You learn to read by reading, you learn to write by...

Reading.

It is, apparently, the key to everything (well, in terms of literacy, at least).

The latest issue of English Journal came the other day, and my old friend* Stephen Krashen had contributed an article.¹

Krashen's early articles were all about various language learning hypotheses, but these days he mainly writes articles that can be easily summarised by one phrase:

"Just read more books, dammit!"

His greatest and most oft cited Hypothesis was that language learners (First or Second) need language Input** - preferably input they can understand.  It seems such a simple concept, but it was quite radical in the day and still seems to slip the grasp of a lot of people involved in Education.

The idea was (and Krashen was one of the folk instrumental in promoting this) that if you want to improve your reading ability, you should read more texts and you should read more often.

This was tied into the idea that you learn to read by reading, you learn to write by writing, you learn to listen by listening and you learn to speak by speaking.

In this latest article, Krashen points out that there's research that indicates one part of that equation is a bit wrong:  you don't really learn to write by writing.  You improve your writing skills by reading more.

Writing, without corrective feedback, doesn't really do it (thank you, Stephen - I've felt this myself throughout my somewhat fruitless years studying German, but it's so nice to see it written in a citable article).

On the other hand, the more you read the more your brain absorbs how the written language works and what it should look like.

This is something I (and my colleagues) have often recommended to students as a way to improve the academic standard of their writing - that if you want to write well, you should read well written works.  It's interesting to realise it applies to writing skills across the board.

Krashen's article was, however, not actually about learning to write by reading - this was just something he was talking about (again) in order to add extra weight to the main crux of his article:  kids need more books far more than they need more tests.

The American government is busy trying to quantify education, by making things standardised and tested to the Nth degree.  Here in Australia, we're trying to do the same thing (although, it must be said, we are doing it rather badly).  Krashen would rather the powers that be put the money that would be spent on making and administering tests towards public and school libraries and better health care.

His theory is that poor literacy rates are directly related to high child poverty rates, and that you can't test poor children into becoming literate - you have to make sure they are fed, first, and then it's a good idea to give them something to read.

It's such a strangely simple yet profound idea.  So simple that any idiot paying the slightest bit of attention could probably come up with it.  So profound that it would never occur to anyone with the power to make it happen.

Go to the poorest neighbourhoods and invest heavily in local and school libraries, and make sure every kid has access to a decent breakfast and some books to read.  See what happens to literacy rates then.

What I'd like to add to this equation, though, is model readers.  It's not quite enough giving the kid a book and saying "go forth, young child, and read!"  It would be much better if they also had access to people who love books, and love to read them to kids.

Which is where Dolly Parton comes in: http://imaginationlibrary.com/

If you want kids to be more literate, start by a) giving them something to read and b) looking at what's going in in their lives that might stop them from reading.

It's not rocket science, but it's not happening.


Notes:
* Stephen Krashen is not actually my friend - I've never met the man.  I've just seen his name turn up a lot in my research.
** The Input Hypothesis.

References:

1. Krashen S. Access to books and time to read versus the common core state standards and tests. English Journal. 2013;103(2):21–29.

(You can read the article here, at Krashen's web site: http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/articles/access_to_books_and_times_to_read_versus_the_common_core.pdf)

License Plates

From the abstract for an article in the latest edition of Language Problems and Language Planning:

Since the 1990s, language-planning interventions have changed the alphabet on car number-plates in Cyprus three times, while a fourth change is expected to take place in line with the parliamentary decision of 2010.¹

I've not read the whole article, but the point it raises is that language planning can touch people's lives on a very practical level - showing that having a concept of ideologies of languages and language identity is a very important thing for government bodies at all levels to have.

