Valeria Scherf Advisor: Dr. Kathy Lyday-Lee TESOL Symposium Greensboro College July 10, 2008

1. A Guide for ESL Teachers: How to Teach the Historical Background of English Irregularities in Modern English Valeria Scherf Advisor: Dr. Kathy Lyday-Lee TESOL Symposium Greensboro College July 10, 2008

2. The Beauty of the English Language Eggplant - French fries - Guinea pig Pineapple - quicksand - boxing rings Tooth teeth booth beeth? 1 goose  2 geese 1 moose  2meese? Teachers taught preachers  praught? • Ċild (from OE cild); plural wasċildru : re-pluralized during ME to children

3. The Purpose of the Study To provide to ESL teachers with a textbook with changes that have occurred in modern English since Anglo-Saxon times.

4. Justification for the Study “Precisely because he is a teacher, in a school, and it is the business of a school to formulate statements which are generalizations about many facts and experiences.” (Twaddell, 1962) “EFL teachers should have knowledge not just of English but also about English.” (www.jobs.languagelink.ru/TEFL/programmes.php)

5. Research Questions • Would a teacher’s guide focused on English irregularities be useful to ESL teachers? • What kinds of English irregularities cause the most difficulties for ESL students?

6. Definitions • Syntheticlanguage: One that indicates the relation of words in a sentence largely by means of inflections (e.g. Old English) • Analyticlanguage: One that makes extensive use of prepositions and auxiliary verbs and depends upon word order to show other relationships (e.g. Modern English) • Leveling: A process of phonetic simplification, where unstressed syllables are dropped. (e.g. OE stānum stānustānəstān) • Analogy: The linguistic tendency to create a grammatical or semantic form based on existing forms in a language, which often results in a regularization of the part of speech. (e.g. OE past participle • cloven  cleaved, • bacen  baked) (Baugh, & Cable, 2002)

7. Major Time Periods • Pre- English 43 AD - 449:  Celts  Romans  Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians • 450-1100:  Old English Period • 780-1014:  Norse Invasion • 1066:  Norman Invasion • 1100-1500: Middle English Period • 1500-1650:  Renaissance Period • 1650-1800:  Early Modern English • 1800-Present: Modern English (Emerson, 1933) (Pyles, 1964) (Bragg, 2003)

8. Inflectional ChangesStrong Masculine NounSingularPlural (Robertson, 1934) (Stevick, 1968) (Pyles, & Algeo, 1963)

9. Inflectional ChangesStrong Masculine Adjective Singular Plural (Robertson, 1934) (Stevick, 1968) (Pyles, & Algeo, 1963)

10. Inflectional Changes Verbs Adverbs (http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/resources/IOE/advconprep.html) (Pei, 1952) (Baugh, & Cable, 2002)

11. Inflectional Changes Personal Pronouns Singular N. īċ ðū hē(he) hēo (she) hit (it) G. mīn ðīn his hiere his D. mē ðē him hiere him A. mē (mēċ) ðē (ðēċ) hine hīe hit Dual N. wit ġit G. uncer incer D. unc inc A. unc inc Plural N. wēġē hīe G. ūser (ūre) ēower hiera D. ūs ēow him A. ūs (ūsiċ) ēow (ēowiċ) hīe (Baugh, & Cable, 2002, p. 59) (Pyles, & Algeo, 1992, p. 117-118) (Bloomfield, & Newmark, 1965, p. 160-163) (Robertson, 1934, p. 121-127)

12. The Great Vowel Shift • What was it? • The raising of long vowels one half step phonetically. • When did it happen? • Between late 1400-1650, completed in most areas by 1700. • Why did it happen? • No one knows for sure. • (Stevick, 1968, p. 102-114) • (Baugh, 1951, p. 287-289) • ( Mugglestone, 2006, p. 154-147) • (http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/great-vowel-shift) • (http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/gvs_chart2.html)

13. Purpose of my survey • Which irregularities cause the most difficulties for ESL students? • Grammatical • Semantics • Syntax • Phonology • Punctuation • Orthography • Which difficulties are particular to the nationality of ESL students?

14. Use of –s with 3rd person Use of verbal tenses Use of pronouns Use of interpersonal phrases Use of affixes Use of comparative and superlatives Use of prepositions Use of possessives Use of noun endings with –s MethodologyGrammatical

15. MethodologySemantics • Use of the verb “to be” • Use of parts of speech • Use of homonyms fair - fair – fair • Use of homophones cite – site – sight • Use of words • Use of idioms • Use of false cognates • Use of ordinal numbers on dates

16. Methodology 1. What irregularities of the English language do your students struggle with the most to learn or master? 2. Considering the language distance, what kind of grammatical, semantics, syntactical, phonological and orthographical difficulties have your students from different nationalities? 3. The historical background of what English exceptions or irregularities would you like to consider important or relevant to be included in this ESL guide? 4. What kind of exercises should this guide focus on?

17. Methodology • Instrument: Survey • Individuals: Certified ESL teachers • Number of individuals: Thirty • Location: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, NC • Time to start: Fall 2008

18. Data will be analyzed • By categories: Grammatical, semantics, syntactical, phonological, punctuation and orthographical. • By nationalities: Examples of difficulties will by grouped by ethnic groups.

19. Thank you!

20. References • Baker, P. S. (2003). 10 Adverbs, Conjunctions and Prepositions. Retrieved from http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/resources/IOE/advconprep.htm • Baugh, A., & Cable, T. (2002). A history of the English language (5th edition). New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. • Bloomfield, M. W. & Newmark, L. (1965). A linguistic introduction to the history of English. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. • Bragg, M. (2003). The adventure of English: the biography of a language. New York: Arcade Publishing. • Emerson, O. F. (2005). The history of the English language. New York: Macmillan Company. • Freeborn, D. (1998). From old English to standard English (2nd edition). Great Britain: MacMillan Press Ltd. • InternationalLanguage CentreLanguage Link. (n.d.). TEFL training programmes . Retrieved May 10, 2008, from www.jobs.languagelink.ru/TEFL/programmes.php • Krapp, G. P. (1927). The knowledge of English. New York: Henry Holt and Company. • Kip Wheeler, L. (2008, June). Chart showing the actual great vowel shift. Retrieved from http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/gvs_chart2.html

21. References • Mugglestone, L. (2006). The Oxford history of English. Great Britain: Oxford University Press. • Peters, R. A. (1968). A linguistic history of English. Boston: Western Washington State College. • Pyles, T. (1964). The origins and development of the English language . New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. • Pyles, T., & Algeo, J. (1993). The origins and development of the English language (4th edition). Texas: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers. • Robertson, (1934). The development of modern English. New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc. • Stevick, (1968). English and its history. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc. • Twaddell, W. F. (1962, May). Does the foreign-language teacher have to teach grammar? PMLA, 77(2), 18-22. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/ sici?sici=00308129(196205)77%3A2%3C18%3ADTFTHT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y • The Spiritus Temporis Web Ring Community. (n.d.). Great vowel shift. Retrieved June 28, 2008, from http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/great-vowel-shift/