TEFL ON THE BEACH Lesson

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 TEFL ON THE BEACH Lesson
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ENGLISH, AND THE HISTORY OF IT

Introduction

This module is going to introduce you to how English came about, and this is important
because of the different nationalities you are able to teach using your TEFL certification.

The things that are important for you to know

are stuff like, Why is it easier for Latino students
to learn English than what it is for Japanese or
Korean students? Why do we spell certain
things a particular way? Where did English
come from? Why isn’t English phonetic?

Now we in no way expect you to be an expert at

these matters, but definitely good to know. It will
boost your confidence in the classroom. Having
a basic understanding of the nature of the
language, its historical development and the
spelling system is definitely going to assist you.

The history English will also teach you how to

teach! For example, teaching pronunciation to
different nationalities become easier when you
understand the origin of English, and how
English actually derives from words in other
languages.

Language Systems

Speaking and listening are the main focus in ESL classrooms today. The reason for this is
because your students are mainly attending your class to get a better grasp of English so that
they may compete in larger world for better jobs, better education, better lives, in English
speaking countries. Thus, teaching speaking and listening skills is what you will probably be
hired to teach as a native (or expert) speaker of English because most local teachers simply
don't have the speaking skills that you have.

Lots of your students will have been taught by their local teachers, probably via the traditional
grammar-translation method, so they have some sort of foundation in the language. Even
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though they have this foundation, they can still not listen to or understand what you are
saying, because in practice this becomes very different.

In addition to speaking, however, you will also have to deal with subjects like pronunciation,
vocabulary, spelling, reading, grammar, and possibly writing in English. Taken together, these
form the total subject of English as a Foreign or Second Language.

In order to become more familiar with the subjects of ESL/EFL, let's take a look at these in
the way we normally break down a language: its composite systems and the language skills
we teach in the classroom

The Systems

Take a look at the following sentence:

“Give me the book”

How could we analyze this sentence? We could consider

it from several different perspectives.

- We could consider how these words sound or the

rhythm of the sentence.
- We could look at the meanings of the words.
- We could consider how they function together in a
particular situation, in this case, making a demand.
- We could look at how the words interact with each
other, the grammar. In this case, we have an
example of the imperative.

A. Lexis

Every language can be broken down into four systems that we will refer to as lexis or
vocabulary, grammar, function, and phonology, or the sound system, of the language. By
understanding something about these, we can analyze a sentence to consider the meaning of
the words, how they interact, how they sound, and the application that they have in certain
situations.

English has a rich vocabulary consisting of hundreds of thousands of words. Of all the world's
languages, approximately 2,700 plus, English is clearly one of the richest in vocabularies.
The Oxford English Dictionary lists about 500,000 words. Moreover, it is estimated that there
are another 500,000 technical and scientific terms that haven't yet been listed in the
dictionary!

You read earlier that English is constantly borrowing and adding vocabulary from other
languages. In addition, the language has the capability to constantly produce new vocabulary
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to meet the needs of the occasion. This is true in technology, medicine, and science, as well
as the flexible invention of slang for social use.

Beyond that, we can take a noun and make it into a verb as the need arises: "to house" and
"to partner". We can
combine words to make
new ones all the time like
"downsize" and "spinoff".

Moreover, our writers in

literature are given poetic
license to create new
words as they wish.
Shakespeare created an
estimated 3,000 new
words, mostly of Latin
origin such as "critical",
"majestic", and "pedant",
as well as the more
English sounding "dwindle"
and "leapfrog" that are still
with us today. In teaching
vocabulary, you'll
encounter these problems. We will examine this in more detail in Module VIII Vocabulary,
Meaning and Context.

B. Grammar

Grammar can be defined as the

relationships between words
and patterns of words that help
us communicate our ideas. This
also refers to the rules we have
created to define these
relationships and patterns and
includes everything from the
rules of tense usage to the
syntax of the English language.
Many ESL/EFL teachers, while
quite comfortable with teaching
conversation and vocabulary,
are uncomfortable with
teaching grammar. So many
will say, "I know what is correct,
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but I don't know why!" Thus, it can be concluded that we all have to have at least a basic
knowledge of how the grammar of the English language works in order to do a competent job
in the classroom, as you can be sure you'll hear questions like the following:

- What's the difference between "I went" and "I've gone"?