1. Karoulla-Vrikki D. Which alphabet on car number-plates in Cyprus?: An issue of language planning, ideology and identity. Language Problems & Language Planning. 2013;37(3):249-270. doi:10.1075/lplp.37.3.03kar

What's in a format (or, paper is better)

I've recently purchased a Wii (yes, just in time for Nintendo to stop making them).  I've been thinking about exploring the world of games, and thought I'd jump in at the cheap end to work out if it suits me before laying out serious money for the latest toys.

As it seemed appropriate, when buying a Nintendo console, the first two games I've tried have been "classic" Nintendo franchises:  Mario Kart and Zelda.  May as well.

Mario Kart was a bit boring, I have to say (although, I'm probably not playing it properly, and I expect it would be more fun if I was racing against a real-live person, rather than the machine), but I've been enjoying Zelda.  It's quite supportive for a noob like me - giving me two entire tasks to complete just to get used to using the game before sending me off on the "serious" quest.  Although I did just spend an hour chasing a floating house around with a clay jar, and I still haven't figured out how to throw the dang thing in order to hit the bell, so that was annoying.

I've always suspected the story-based games would be a bucket of fun, and I think I might be right.  But I'm suddenly aware of one big, honking way in which honest-to-goodness paper-based products like books and board-games are better than video games.

You see, I'm enjoying this Zelda game, but it didn't occur to me that I wouldn't be able to play the other games in the series.  Zelda has been around for 25 years, and part of me always assumed I'd be able to play the other games like The Wind Waker or Ocarina of Time one day, when I felt like it.  But now I know that those games were only designed to work on particular consoles.

It doesn't matter that they were Nintendo games, and I'm using a Nintendo system.  Unless I have either a GameBoy or a WiiU, I can't play Wind Waker, and unless I have a Nintendo 64, I can't play Ocarina of Time.

You don't have that problem with books.  If you discover one of the later Dragons of Pern books, Miss Marple mysteries, Jack Reacher thrillers,or something like that, and you want to read the earlier books in the series, you can!

The thing about paper is that it's version free - and completely platform neutral.  If I buy a deck of cards in Switzerland, I can still play with them on my Australian table.  If I find a board game from thirty years ago, I can just open the box and play it.

I don't think the makers of video/computer games have really thought through the longevity issue.  Surely I'm not the only person who has just started playing games and wants to be able to find and play the "classic" games without waiting for a re-issue (which will, no doubt, be formatted for *another* console I don't have).

Paper.  Still No.1.

Flipping

Yes, it's the latest buzzy thing.  Let's flip the classroom, so that the "content" is perused by students at home, and "homework" is done in the classroom.

The boring bits that don't actually need anyone to be in the same room at the same time are covered asynchronously.  When everyone is actually together, we focus on collaboration and support.

I love this idea.  I really, really love this idea.

But the "flipped classroom" has one giant, impossible-to-miss flaw:  the assumption that students actually do stuff ahead of going to class.

Students rarely do things like that.  Most of the students I know do their class readings in fits and spurts as their assignments loom into view.  If they manage to comfortably survive their tutorials without doing the readings, they may even give those readings a miss altogether.  There's some "class preparation" work that is probably never done.

And when it comes to watching things online at home, I think their priorities are elsewhere.  The idea that some 20-year-old kid (or, worse, some 13-year-old kid) is going to spend their valuable Youtube watching time watching teaching content?

Pull the other one.

The thing about scheduled class time is that it's the one time people set aside in their day to actually attend to class stuff.  Making the average lazy student responsible for finding the time for class content doesn't strike me as a "good and useful thing".

Will it work?  Can it work?  Is it more than just a passing phase?

I hope so.

I really, really like this idea.

The cat in the bucket

I have a little chart on my wall to remind me of the major locative cases in Estonian.  It involves a cat jumping in and out of a bucket.

In Estonian, a lot of the heavy lifting that is done by prepositions in English is carried out by case endings slapped onto the ends of nouns.  The most obvious examples of this (and also the easiest to wrap your head around) are the locative cases.

