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All About Language

Mr. Fricano & Mario Pei

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Agenda Review Estar Discuss strategies for memorizing verbs Brainstorm: the effects of Spanish Brainstorm: fears, frustration, anxiety Brainstorm: Importance of Language Brainstorm: Importance of Spanish

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Overview Quick overview of what today’s all about

Reviewing for Friday’s quiz Discussing Language and why we study it Be prepared to write down your ideas

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Estar Yo Tú Él Ella Ud. Nosotros Nosotras Ellos Ellas Uds.

estoyestásestáestáestáestamosestamosestánestánestán

(I)

(You)

(He)

(She)

(You)

(We)(We)

(They)(They)(You)

(I am)(You are)

(He is)(She is)

(You are)

(We are)(We are)

(They are)

(They are)

(You are)

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Estar

estoyestásestáestamosestán

(I am)(You are)(S/he is, you are)(We are)(They/You are)

Some ppl like to repeat the words in this order out loud.

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Brainstorming the effects of Spanish

How do you think Spanish…:1…helps you communicate with more ppl?2…enhances travel experience?3…improves oportunities for jobs?4…improves knowledge of English?5…would help you study abroad?6…would help you learn another language?

7…would help you understand more media?

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Brainstorming the frustration w/ Spanish

When you think about Spanish…:1…what makes you frustrated?2…what stresses you out?3…what do you worry about?4…what do you fear?

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The importance of language

Write your answers to the following…:1…Why’s important that ppl know same one?2…How do we communicate language?3…What would happen if we all spoke diff.?

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Why’s it important to know the same one?

“No common language means little or no help or cooperation, and that in turn means that nothing really big or worth-while can get done. Since most of the things connected with our civilization are big, they call for lots of help and cooperation, for the joint efforts of many people, all working intelligently together, each with a clear understanding of what the others are doing, and when, where and how he must come in. the only thing that makes possible our skyscrapers, our airplanes, our machines, is the fact that the many people working on them understand one another.

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How do we communicate our lang?

“We see the mouth and the ears, and so we think of them first when we think of speech. What we do not see (but it has to be there) is the brain that thinks out the message spoken by the mouth, and the other brain that receives and acts upon the message heard by the ear. It doesn’t really become language until all four have come into play.

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If we all spoke a different language?

“What would happen if they had no way of communicating their thoughts to each other? They would be suspicious, each one wondering what the other was thinking. If they had to spend a great deal of time together in silence, their suspicions would grow. Each would wonder if the other were plotting to do him some harm when his back was turned. Soon they would get to distrust each other.

So language is probably the greatest breeder of friendliness in the world. Misunderstandings and suspicions are cleared away by it, and people are made aware of the fact that after all they are not so very different from one another as they thought.

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The importance of Spanish

Write your answers to the following…:1…Doesn’t everyone speak English?2…What are the most spoken languages?3…Is it hard starting Spanish from scratch?4…How close is Spanish to English?

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Doesn’t everyone Speak English?

“If one-tenth of the world’s population speaks English, then it is obvious that the other nine-tenths speak something else. What do they speak? One or another of the 2,795 languages which, side by side with English, exist on the present-day globe. To us, they are all foreign tongues.

If we acquire one or more of them, we shall have the means of communicating with the speakers of the one or ones we acquire, of finding out more about them than we ever could otherwise, of reading their literature as well as our own, and thereby adding the accumulated experiences of their group to those of our group.

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What are the most spoken languages?

1. Chinese2. Hindi

SpanishEnglish

5. Arabic6. Russian7. Portuguese8. Malay9. French10. Japanese11. German12. Italian

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Is it hard learning Spanish from scratch?

“When you start learning a foreign language at the age of twelve or thirteen, you’re not starting from scratch. Your speaking habits are set. You have learned to produce well and easily about fifty of the hundreds of possible sounds you could produce, and it’s an effort, at this stage, to learn to produce a new set. Also, you have now an established pattern of words, word-order, and meaning. It is natural for you to say “book” when you see a book and not natural to say livre, or kniga, or hon. It is natural for you to say “I see him,” and not natural to say “him see-I,” which is what you have to do if you’re speaking Spanish, with the “I” included in the “see.” All this calls for a dislocation and rearrangement of your thought-and-word pattern.”

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But don’t let this bewilder you. Suppose you are in the kitchen of your own home. You know where every pot and pan and dish is, and you could find what you want with your eyes shut. Then you go on a long visit to the home of a friend. You insist on helping with the dinner, and you go into his kitchen. He has pots and pans and dishes, too, but they are different from yours, and you don’t know exactly where they are kept, or just how they are used. At first you have to ask. Little by little, though, you get to know them. By the time you go back to your own home, you know all the locations and uses of two different sets of pots and pans and dishes in two different homes, and you don’t get them confused.

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Anything wrong with that? You can even learn the kitchen arrangement of half a dozen homes if you have to. In the same way you can learn a half a dozen languages. Languages, after all, are tools, just like pots and pans and dishes.

Of course, the more your friend’s kitchen is arranged like your own, the more easily you will learn. If he has pots and pans and dishes of sizes and shapes you’ve never seen before, you will have to inquire a little more closely into their use, and it will take you a little longer to learn.

Again, it’s the same way with languages. The closer they are to your own, the easier they will seem to you. Which are the languages closest to English?

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Brainstorming Objectives

Describe the objective(s) of the exercise: New product or service ideas? New feature ideas? Feature/product naming? Promotion ideas? New process for doing something?

Define top requirements or restrictions.

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Brainstorming Objectives

Describe the objective(s) of the exercise: New product or service ideas? New feature ideas? Feature/product naming? Promotion ideas? New process for doing something?

Define top requirements or restrictions.

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Brainstorming Objectives

Describe the objective(s) of the exercise: New product or service ideas? New feature ideas? Feature/product naming? Promotion ideas? New process for doing something?

Define top requirements or restrictions.

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Brainstorming Activity

Generate ideas Use games and exercises to “warm up” your

creative thinking When ideas slow down, try another exercise to

generate fresh ideas Breaking into smaller groups may be helpful

Use a computer to capture every comment/idea (in Microsoft PowerPoint, of course, using Meeting Minder)

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Summarize Review ideas Vote on top candidates and consolidate Check requirements and restrictions Trim list to top 5-10 ideas

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Next Steps Describe what happens next:

Research the ideas generated? Follow up with larger group?

Generate action items for follow-up: Start turning ideas into reality.