- Why do we say, "Give the book to me" or "Give me the book" but not "Give to me the
book?”
- What are count and non-count nouns?
- What's passive voice?

Again, we don't have to be experts, but having a firm grasp on what the tenses are and a few
other key areas will greatly improve our ability to help our students understand English. We
will look at grammar more closely, mostly to help you become better acquainted with it later.

C. Function

When we communicate a particular purpose

that we wish to achieve in language (such as
inviting, accepting an offer, declining an
invitation, or giving directions, etc.), we are
using function in language.

Shall we go? (suggestion)

Can you possibly tell me where the library is?

(polite request)

Why don't you walk to school? It'll be good

exercise. (recommendation/advice)

How do I get to the airport from here?

(requesting directions)

Functionalism is actually an independent approach that is used in the ESL/EFL classroom,

where the whole focus on what is taught is based on these particular purposes of language.

The idea is that by mastering these chunks of language, students will get a better idea of how
the language works overall rather than when taught individual pieces like vocabulary words
and/or, a lesson about the simple present tense.

D. Phonology

The sound system of a language refers to how we form the sounds that make up the
pronunciation of the language. Each language has its own unique sound system that can
cause major problems for students who want to learn to speak and comprehend that new
language. English is no exception.
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Students in Saudi Arabia have trouble hearing the difference between and pronouncing
words that begin with "p" versus words that begin with "b", as in "peas" and "bees", for
example.

Students in Mexico have similar problems distinguishing "berry" and "very".

Students in Thailand never remember their final "s" on any word. Many of your students in
your multilingual class can't pronounce "th", as in "then" and "bath".

Students' stressing the wrong syllable can impede comprehension, for example, "Record your
message after the beep." vs. "We have a record of your payment."

The Language Skills

There are four macro skills that we teach in the ESL/EFL classroom. They are listening,
speaking, reading, and writing. These may be broken down into a number of sub-skills, such
as vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.

The Productive Skills

Speaking and writing are termed productive because these skills require active participation
on the part of the student, such as writing a paragraph or orally answering a question.
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The Receptive Skills

Listening and reading are termed

receptive because they are considered
more passive in nature. The idea that a
skill is active or passive is a little
confusing.

This simply refers to the fact that in

reading and listening, students are not
actually producing anything in the
same way as they are when they
speak and write. But if a student is
listening to you, to a video or to a song you're playing on a tape player in class, he/she is
probably participating in a very active manner to develop his/her listening skills as much as
possible. And certainly, if a student finds a reading passage to be interesting, his/her mind is
fully engaged in trying to understand the reading.

What's probably more important for us to understand is that while we classify these
components of language into systems and skills, we rarely teach these as separate units. No
skill or system isolated or separate from the others. When you teach vocabulary, for example,
you may write it on the board, your students will read it, and then they may write it down in
their notebooks.

You pronounce the word, they pronounce the word, and you may assign homework in which
the students write a story or just a sentence incorporating the new word. You may do a role-
play in which your students will use the new vocabulary in spoken form.

So, have you focused on just one system or skill? Indeed you have not; you've touched upon
just about all of them!

This is our most important conclusion of this section: no one skill or system is ever taught
separately. They are all bound up together in an integrated lesson in the language classroom,
as they are in any natural usage of the language. It may be a different combination, and there
may be a focus of one more than another, speaking over grammar and writing, for example,
but sooner or later you will touch upon them all in order to make a clear presentation for your
students.

A Brief History of the English Language

Why learn anything about the history of the English language? Well, for the same reasons
that you should know something about the systems, skills, and spelling of the language: to be
a better prepared teacher who knows his/her topic when entering the classroom. You are not
expected to be an expert but to have an awareness of the subject. Your awareness will make
you more comfortable in the subject of English and more adept at explanation.
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It will also make you more aware of how your students' language backgrounds affect their
learning in English as a Foreign or Second Language.

Where Did English Come From?