These cases represent the concept of into/in/"out of" and onto/on/"off from".  In my chart, these concepts are illustrated by having a cat jump in and out of a bucket:

• Kass hüppab ämbrisse (the cat jumps into a bucket)
• Kass on ämbris (the cat is in a bucket)
• Kass hüppab ämbrist välja (the cat jumps out of the bucket - or, more literally, the cat jumps from the bucket to the outside)

The onto/on/"off from" cases are illustrated by the cat jumping onto and off from a table:

• Kass hüppab lauale (the cat jumps onto a table)
• Kass on laual (the cat is on a table)
• Kass hüppab laualt maha (the cat jumps off from a table)

Now, I have a cat, and she is (it must be said) constantly jumping on and off pretty much every item of furniture in the house.  I've never seen her jump into a bucket, though.  A box, yes, but not a bucket.

This makes me wonder - did the writers of the book (from which I photocopied this chart)* have a cat that was known for jumping in and out of buckets, or did they think the sight of a cat jumping into a bucket would be amusing, and therefore memorable?

I suspect it might be the latter.  Other illustrations in the same book are also quite amusing (there's a corker which involves a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat that has been put on a table that has a bear hiding underneath it).

This is something that has been bothering me a bit of late.  It seems to be accepted these days that no one will pay attention to boring things like grammar unless they are jokey and amusing... but sometimes the boring example is the one that explains it best.

I have seen a few English grammar books of late that seem to be aiming for the "cat in the bucket" approach to making their examples fun an interesting - but they go too far in the "slightly unusual" stakes.  It's hard to see the wood for the trees when the trees are going out of their way to dance around and wave their hands.

I'm all for the "cat in the bucket", as long as it is clear, simple and self-explanatory.  But maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't hurt to show something that is every-day, stock-standard, by-the-book and -- dare I say it? -- boring (along with the amusing thing).

Give me the boring version so I can confirm my understanding, then give me the amusing version so I'll remember it.  There's no law that says I can't have both.


*This book is currently in a different house to the one in which I am presently residing, and no one seems to be selling it at present, otherwise I would tell you what this book actually is.  It's quite a nice book, and I refer to it often.

Colon vs Semicolon

Someone was asking about this earlier, and it just so happens that I have recently brushed up on my colon/semicolon usage.  So here's my answer:

It hinges on the relationship between the two clauses.

A colon is used when the text that follows is "further to" the current text.  It can be used to off-set both dependent and independent clauses, but the information has to follow on from the clause that was before it.

It's used when you introduce information:

There is something you must know: John is an inveterate liar.

Or when you give a list (after implying you are about to give a list):

There are three things you should know about John: he's ugly, he smells bad and his mother dresses him funny.

Or when there is a clear causal relationship (or you want to suggest there is):

John's lying ways would eventually catch up with him: he died alone in an abandoned mining town.*

In common usage, the colon is also used to introduce an example or a chunk of text (like I have done above).  Stylistically, though, you shouldn't use it for headings in documents.

A semi-colon is used to join two independent clauses that could easily be separate sentences, but are linked to each other on some level.

For example, if I wrote:

Your father is agitated today.  I saw John at the shops.

Those two sentences could be connected, or they could just be separate pieces of information that just happen to be next to each other.

But, if I wrote:

Your father is agitated today; I saw John at the shops.

Then the semicolon indicates that the two clauses are connected to each other, and one should be read in the light of the other.

Now, I could have written one of the sentences from my colon examples with a semicolon:

John's lying ways would eventually catch up with him; he died alone in an abandoned mining town.

And doing so would actually change the relationship between the clauses.  When I used a colon, I was indicating that one thing definitely lead to the other.  By using the semicolon, though, I'm hedging.  The death is connected to the lying ways, but not necessarily the result of them.

That's the usage side of things.  The style side of things (in terms of how many spaces to leave after the punctuation mark and whether the next word starts with upper or lower case) is a bit messier.  I have seen some style guides recommend that you treat a semicolon like a comma and a colon like a full stop, but other guides have suggested treating them both like a comma.

