Re: Learning to conlang to write better english!

Ph.D. wrote:
<<
Not really. His point is to get them to understand *English* grammar
 >>

And thereby to become good writers.  An interesting, if laughable,
theory.

Taliesin wrote:
<<
That wasn't my point. Why doesn't more *linguists* use conlanging to
teach linguistics? Some even seem afraid of it!
 >>

A good point.  There, of course, have been some who have--Matt
Pearson, Tom Wier did a class at UT (right?), and Maria Polinsky
here at UCSD was very receptive to my idea about creating a
pidgin/creole in her pidgins and creoles class (though now I'm
less enthused about the idea, for various reasons).  Grant Goodall
uses Esperanto regularly in his acquisition classes (though he is
an Esperantist).  I think *gradually* that *some* linguists are
*starting* to come around.  Of course, the question is: Why would
anyone use language creation as a pedagogical tool if they (a)
are unfamiliar with language creation, or (b) have never seen it
demonstrated effectively in a classroom setting?  So I think if
one wants to see linguists using created languages more, then
those that know how they can be used effectively need to demonstrate
how they can be used effectively, and help train those who are
interested.

Of course, this kind of thing is standard fare in K-12 education (in
the US).
At the college/university level (where linguistics lives), a lot of
professors are rather antagonistic to teaching--and with good
cause, I've heard.  If you think about linguistics, most linguists
are researchers, and will be professors at research universities.
When they come up for review (be it for tenure or for promotion),
their reviewing committee is first going to look at publications,
and then their work within the department.  As a final note, they'll
take a glance at their teaching record.  If they happen to be a
good teacher, so much the better for them.  But a lot of times,
teaching improvement is seen as something that's done *instead
of* research--which is bad thing, if you're a reviewing committee.
It's usually never this extreme, but I heard of one university
where every professor who won the outstanding teacher award
was denied tenure the next time they came up for it.  It got so
bad, that one professor at the beginning of every class he taught
will give his students a speech about how he didn't care what they
thought of him, or what they thought of his teaching, but that
whatever they did, they should *not* nominate him for the
outstanding teaching award, because he liked his job.

So, back to the original question: What would be the payoff for
a linguistics professor to try to implement something that hasn't
been tested, that isn't valued very highly in the field, and which
would take away from their research time?  I think that may be
one impeding factor.

Which means, of course, we need to focus on *tenured* professors.  ;)

-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/

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