Measuring the Immeasurable
One of the big problems with education is how to measure student results. We tend to measure what is easily measurable rather than measuring what’s truly important. And this especially true in measuring language...
Author: ericupsidebrown
Grammar Byte: What’s an Adjective?
Adjectives are words that describe the qualities of a nouns. Adjectives are related to the senses: Feeling, tasting, seeing, smelling, hearing. In English, describing words come before the thing (the noun) that they are...
Sounds have no meaning
It’s interesting to read something like this. There are no languages where sounds have consistent meanings from word to word. This generalization is what Charles Hockett (“The origin of speech”, Scientific American, 203: 88-96, 1960)...
A History of English Pronouns
Thought vomit on the topic of pronouns… Currently in English we have these pronouns (direct ~ object)… I ~ me You ~ you He ~ him She ~ her It ~ it [for non-human...
English as a Rock Star
English is a language that many people aspire to learn. Because it’s a lingua franca (universal language) people think that it’s special. But it’s far from being refined or sophisticated. All its complexity has...
Why does a sideways head movement mean “no”?
When we communicate we do so with both speech and body language. An almost universal symbol for “no” is a sideways movement of the head (or the related finger waving). Where did this no movement...
Are Deaf Readers Bilingual?
My brother and his wife are sign language interpreters speaking American Sign Language (ASL). ASL is its own language with syntax and grammar and the signs are not merely replacements for English words. The...
Evolution of the Alphabet – Free Download
How did the letters of the English Alphabet come to be? Download this Evolution of the Alphabet chart for free: Source: https://usefulcharts.com/blogs/charts/evolution-of-the-english-alphabet And while you’re at it, check out this video on the history...
Grammar byte: What’s a determiner?
Determiners are words that express information about a noun such as definiteness, proximity, relationships and quantity. They typically come before nouns. They are different than adverbs, which describe the qualities of a nouns. They...
The Value of Immersion
There’s no doubt about it, language immersion is effective in learning a second language. It is used extensively in the school systems in Canada and has been quite successful. What makes immersion in school...