The answer is to hide behind the cloak of invisibility that is "consistency".  Pick a pattern and stick with it, until told otherwise.

What motivates you?

I've been thinking, lately, about the assumptions behind integrative orientation.

For those of you who don't know, integrative orientation is one of the concepts that gets bandied about when the literature concerning language learning (as distinct from "language learner literature", which is literature for language learners) starts talking about intrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is the idea that we learn something because we just love that thing.  We learn French because, gosh darn it, French is fabulous and we want to learn it.

Integrative orientation is the idea that we are intrinsically motivated because we love the culture behind the language and we want to be a part of it all.  In this case we learn French because the French are awesome and people who speak French are awesome and we want to share in all that awesomeness.

A lot of the stuff about motivating language learners assumes, therefore, that learners will be even more keen to learn if you show them more awesome groovy stuff about the culture and people behind the language.

Show your students French movies and tell them all about French cooking and they will slowly find themselves really wanting to be part of the French scene - this will make them want to learn French on a deep psychological level, which will help them learn French more easily.

Well, there is probably something to that, because when I was in high school I was much more integratively oriented to French (which wasn't offered at my school) than Indonesian (which was).  I took Indonesian because it was on offer, but quite frankly the more they told me about Indonesia, the less I felt like learning Indonesian.

Indonesia just never sounded like a place I wanted to visit.  It's hot, full of people and has poor dental care.  Not to mention dysentery.  I have a distinct lack of interest in places where the public hygiene is so bad they have the name of the place in a colloquialism for abdominal diseases (Bali Belly).  India is also unattractive to me, for more or less the same reasons.

And that whole bartering thing?  That may sound like a fun game, but it really just means the entire population is trying to rip each other off.  The sellers are trying to fleece the buyers for more than the product is worth (and hoping you're dumber than the last guy and will give them much more than it's worth) while the buyers are trying to undercut the sellers and pay less than the product is worth.  That is not a fair and equitable economy, in my books.

So, yeah, pretty much everything everyone told me about Indonesia left me feeling completely disinterested in learning Indonesian.  Kind of like integrative orientation in reverse.  If I'm not interested in the culture, the country or the people, why should I learn this language?

Well, I've recently renewed an interest in Indonesian - but not because I suddenly feel more likely to visit Indonesia.  No, my interest has been sparked by the realisation that Indonesian is an auxiliary language.

It's not the "native" language of anyone in Indonesia, but a standardised register of Malay that has been adopted as the lingua franca of the archipelago.  (I think everyone should, at some point in their lives, mention that at a dinner party:  "Oh, yes, Bahasa Indonesia.  I do believe that's a standardised register of Malay that is used as the lingua franca of the Indonesian archipelago..."  Then quickly change the subject before anyone asks you to explain any of that.)

I kind of knew that in high school, but the concepts of planned and auxiliary languages weren't on my radar at the time.  It probably would have been if someone had mentioned the word "Esperanto".  Even when I was a kid I was interested to know more about that language, but most people seemed to dismiss it.

A couple of months ago I read something that pointed out the artificial (yet successful) nature of Bahasa Indonesia, and suddenly my antennae were up.  I had an "oh, yeah..." moment, shortly followed by a "well, that's actually quite interesting" moment.

Now, coming from the angle that "planned languages are awesome" and "auxiliary languages are neat", I've started to think I might be interested in Indonesian after all.  I still don't think visiting the country sounds like something I actually want to do, but the language is becoming, well, intrinsically interesting.

I wonder if I would have been more engaged with Indonesian in high school if someone had tapped into the "this is an interesting language" side of things, rather than the "when you go to Indonesia..." angle.

And I also wonder if the focus on culture, place and people might actually demotivate people who could otherwise be academically interested in a language?

It would be interesting to find out.