Sunday, June 26, 2011

Unit 6 exercise 2

3.) Maw- old English "maga"    gest-from old French "geste" (exploit) "jest" is a spelling variant
     odious- from Latin "odium" (hatred) devious- from Latin "devius" (out of the way) de-(out of) + via (way)
     expediency-from Latin "expedire" (to make ready, to set the feet free)
     sideburns- After Ambrose Everette Burnsides for his facial hair during the Civil War. The term "Burnsides" morphed into "sideburns".
      smithereens-From Irish smidirin
                                        (wordsmith.org)
fate- from fata (neutral plural of factum)
 tooth- from old English "toi"
mingle- Middle English "mengel" and old English "mengan"
ghetto- From Italian "gheto" a Venetian Dialect
                                        (allwords.com)

4.) Phonetic Demand                   Semantic Demand                Etymological Demand
      tin                                               damn/damnation                         Wednesday
      fat                                               crumb/crumble                            unique
      rot                                               sign/signal                                   machine
      set                                               design/designate                          chloride
      gut                                               run/running                                 debt

                                               (Freeman pgs. 108 and 109)
8.) List of words that end in dge, ge, ch, and tch.
      ch                   tch                                 ge                         dge
which                 hutch                            sage                      judge
sandwich           crutch                            cage                     fudge
such                   stitch                             wage                    smudge
much                  hitch                             rage                      grudge
touch                  batch                            mage                     badge
slouch                 match                          gage                      budge
couch                  crotch                          singe                     nudge
crouch                 hatch                           binge                     dodge
brooch                 witch                           image                    wedge
search                  bitch                            damage                 sledge
birch                    scotch
beach                   switch

When looking for patterns within this list of words, I noticed that the tch words have a slight stop when pronouncing the word. It is subtle, but I do notice it in comparison to the ch words. I think it is due to the movement of the mouth and tongue between sounds of certain vowels and coming to the stop of the "ch" sound. When I listen carefully the the ch words, I don't hear that specific stop that I hear in the tch words. As for the ge and dge words, it seems to me that most ge words have a long vowel sound or a nasal consonant before it. The dge words seem to have short vowels or a schwa sound before the dge.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Minimal Pairs Activity

My idea for a 5 minute activity would go as follows.

During the week, I would use direct instruction to teach and practice the following minimal pairs.

Hair-Chair-Pear
Cat-Bat-Mat
Dog-Hog-Log
Feet-Beat-Meat
Rug-Bug-Mug

The activity will be a simple scavenger hunt that will require the student to listen carfully to each phomene. I will have manipulatives setup around the room. For example, I will have a "Pear" on my desk and a wig (Hair) set on a coat hanger in the back of the room. I could have a toy "dog" on a book shelf and a toy "hog" on a filing cabinet. Every manipulative will be easy to find. I will split the class into teams. With mental or learning games, I always like to set teams up as boys versus girls (If numbers in gender are even). Once even teams are selected, I will have one student at a time listen to my instruction. "Find/Bring me the mug." The student will have 10 to 15 seconds to find the object. If they get it correct and on time, their team is awarded a point. If they are in correct they do not get a point. Once that team member takes their turn a player from the other team will try to find the next object I tell them to.  Penalty points are taken if either team talks or tries to confuse their opponent when they are looking for the item. This activity is designed for smaller classes. For larger classes this may take longer than 5 minutes.

Unit 4 Application Questions

5.) There are 2 allophones of /p/ I can think of. one is the aspirated /ph/ as in the word pot, pan, pain. These words, durring the /p/ sound there is an extra puff af air before the vowel; almost like a short pause. The other allophone is the standard /p/ sound without the aspiration. This sound can be heard in words such as span, ape, or spoke. For ELLs , if this phoneme exists in their first language, it doesn't always mean it has the same allophone. Freeman states "Each language uses a different invemtory of sounds.As a result, some phonemes from one language may be identical to those in another language, and some may be different. At the same time, sounds that are phonemes in one language my be allophones of a phoneme in another language." (p. 92)

6.) Different dialects is an intersting topic to discuss. I enjoy hearing people of different areas of the country speaking English that is a little different from my version. I use the words "truck", "elevator", and "apartment". I have heard Enlish people say "Lorry", "Lift", and "Flat". to identify these objects. I met a couple from western pennsylvania and the use the word "pop" to identify my version of "soda". When I went on a trip to Boston, a woman asked me "Do you got any butts?"...She wanted a "cigarette" from me. I had a roommate from the  Philiadelphia/Delaware area and he used to talk about how thing were back "houme" which is different than the way I say "home". American people call the letter"z" /zi/ when a Canadian man I knew called it /z3d/.
     To say that a particular dialect is identified as less intelligent than another wouldn't be fair in my eyes. Just as icecream comes in many different flavors, so does language. I see dialects as a different flavor with in the same type of food. Dialects provide a variety of sounds and each has it's own culture behind it. I don't like the idea of a standard dialect because to me, it takes away some of the culture and advancement of language. Think about Latin. 5 different languages evolved from that single language (Spanish, French, Portugese, Italian, and Romanian). Do you think they all came about by having a standard Latin dialect? I think not. I think they came about by the diversity of the dialects spoken throughout Europe. In the future, who knows how many new languages will evolve from English?