Re: conlanging during class (Re: Grammatical Summary of Kemata)

On 17 Dec, John Cowan wrote:

> Dan Sulani scripsit:
>
> >     OTOH, I fail to see how just asking questions can benefit someone
who
> > has no prior knowledge of something and no way to experiment in order
> > to find out. For example, there are a whole lot of natlangs that, AFAIK,
> > I am totally ignorant of. Suppose I wanted to learn one of them.
> > How would only asking me questions, using only one of the langs I do
speak,
> > enable me to "break down the conceptual blocks in the student's
> > mind that prevent him from realizing what he knows" and enable me to
leave
> > the teaching situation with a full competence in that lang?
>
> Oh, of course.  Learning languages is more a matter of learning-how, and
> anyway Frye (whatever may be the case for Plato's fictional character) is
> not proposing that teachers *only* ask questions, merely pointing out an
> explanation for why teachers, in fact, ask so many questions.

    Then, in that case, couldn't it be that some teachers ask so many
questions because they are trying to engage hopelessly overcrowded
classrooms full of kids who would much rather be elsewhere doing
other things?  (And considering that shaking a kid by his ears until either
they fall off or he pays enough attention to ask questions, is outlawed
these days! ;-)  )
    I've been in some Israeli classrooms where the kids were
"_very_ engaged, almost to the point of rowdiness"
(national trait; starts early! ;-)  ).
In these classrooms, by asking questions, the teachers were acting more
to moderate the "discussions" (in the sense of awarding the "official" right
of speech to each kid in turn;  "moderate" in the sense of bringing the
decibel level down, being a somewhat hopeless task!  ).
Soliciting information was not needed: in fact, in these classrooms,
the teacher is usually deluged with information and opinions! ;-)

Dan Sulani
-------------------------------
likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.

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