Re: Nattiki (was: Re: speaking and saying)

Matt Pearson wrote:

>Mathias asked:
>
>>Does making up this language make your students more comfortable
>>with linguistics ?
>
>I don't know.  The purpose of the project was to allow me to
>introduce the concept of principles and parameters to the students
>- i.e., what kinds of variation are found in natural languages,
>versus what sorts of features seem to be universal.  Some of the
>students have really taken to Nattiki, and are writing their term
>papers on Nattiki-related subjects (one student is inventing a non-
>standard dialect of Nattiki, another is inventing a history and
>culture for the Nattiki speakers, another is writing about Nattiki
>religious practices...).
Wow, a whole conculture! Any chance all this will be up in the web?

>Other students seem to feel that the whole thing is a big joke - or
>at best, a diverting game.  They seem not to have understood the
>serious intent behind it, despite all my efforts.  (Oh well, if
>there's one thing you learn as a teacher, it's that no strategy
>works for everyone...)
If it works for the majority, you can't be doing anything wrong. If
they are learning things, you can't be doing anything wrong either.
I have always felt that one learns best by doing rather than just
listening. You're students, I gather, are in fact doing - so they're
learning even if some fail to understand that. That's the whole
point of it all.

I'd love to be in your class!

-kristian- 8-)