Prepo-what now?
I’m entirely sure that this week confused me more than clarified things. I went from a world of apparently blissful ignorance and now it has been shaken to its core. It’s all part of the learning process, I know. I have stepped into my zone of proximal development, now I have to change the discomfort into understanding. I understand prepositional phrases, sure. But when we were doing the activity with the newspaper headlines, I was struggling to make sense of everything. I have the concepts down. I can tell you the difference between a transitive verb and an intransitive verb, but when it comes to the practical application, I get somewhat confused. I know that with more practice, I will get this down. I’m on my way there.
Another thing I feel silly about is that I still don’t fully understand lay and lie. At this point, I just feel like an idiot, because it has been explained twice and I still haven’t grasped it. Hopefully the third time is the charm, otherwise I might as well buy myself a nice shiny new shovel and a tract of land.
The article on Dora was somewhat frustrating for me, as it was for other people. Knowing that she was imaginary, even with the knowledge that she was a composite from other first graders, was still off-putting. The writing examples, even if they were completely typical of all first graders, was somewhat suspect because they never stated whether it was actual work from a first grader, or just an example. And if it was made-up, that would blow the entire charade, because this is supposed to show what actually happens during the learning process of a first grader. You just can’t show what happens with fake data. I would have appreciated some clarification.
I really liked the worksheet we did. I’ve never done anything like that in English before, so it was interesting for me to see how much I relied on my experience with doing it in French as a starting point. It was familiar to me in another language, and those skills that I learned elsewhere translated pretty well into this setting. And that brings up another point that I think it really cool, and one that I’ve thought on numerous occasions before. Learning a second language really enhances one’s understanding of the first language. Because I was learning about grammar rules in French, I came to understand the English counterpart rather well. I think that could be a really interesting tool, and a situation where foreign language teachers can take advantage by both reinforcing the English rules and also by using them as a reference point for explaining the rule in whatever second language they are teaching.
I had also heard that English was one of the most difficult languages to learn, so it was interesting to hear that in some ways it is easier. I’m curious to see a comparison of English and other languages to find out which parts really are easier to learn, and which are harder, and to figure out if it really is one of the hardest world languages to learn.
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We’ve only seen prepositional phrases at the ends of sentences. Can one be at the beginning?
Another thing I feel silly about is that I still don’t fully understand lay and lie. At this point, I just feel like an idiot, because it has been explained twice and I still haven’t grasped it. Hopefully the third time is the charm, otherwise I might as well buy myself a nice shiny new shovel and a tract of land.
The article on Dora was somewhat frustrating for me, as it was for other people. Knowing that she was imaginary, even with the knowledge that she was a composite from other first graders, was still off-putting. The writing examples, even if they were completely typical of all first graders, was somewhat suspect because they never stated whether it was actual work from a first grader, or just an example. And if it was made-up, that would blow the entire charade, because this is supposed to show what actually happens during the learning process of a first grader. You just can’t show what happens with fake data. I would have appreciated some clarification.
I really liked the worksheet we did. I’ve never done anything like that in English before, so it was interesting for me to see how much I relied on my experience with doing it in French as a starting point. It was familiar to me in another language, and those skills that I learned elsewhere translated pretty well into this setting. And that brings up another point that I think it really cool, and one that I’ve thought on numerous occasions before. Learning a second language really enhances one’s understanding of the first language. Because I was learning about grammar rules in French, I came to understand the English counterpart rather well. I think that could be a really interesting tool, and a situation where foreign language teachers can take advantage by both reinforcing the English rules and also by using them as a reference point for explaining the rule in whatever second language they are teaching.
I had also heard that English was one of the most difficult languages to learn, so it was interesting to hear that in some ways it is easier. I’m curious to see a comparison of English and other languages to find out which parts really are easier to learn, and which are harder, and to figure out if it really is one of the hardest world languages to learn.
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We’ve only seen prepositional phrases at the ends of sentences. Can one be at the beginning?