LINGUIST List 9.1647

Thu Nov 19 1998

Qs: Teaching Second Language, Arabic Vowels

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Martin Boyle, Teaching Second Language
2. Vincent DeCaen, Arabic vowels

I have three questions regarding this:

1. How do native-speaker English language teachers' own foreign
language learning experiences help them notice features of the SLA
process, and how do these experiences affect their classroom
approaches?

2. All other things being equal, is it preferable for a 
native-speaker English language teacher to have a knowledge of her/
his students' L1, and why?

3. All other things being equal, is it preferable for a 
native-speaker English language teacher to have experienced a (any)
taught foreign language course, and why?

I'd be grateful if anyone could point me in the direction of any
recent academic research, learner diaries and so on.

I've been told about arabic dialects in which the historical length
distinction has been converted to a surface quality distinction: e.g.,
/ii/ as [i] vs /i/ as [e]; or /uu/ as [u], but /u/ as [o]. I remember
something about spoken farsi arabic.

any scholarly study of such arabic dialects will be greatly appreciated. 
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Vincent DeCaen, Ph.D. <decaenchass.utoronto.ca>

Hebrew Syntax Encoding Initiative
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca:8080/~decaen/hsei/intro.html
c/o Deparment of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
4 Bancroft Ave., 2d floor, University of Toronto, Toronto ON, M5S 1A1
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