My hypothesis

In class we began writing our research hypothesis.

According to the Merriam-Webster's Learner's dictionary, Hypothesis means:

Hy·poth·e·sis /ˌhaɪˈpɑ:θəsəs/ noun

plural hy·poth·e·ses /-əˌsi:z/

[count] : an idea or theory that is not proven but that leads to further study or discussion
Examples of use:
▪ Other chemists rejected his hypothesis. ▪ put forward a hypothesis = advance a hypothesis ▪ Their hypothesis is that watching excessive amounts of television reduces a person's ability to concentrate. ▪ The results of the experiment did not support/confirm his hypothesis

The assigned homework was to finish and share them in this blog.
So, send them please to comments.

See you later,

My topic, time and space limits...and the purpose on my research

Dear student, remember you have to justify your topic and complete the sentence:
"The purpose of my research is ..."

Click on comments and send your homework.

Regards,
Norbert

My name, my topic, my future profession

Dear students of group 608  Welcome to this course.
Remember: write your name, your plan to finish high school and
future studies.
Of course, you can do it in Spanish.
Click on comentarios.
See you later,
Norbert

Index

1.- Selecting and delimiting the research topic (your first pre-index)

     1.1.-Factors to consider in the choice of a research topic
     1.2.-The research protocol 

     1.3.-My first pre-index

2.- Critical thinking to construct my research
     2.1 Brain hemispheres
     2.2 Convergent and divergent thinking
     2.3 Critical thinking
     2.4 Reviewing my pre-index
3.- Methods, approaches and research terminology

4.-Calendar of activities (Working plan)

5.-Reading and writing strategies: Topic paragraph, topic sentence, main and secondary ideas

6.-Essay, monograph and research report 
7.-Research and selection of information
8.-Citing, footnotes and page numbering

9.-PPT and the public presentation (15 slides)

Welcome English III groups

Dear students, we are about to begin a new course. This semester I will have the opportunity to work with groups 601, 602 and 604. In this blog you will find aids, sources and important links related to the program.
Every week I will update the blog according to what we see in class.
English III is a course aimed to help students develop basic research strategies. Since most of you are about to finish high school and present your final work (Problema Eje), this space will be devoted to guide and help you in this process.
Every entry will show an important feature or step for your acquisition of strategies as a researcher. I really expect this course helps you achieve your academic goals in this semester.

Best regards,
Norberto Morales

Key words: research, strategy, aids, sources

Brief dissertations 3: the language impact

Recommendations to avoid LI

For teachers:

Do not speak slow and with pauses between words. Speak as you always do.

If English is not your native language:

Be fluent (it is not necesary to speak as a native speaker -remember the wide variety of immigrants there are in USA, Canada, Australia or England, they are fluent but their pronunciation keeps a lot from their native tongues). Don’t be afraid of speaking like Speedy Gonzalez, just remember he was a very fluent mouse.

There is not correct or better English. There is formal and informal. Of course, there is what is called Standard English (a selection made out of the English varieties taught at schools, used by T.V. anchors, and news broadcasters, for instance). Real life shows that Standard English exists only in classroom environments where English is taught and in very limited real life situations (like those mentioned above).

Provide your students with actual interviews from TV or radio programs.

Include movies in class with a detailed viewing-listening program (make clear you’ll have to stop the movie in specific moments to review listening). In movies they represent different kind of people with different backgrounds. That's very useful. And even though they are just movies, most of the characters nowadays are very realistic.

For students:

If your teachers speak like What...is...your...name? (dots meaning pause) get rid of them.

Watch American an British TV programs, not only news. Watch videos at Youtube (a famous cheff cooking, for example to learn kitchen and cooking vocabulary).

Watch films at home with captions in English or without them (never in Spanish)

Listen to radio programs in English (you can enter BBC radio on internet, or other radio stations). This is very important since radio means you are not watching people speak. One of the things students tend to do when speaking to a native speaker is watch lips movements, something like lip reading. When surrounded by two or three native speaker the student has no time to read everybody’s lips and then comes the failure.

Watch videos from The New York Times or other american or british newspapers (on internet again). In this videos you can see interviews with common people: homeless, sportsmen, police officers, car dealers, etc.

And of course, save money to travel to an English-speaking country as soon as possible to practice what you have learned.

The idea is to provide –both, students and teachers- an atmosphere of authentic English, as students will find when they travel to an English speaking country, taking into account that English teaching has to be oriented towards competitive and useful communicative skills.

Probably there are more recommendations and features regarding Language Impact. I am quite sure that those who have suffered LI could feed this dissertation with more personal experiences.
If so, you are very welcome.

Brief dissertations on English language 3: the language impact

Language Impact definition

Language Impact (LI) could be best described as the sense of being smashed, hit or overwhelmed by the rush of words and phrases coming from the native speakers: the impact. This is the result of the uncapability of an English Language Student (ELS) to understand authentic spoken language when traveling to an English-speaking country. It is just like being in the middle of a group of whales trying to decipher their chants. So the sense in the ELS is that of frustration, confusion and isolation.

Who suffers language impact?

Language Impact (LI) is not only suffered by someone who has studied a foreign language and then travels abroad to practice his suppossedly new acquired language skills, but also by anybody traveling to a country in which the language is different from their own. Imagine yourself in barbershop in Russia trying to explain the hairdresser how you want your hair done, with sign language, because you don’t speak russian. It is very likely that you end up with a hair cut different to the one you wanted. Or a tougher case, a tourist in China whose tour guide left him by accident in a small town 300 miles (it has to be miles, this is English) away from his hotel in Beijing. Explain the clerck at the small grocery store down the street you need information on how to return. And if he says something, what is he saying? But if you never went to a russian school or a chinese school, what the heck? What were you expecting?

However, LI affects more to the ones who had already studied a second language than those who hadn’t. Why? Because this latter ones didn’t have any expectations about language proficiency. And because the first ones experience a deeper level of frustration, disappointment, isolation and, most of the times, rejection towards the studied language. Another aspect involved in LI is the speaking level of the student. When a student has a low speaking level the expectations about communicating with native speakers are not really significant. On the contrary, when the student has a very good speaking level the expectations are very significant. Moreover, native speakers (let’s call them locals) are, somehow, aware about the speaking level the student has, without even knowing about their students status. If the student has a poor speaking level the response tends to be, let’s say, comprehensive, kind, gentle and helpful most of the times: in other words, the native speaker speaks slow, uses sign language and if necessary writes directions on a piece of paper to help the student; but if the student speaks very well, the native speakers answer very well, that is with a normal fluency. ¿Why? Simple, because the native speakers don’t think there is something wrong with the other’s language abilities. And that means trouble to the student walking down Grosvenor Road in London.

This could be explained with the following equations:

English Student + low speaking level = Softer Language Impact
English Student + high speaking level = Harder Language Impact

And this other equation explains a misbelief in English learning

English Student + high speaking level is not always = to a high listening
comprehension level
Or otherwise

English Student + high listening comprehension level is not always = to a high
speaking level

to be continued...