Please post your discussion questions for Week 14 (Nov 14) here

Please post your discussion questions for Week 14 (Nov 14) here

Discussion questions for Week 14 (Nov 14)

You can respond to one of the question or to all of them.

Question 1a. Which differences exist in the expression of time between English and your other language (of course, if your other language is Chinese, we already know from Ch. 15!).

Question 1b. Did you glean any pedagogical insights for teaching the encoding of time (or tense/aspect) in your professional language from the readings?

Question 2. Think about how the animals used to study the relationship between gender and bilingualism are usually portrayed in children’s books in English and other languages that you know (in terms of gender, e.g., clothing, names, roles, etc.). Is there gender consistency within and among the languages? Would this have implications for the findings of the study in Ch.16?

Question 3. What is an emblematic gesture? How is it different from the sense attributed to the term “gesture” in the work of scholars like McNeill who use gestures to study the expression of motion, for example? http://mcneilllab.uchicago.edu/writing/topics.html

An interesting resource on growing up with two languages

http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415598521/?utm_campaign=Growing%20Up%20With%20Two%20Languages&utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email

Please post your discussion questions for Week 13 (Nov 7) here

Please post your discussion questions for Week 13 (Nov 7) here

Week 13 (Nov 7)

The article by Papafragou et al. concludes that  ”attention allocation during event perception is not affected by the perceiver’s native language; effects of language arise only when linguistic forms are recruited to achieve the task, such as when committing facts to memory.” Do you agree with the logic of the argument and conclusion? Why or why not? Or, which of the arguments do you find convincing and which require further investigation or a different approach?

Please post your discussion questions for Week 12 (Oct 31) here

Please post your discussion questions for Week 12 (Oct 31) here.

Week 12 (Oct 31)

Choose one question to tackle or respond to both:

Based on the article we read this week and other sources of information, which factors influence parents’ decisions on whether or not to raise their children bilingual? What can be done to encourage parents to do so?

Many popular magazines for women suggest that even mothers with low levels of proficiency in a foreign language can teach their babies to speak and understand an L2. Would you agree with this advice?

 

Please post your discussion questions for Week 11 (Oct 24) here

Please post your discussion questions for the classroom conversations on Week 11 (Oct 24) here.

Week 11 (October 24)

1. If we believe that there is a link between emotions and language fluency, does it mean that bilinguals have two distinct personalities in their two languages?

2. A completely different question, but do you see any practical implications that the study of affect has for second language learning and teaching?

Please post your discussion questions for Week 10 (Oct 17) here

Please post your discussion questions for Week 9 (Oct 10) here.