In his great taxonomy of language skills listing*, John Munby mentions “developing sensitivity to context clues”, as one of the microskills of reading. In this post, I would like to share an insight gleaned from an EST (English for Science & Techonology) series of books which was published a very long time ago and whichContinueContinue reading “C is for Contextual Guesswork in text”
Category Archives: Module 1
E is for Errors
S.P. Corder on Learner Errors – A summary Types of Errors Native speakers may produce errors (readily correctable) especially in conditions of stress, indecision and fatigue. It is logical to expect that non-native speakers may do the same. These are called ‘lapses’ and are of no special importance to the teacher. Non-native speaker errors mayContinueContinue reading “E is for Errors”
P is for Politeness
The post which follows is an article which appeared in the IATEFL Business English Special Interest Group Newsletter in 2015
N is for New Information
Definition New information is information that is assumed by the speaker not to be known to or assumed by the addressee, or previously established in the discourse. Discussion New information typically is placed late in the sentence, and has a high amount of stress placed on the words representing it. Examples (English) In the following exchange, the stressed wordsContinueContinue reading “N is for New Information”
C is for Coherence
Watch this much discussed video of a young beauty pageant contestant answering a question posed by the judges. Thinking Tasks 1. Is Miss South Carolina coherent or not? 2. Read this text and say if it is coherent. Try to answer the following questions: Where was published? Who authored it? What was the author’sContinueContinue reading “C is for Coherence”