What are its origins and its timeline of development? What kind of language is it?

English is a member of the Indo-European family of languages that includes almost all of the
European languages spoken today (exceptions being Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and
Basque), as well as numerous languages in southern Asia. This broad family includes:

- Latin and the modern Romance languages: Italian, Spanish, French, etc.
- Germanic languages: German, Swedish, Icelandic, English, Dutch, etc.
- Indo-Iranian languages: Farsi (Persian), Hindi and Sanskrit, etc.
- Slavic languages: Russian, Polish, Serbian, etc.
- Baltic languages: Latvian and Lithuanian
- Celtic Languages: Welsh, Breton, Gaelic, etc.
- Greek

English is derived from the

Germanic group of languages.
These evolved from a
common language that existed
3,000 years ago in the region
of the Elbe River around the
2nd century B.C. This
language began to divide into
three groups: East Germanic,
which is not spoken today;
North Germanic, which
evolved into the Scandinavian
languages of today (except Finnish); and West Germanic, which is the source of modern
German, Dutch, Frisian, English and Flemish.

Many people assume that the story of English begins with the Roman occupation in Britain. In
fact, however, little Latin entered the language during this period except some modern place
names in England derived from words such as “castra”, meaning “walled encampment,” as in,
Manchester, and “wic,” or “village,” as in Greenwich. The conversion of England later in the
7th century to Christianity after the Roman occupation also brought in a number of Latin
church-related words like “priest,” “vicar,” and “mass.”

The real story of English, however, begins around 500 A.D. when West Germanic invaders
began coming into Britain from Jutland, southern Denmark, and western present-day
Netherlands.
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These peoples were the Anglos, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians, who all spoke a mutually
intelligible language that was later to be called Anglo-Saxon, or Old English. This language is
similar to modern Frisian, still spoken by approximately 400,000 people in western areas of
the Netherlands. In
fact, Frisian is even
today the most
closely related
language to English
in the Germanic
language family.

The original
inhabitants of Britain,
the Celts, as a result
of these ongoing
invasions, were
pushed into the
western and
northern areas of the
island of Britain and
across into Ireland
and Brittany in
modern France, where they became today's Irish, Welsh, Scots and Bretons, who all speak a
similar form of Gaelic.

Early Modern English, a period roughly between 1500 and 1800, is linked to the
Renaissance, William Shakespeare, the King James Bible, and William Caxton, who first
brought the printing press to England.

The revival of scholarship during the Renaissance brought into the language many classical
Greek and Latin words. Shakespeare's contribution of almost 3,000 mostly Latin-based words
is an example of this.

The age of exploration and discovery opened up new worlds and exposure to new languages
and cultures from the New World whose products began to be imported into Europe, giving
us such words as "tobacco", "chocolate", and "potato". Printing and the King James Bible
helped to standardize the language that hitherto had been based on dialect and personal
choice in the matter of word and spelling.

Following these early West Germanic invaders came the Vikings, beginning around 850 A.D.,
who brought with them their North Germanic language influence. Today, Old English supplies
about one sixth of the total contemporary English vocabulary, but this vocabulary is among
the most important that we use.
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Actually, about half of the most commonly used words today are in fact descended from Old
English. Words like "the", "water", "book", "him", "her", "these" and "those" are all descended
from Old English and are the core of today's English language.

A pivotal moment for the language came in 1066 A.D. with the Norman Conquest. The Anglo-
Saxons of England were conquered by the French-speaking William, Duke of Normandy and
his Norman forces.

Subsequently, the
language of Old English
began to evolve with the
dramatic influence of the
language of the new
Norman aristocracy that
ruled England, thus
ushering in the period of
Middle English
(approximately 1100 to
1500 A.D.) Enormous
possibilities opened up for
the English language as
the period saw a newly arrived, foreign aristocracy speaking French, while the lower classes
continued to speak their native English.

Gradually, the French Latin-based vocabulary began to mix with English, providing a huge
new vocabulary, often producing two words to describe one thing. Beef, pork, and veal were
by the French lord, and cow, pig, and calf tended by his English-speaking commoners. The
late modern period of English, from 1800 to the present, has been characterised by two
historical events: the rise of technology and the growth of the British Empire and its eventual
overshadowing by the growth of American influence in the world.

