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TESL 0100: Unit 3 English Language in a Diverse Intensity

  
TESL 0100: Unit 3
English Language in a Diverse Intensity
Reviewing my English language knowledge using the Common areas of difficulty of Bolitho Tomlinson made me realize that speaking the language and knowing how to teach is just a step from what should go further to what must be offered to language learners.  From identifying the difficulty of producing the correct sound through the proper tongue and mouth positions, dissecting the word formation, context and meaning then understanding language varieties really was a mind blowing fact to be familiar with.  This realization makes me go back to my language foundation to review and relearn the basics to complex need of language facts. Knowing is definitely far from explaining and making learners to be skilled in speaking and writing in proper context makes it challenging. Analysing which ones they need and who needs what is also part of the challenge as per handling a class is concern. 
I would imagine myself discussing that the verb in a sentence should agree with its subject up to amalgamated sentences into a multi-clause. Then to blow my mind, the thought of explaining the “context” of a word in a conversation to its “language function” is totally a different level that would definitely explain a “discourse” understanding it. “I’m actually being silly here, just to make things light.” Seriously, this can be simplified using the “one form, many meaning” and “one meaning, many forms” to start with. I’m actually excited to dissect and simplify a step by step learning and find out how creative I could be in preparing lesson plans in different levels. It does help to know profiles of ability across learners’ stages using the CLB especially in writing when it comes to teaching grammar. Presenting basic parts of speech to complex structures would depend on the learners’ abilities as lessons should also be adequately simplified.
It was enlightening to know that collocations, lexical chunks to phrases and idiomatic expressions are part of what is needed in language training. I remember a student explaining how she didn’t understand the idiomatic expression “Get out of here!” when it was expressed to her.  She was surprised she said and asked, “Excuse me, what do you mean?” Not knowing that it means, “Are you kidding me?” or “You’re making that up!” as an expression of surprise or disbelief made her react as how she understood it as literally getting out or leaving the place. Knowing this kind of problem made me realize how important idiomatic expressions are as part of lesson planning.  It will not hurt to add one or two idioms per day with all kinds of idiom students might encounter in daily conversation.  
Recognizing that there is an absolute relation between language and culture makes it easier to understand learners’ origin. How perfect it would be if each culture would have their own teacher to make it easier for learners to absorb the lesson. As stated in one study that an L2 teacher is sometimes more effective than native speakers as they can connect and understand where learners are coming from. Understanding socio-linguistics studies will definitely make it easier for me to understand my students. But the reality is, we must look at language not only from within its linguistic components but also from without, we should be aiming to present language from points of view of both approaches.     

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