Random Quote
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
---- Gail Godwin
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
---- Malcom Forbes
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
---- Doug Larson
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
---- George Orwell
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
---- Thomas A. Edison
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
---- J. Robert Oppenheimer
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
---- H. G. Wells
A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.
---- anonymous
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
---- Isaac Asimov
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
---- Evan Esar
Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation.
---- Author Unknown
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
---- Franklin D. Roosevelt
To have another language is to possess a second soul.
---- Charlemagne
As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.
---- Mary Roninette Kowal
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
---- Albert Einstein
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
---- Sheik Abd-al-Kadir
Technology will not replace teachers...teachers who use technology will
probably replace teachers who do not.
---- Ray Clifford
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
---- Arnold Lobel
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
---- Jack Lynch
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
---- M. Cartmill
Learners Errors
I’ve just read The Significance of Learners’ Errors by S.P. Corder (1967) as one of the articles required for my SLA class. I found this article particularly interesting as the issues it raises, almost 40 years ago, are still highly relevant today. It is quite clear that this article is heavily influenced by Chomsky, not just because it mentions chomsky but also that it was written in the period when Universal Grammar was the pre-eminent explanation of language acquisition. While UG is not exactly the most applicable theory to the classroom this article delves into other areas of interest to the classroom teacher.
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WYSIWYG
I have 3 word a day’s running on my other web site, but Merriam-Webster only runs an email subscription service, so I rarely see their word a day. Anyhow over at Semantic Compositions there is a post about WYSIWYG from Merriam Webster.
SC says that he doesn’t really feel that it is a word worthy of the dictionary, but I feel that while it is awkward it certainly is utilitarian enough as well as very common amongst those who are involved in any sort of web design.
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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Feb 21, 2004 at 11:30 AM
About_Language | Vocabulary |
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Teach English, Study Korean
Korea Herald - Readers opinion by Timothy Chambers
But is learning Korean “worthwhile”? One teacher I met was doubtful. “Look,” she said, “I’m only going to be in Korea for a year. So why should I torture myself learning a language I’ll never use again?”
The rhetorical question deserves an answer, which is: If you want to teach English in Korea, then study Korean because it will make you a better teacher while you’re here and a better person after you’ve left.
This is so true. Being a language teacher it is very useful to take up language study regularly as it reminds one of what it feels like to be on the other side of the desk.
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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Feb 20, 2004 at 09:05 PM
Teaching | teaching_application |
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Avatar
Noun
- The incarnation of a Hindu deity, especially Vishnu, in human or animal form.
- An embodiment, as of a quality or concept; an archetype: the very avatar of cunning.
- A temporary manifestation or aspect of a continuing entity: occultism in its present avatar.
Todays word of the day.
It’s interesting to note that this definition does not really cover avatars in the internet sense of the word. By that I mean message boards and messenging services where next to the authors post is usually an image of some sort. I suppose that #3 comes closest in meaning to this.
Using Weblogs in Education
I read a post at Teachnology about another post at Edublog regarding teaching about or with weblogs and potential resistance by other educators. Some of the more obtuse comments the author reporst hearing include:
I’ve seen many educators who just can’t see possibilities with it. It is a little disconcerting at first. It is not a way that educators traditionally teach or communicate. Their immediate reaction seems to be one of trying to make it fit into something they already know. They want to convert it to a “regular” web page and don’t see how. Then they view it through one lens like a list of links, assignments, or random thoughts and they immediately toss it out as being of no value to what they do or want to do. Some equate it with teenage diaries and can’t get past that. Then some complain about the writing that their students do on the posts or comments.
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