Overview: Language is what defines us as human. We seem to be born with an innate capacity for language. We all speak at least one, and yet if anyone asks: "What is a language?" how do we respond? The science of Linguistics helps us to put our finger on the answer to this nagging question. If this topic is of interest to you, then you are a member of the club and are welcome to read on, comment, add questions or answer those posed by others. Enjoy!
Friday, February 8, 2008
Communicative language teaching methodology
Soon to come: A description of communicative language teaching methodology
I've been teaching languages, specifically, Spanish, French and Latin for 43 years. Last June I retired from teaching at the Abraham Joshua Heschel High School in New York city. I took my M.A. in Linguistics at CUNY. My masters thesis was an analysis of Zulu and a preparation of drills to teach Zulu to English speakers. I have studied the structures of at least 25 languages among which are English, Spanish, French, Italian, Latin, Ladino, Greek, Yiddish, German, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Hebrew, Mandarin, Zulu and Ancient Egyptian. I taught the first college-level Linguistics course ever taught in the NYC public high schools, and had three sections of 34 students per section for several years running. For me, linguistics is the chemistry of language. It is a science and is capable of as rigorous analysis as any of the physical sciences.
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