.
Since the mandate is not accompanied by any additional funding, the
administrator has to take teachers from the mainstream classes and assign
them to the ESOL program where class size is limited to 22 pupils per
teacher rather than the more common 30-35 seen in mainstream classes.
That's why so many people were so PI**ED about the "EBONYX" (as it was
spelled in our local papers, though that doesn't make it correct, by any
means) thing. This would have mandated that all users of that particular
pseudo-language were entitled to smaller classes, i.e. more personal
attention, than the mainstream.
While I don't doubt for a moment that there might be potential for great
benefit to those students qualifying for the smaller class-sizes, it's
taking those resources from the already overstressed mainstream education
program.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Strickland <jim(a)calico.litterbox.com>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Thursday, March 09, 2000 12:38 PM
Subject: Re: languages
establish
Well,
throw-in-the-towel is known (at least the acording
phrase is in wide use in Germany - just most don't know
the orgin), but what is Ebonyx ?
Ebonyx was the attempt by some boards of education in California to the slang associated with Black culture as a language
so they could get
funding
to teach english as a second language. It was always a
brazen attempt to
get
funding, nothing more.
simplified
And, Jim, for the Grammer ting, don't forget that English
is a bastard based on (at least) 5 languages from 3 different
language families (No Offense Ment).
None taken. You're absolutely correct. English took much of its structure
from Norweigan, and much of its vocabulary from Norman French, and both. It picks up vocabulary from everywhere, and when
that fails words
are
simply made up. I'm thinking here of Scuba and
Radar, wich both started
out
as acronyms and are now ordinary nouns.
*snip*
mark.
Serious, ain't we are going exactly the same
way with
programming languages as with real ones ? Just instead
of centuries, it took only some dozend years to go from
Machine code (grunting sounds) to ADA (Goethes Poems)
*laugh* I'm not sure I'd compare any computer language to Goethe, but it's
a good analogy...
and only less than 10 years to fall back to C ?
Gruss
H.
I think Hans is making a bit of a joke here, but he's not far from the A living language is not a static thing. It grows. It
evolves. Parts are
added and other parts dropped as the society that speaks it changes. Until
recently (ie the last 20 years or so) English was taught in a very
prescriptive
way - x is the correct way to speak, where x is
whatever dictionary and/or
grammar system you embrace.
However in the late 60s (things take time to
filter into the education system) some language experts - notably Webster's
Dictionary among them - began to realise that language *changes* over time.
Websters dictionary embraced a descriptive philosophy - we're not in the
business of telling you how you SHOULD speak, only how you DO speak.
One of the results of this was the formation of the American Heritage
dictionary, which clung to the prescriptive philosophy.
Ultimately I think the descriptive folks are correct. While I agree with
Dick
and others that as the English language is simplified
it looses alot of its
elegance and beauty, I'd rather see that than the total stagnation that
results
with rigid prescriptiveism. A great example of what
happens to a language
when
it is artificially prevented from changing is French.
With the
establishment
of the French Acadamy and the legislation against
borrowings from other
languages, in a few hundred years French went from the language of
diplomacy
to a linguistic backwater, populated with grotesque and
awkward words
created
to describe things where a borrowing had been
previously used.
None of this changes the fact that today's schools are doing a lousy job
teaching people to communicate. (In the US). One need only look at the
web
to see this - US domains which are so cluttered and
badly designed and
where
the text is so obtuse and irrellivant that the entire
page is useless
abound.
(Yes, in this graphical age, I think page layout should be taught alongside
some understanding of grammar and spelling). Schools are instead focusing
on
self esteem building, instead of teaching and letting
students develop self
esteem when they *succeed*. Obviously grinding a student's ego into the
floor
every time they mess up is the wrong way to go about
teaching anything, but
so is pushing self esteem above education. *sigh* If I had children, I
would
definately feel ripped off by todays schools.
Anyway, I've gone on much longer in this message than intended, but in
addition
to hitting a nerve this thread also hit stuff I studied
in college, so...
:)
--
Jim Strickland
jim(a)DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com
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