Event
HomeWhy are we still teaching the wrong grammar the wrong way?
Friday, November 1st, 2013, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Speaker: Scott Thornbury (New School, New York)
JALT's West Tokyo Chapter and JALT Tokyo are pleased to present an interesting talk by the distinguished Associate Professor of English Language Studies at the New School in New York, Scott Thornbury.
Language teachers spend a lot of time teaching "tenses", and textbooks suggest that the tense system in English is both intricate and opaque. Accordingly, it is typically described and taught in terms that (I will argue) have little linguistic or psychological reality. In this workshop I will critique the standard pedagogical model, and then attempt to simplify it, by first distinguishing between tense and aspect, and then suggesting ways that a simpler, more elegant system might be applied in practice. Alternative approaches might require viewing grammar, not as a discrete, sentence-level, system but as both "big lexis" and "small text". Likewise, teachers might be better off aiming to inculcate, not rules, but a "feel", for the way that the systems interrelate.
Organization: West Tokyo Chapter of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (West Tokyo JALT)
Cost: JALT Members: free
Non-members: 1,000 yen
Venue: Tokyo Keizai University, Kokubunji, Kyodo Kaigishitsu 1, 6th floor Building #6 (map, video)
Location: Kokubunji City, Tokyo Metropolis, Japan
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