The industrial revolution began in England and reached its height in the United States. As a
result, thousands of new words needed to be created to describe new machines, materials,
processes and medicines.

Many were created from Latin and Greek, words which didn't exist in the original forms of
these languages, such as oxygen, vaccine, and nuclear. However, oftentimes, the new words
were created from other English words, as in "typewriter," "airplane," and "horsepower". This
process continues today in the area of electronics and computers, with examples like "hard-
drive" and "microchip".

As the British Empire spread around the world, new vocabulary was assimilated from the
languages of the Indian subcontinent, such as "pundit," "shampoo," "pajamas," and
"juggernaut."
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Even with the decline of the British Empire, this process has continued to this day, with the
expansion of American world influence, in which such words as "boondocks," "canyon,"
"ranch," "teepee," "kamikaze," “gringo," and "gung ho" have been assimilated into the English
language over the course of the last two centuries of the American experience.

The Spelling of English

The biggest problem most native speakers and those who learn English have with the
language is the spelling. And no wonder! With thousands of words borrowed from practically
every language in the world glued onto a language structure with a Germanic foundation and
a Latin-based French first floor, classical Latin and Greek from the Renaissance, and
modified Latin and Greek from the Industrial and High-Tech periods forming a second floor,
who can keep track of the rules of construction?

This is why the spelling bee tradition is

found in language classrooms of
English speaking countries only! No
other people have as much trouble
learning to spell their native language
as English speakers!

Containing words with double letters,

silent letters, 5 or 6 letters to represent
15-23 vowel sounds (depending on
whom you consult), consonants with
more than one sound ( "c" sounding like
"k" in "cat", "ch" in "search", "s" in
"lettuce"), English must have one of the least phonetic spelling systems in the world.

These are factors in the chaos of English spelling:

1 The Great Vowel Shift

A change in pronunciation in English began around 1400, when the pronunciation of vowel
sounds began to move to the front of the mouth ("sheep" had been pronounced like today's
"shape", "meet" like "mate") and the letter "e" at the end of words became silent. "Lyf"
pronounced "leef" became "life."

"Name" was pronounced "nam-a", "five" was pronounced 'feef' and "down" was pronounced
"doon". Other sounds which had existed, like the guttural German "gh" in "night" and the initial
"k" which was sounded in "knee," completely disappeared, but the original spellings were
kept. See the reference to William Caxton below.
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2 Carelessness

Monks copying manuscripts just made

mistakes, and these were copied over and
over again until they were recognized (UK -
recognised) as standardized spellings.

3 Norman (French) spellings for Anglo-

Saxon words

The Norman French wrote Anglo-Saxon

words as they would French, "Cwene" for
"queen."

4 Spellings from one place in England and

pronunciation from another

Sometimes English adopted the spellings of a

word like "bury" from west England but
pronounced it as in London "berry."

5 Caxton's standardization of the mess

When William Caxton printed his first books in

the late15th century, he was very successful.
Unfortunately, this was the exact time when so much of the pronunciation of English was
changing. He began the process of "standardizing" the spellings of words just in time to make
them outdated. By Shakespeare’s time, about a hundred years later, the spellings no longer
matched the pronunciation.

6 The Latin language

Latinized spellings came into fashion during the Renaissance, so "dette" became "debt"
because the Latin form was "debitum," and "perfet" became "perfect." These are merely
some among many other words that were altered to reflect the new learning.
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Conclusion

Our point of view in this module is that a good teacher, following some of the conclusions of
Module I, is one who is knowledgeable about the subject. In this case, we emphasized being
informed on some of the broader topics of the English language: the categorization of its
language systems, the skills and sub-skills that we teach in the classroom, a basic knowledge
of the history of English, and finally, why the spelling system of the language is so chaotic
relative to more phonetic languages (Spanish is a good example of a phonetic language).

Information about these topics helps us to be better prepared to assist our students in a more
professional and, hence, confident manner.
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Congratulations, you have completed lesson four.
Please refer to your course guide your next step in this module.