In this essay I will reflect on some of the aspects of my idiolect. I will look at two different transcripts and will analyse the language that I use with my friend and my mum depending on where I am. I was born and bred in High Wycombe, so for most of my childhood I have had no accent. But as I grew older and went into secondary school, the way I spoke to friends and my mum changed quite a bit. In secondary school, I picked up more slang like “innit”.
The everyday conversation involves language uses. There are many ways of conversation, and it can be influences by different regional, ethnic, family background, age and gender. In Deborah Tannen’s research of the “gender in the classroom” stated about that female and male mix up class, men take the role in the class, which talks more than women. However, record to my own knowledge and research I did not support the statement, like in my English class the female and male students are equal, yet female talks way more than male. Therefore, I disagree with Tannen’s theory, “[…] speaking in a classroom is more congenial to boys’ language experience than to girls’ […]” (164).
Another explanation is gradual commitment. This is where participants for example, in Milgram’s study found it difficult to stop giving shocks to the learner. The researchers told the participants to give shocks to the learner for every wrong answer they say. They get absorbed into giving greater levels of shock as they find it difficult to refuse the researcher this is called the foot-in-the-door-effect. This suggests that people experience informational social influence as they look up to someone else for answers in an ambiguous situation.
Since men want to show their dominance they are louder discussions in classrooms or in any public places. In my opinion, there are some factors that we need to consider when we are talking about the men and women. For me the women or girl’s behaviors in classrooms depends on how they feel about the subject matter. Also, these behaviors correlate to the type of response that men and women or boys and girls give in classroom discussions. Other things that affect women’s or girl’s behaviors are language barriers.
This may mean that the pupil will open up and could explain their feelings and emotions towards the subject of streaming, and the reasons why they ‘develop a negative image’. A few advantages of using unstructured interviews when studying the effects of steaming are that the informality of the interview allows the interviewer to gain the trust of the interviewee which is important in this example. Pupils at school will not feel comfortable explaining their time at school if the interviewer is very formal and makes them feel intimidated whereas by using an unstructured interview it allows the pupils
This could make the child feel anxious and apprehensive about meeting their new teacher, if they are in high school they may also be feeling anxious and worried about their new timetable and getting used to it. They may find the new work that they have to do a bit daunting and feel like they would not manage and the work is too hard for them. The child may also feel very happy and very grown up as they are getting a bit older and be able to do more difficult things
Parents of English Language Learner (ELL) or English as a Second Language (ESL) students have significant communication challenges impacting their lives. Imagine how different your life would be if you spoke no English, and your child was in charge. Social cultural influences effect how all people interact with one another. Children raised in the dominant culture understand what type of behavior is expected in school and other social situations. At home families' traditions, discipline styles, attitudes toward education, and prejudices are very different.
The opposite learning styles, involving listening and verbal skills, are more difficult for me. I would much rather learn how something works by using it than by listening to someone tell me how it works. When any of my teachers stand in front of the classroom and just reads form the text book. This type of teaching is my kryptonite, the words just pass right through me. To help me my learning process in class's like that i need to recreate the lectured material using my own visual tools and adapt my teacher's preferred teaching methods to my preferred learning styles.
If I was confronted with a class full of beginner students I would need to alter my approach to teaching. I would need to lower my expectations of the students to a level that is appropriate to their expected progress. I would use more visual aids than I would normally use in a higher level class to make up for the fact that the students will not have much vocabulary to fall back on. I would slow down the pace of my speech so I don’t lose students. I would also try hard to not allow the students to speak in their mother tongue as this is counter-productive to learning a new language.
In the article, I like how Tan said, “I was forced to ask for information.” Even though I don’t have to pretend I am my mother, but I get the feeling that who ever speak better English had the responsibilities to help out the situation. Sometime it is a hard time for me to do this because I may not speak the perfect English like Tan. I will get nervous when the question comes up with many words I don’t know, or I want to say something but there are some terms I don’t know how to translate into English. For example, when I first come to America, I cannot understand the way my classmates talk to me, and there are some people speak very different English. It cost me a long time to get used to speak to different people in school.