Ideas of TESOL (1)------> (something) ------> An elaborately embroidered eastern orthodox mitre?

Is that a hat?            

                                
   I teach English at various schools and colleges in Japan. In one of these places, there is a text-book for beginners that offers the following example:


                  Ken: Is that a hat?
                  Mary:  No, it isn't. It is a scarf.


    My question is: How useful is this example? Does any normal human being often use this question? Or is it the kind of question that is only used in very rare circumstances- maybe if you are The Earl of Carnarvon exploring Tutenkhamen's tomb, or possibly Chief O'Hara, entrusted with protection of a priceless collection of Etruscan snoods.
    To consider  some comparisons with examples in other subjects:

 

          Geography: An example of a country is: The Republic of Upper Volta.

          History:      An example of an English Monarch is  Sweyn Forkbeard.

         Biology:      An example of a mammal is a Gilbert's Poteroo.


         Maths:        An example of addition is a farthing + a potato

   　　 Physics:     An example of Physics is that In this box there is a cat both alive and dead.

  What's wrong with these examples? They are, after all, correct, just like: "Is that a hat?" is a correct example of a question in English. The problem is that all these examples are not basic examples, and therefore don't explain well enough for people to understand.  Is that a hat? is an example of a sentence that is hardly ever used, so it can be considered to be a bad example. Magnificently though, it is also, at the same time a good example, so it might be fairly referred to as: Schrodinger's hat .*
   The reason why it is both a terrible example and a perfectly adequate example is because of the most basic way that everything works which is:


                                Information -------------------------------> Idea

    If you are teaching anything, then the most basic goal is (or should be) to help people to understand how it works. Because, if people understand how something works then they can do it themselves. Note that we are talking about people. If you do not wish people to understand how things work, if you want them to just be confused and trained to take orders, don't worry and congratulations, it means that you are doing well and, to strengthen your un-just position in society you necessarily have to keep other people down. In fact, it is most helpful to you if you train people to just act as dogs.
 
    Anyway, if you are teaching language, then it is important to teach how it works. And it is here that things are often rendered unnecessarily opaque due to:

    1. Traditional education having a strong urge to treat people as dogs. Or possibly Morlocks.   
    2. People not being dogs, and the difference being in the difference of ability to communicate.
    3. The most widely-used definition of communication (transfer of information)  being one that               derived from machine processes.
    4. Humans are not machines, the difference lying in the way people deal with information. (One      can send the information of "7" to a machine and it receives it as "7". If you send the information of "7" to a human they will immediately try to connect it with an idea.

               
Information -------------------------------------------------->     Idea
       7                                                                                     7 what ?
                                                                                                  or
                                                                                             lucky number...erm...

                                                                                                   tears?
                                                                                                        or
                                                                                                  these guys?
                                                                                                        or
                                                                                                  these guys?

                                                                                                        or
                                                                              You Lot! What? Don't stop!
                                                                                                        or
                                                                                                        8
                                                                                                        or
     (written)                                                                                     L?
                                                                                                        or
                                                                                                        a leg?
                                                                                                        or
                                                                                                   better live
                                                                      
                                                                                                       etc

          5. Ideas of the structure of language that are akin to describing the basic structure of the human body in terms of body parts only (the human body is a head, torso and arms and legs) without pointing out the existence of the skeleton.
                                                                                             

      To try and explain:     As all communication works as information ---------> Idea, so language works. Consequently, it is better to teach how language works in terms of this model than in terms of,say…
SVO.
                               

  Calm down super-hero man! Try not to react so emotionally. I'll give you some examples:


The most basic parcels of information can be stated as:

Something, someone, somewhere, sometime, someone's, some reason, somethings and somehow.
As well as: does something, doing something, did something and done something.These are the most basic building blocks of information. We think in these terms and language reflects that. It is important to note, however, that language is not taught according to these most basic of foundations.

Using the information---------> Idea model, we can understand the following basic relationship-

          Information ----------------------------------------------------------------------------> Idea

           Something                                                                                                    a  chair

  
     Now, in Japan, this relationship is almost never taught, so that Japanese students quite naturally use the relationship that they know from Japanese:

            Nantoka  ----------------------------------------------> isu
which comes out as:
        
            something -----------------------------------------------> chair

consequently, articles in English remain much more of a mystery than they necessarily have to be, simply because they are not taught according to the way they most basically work, that is to say, articles are part of, not seperate from the idea of something.
 

          At base, to understand how things are connected, and to understand how to connect things ourselves is a reasonable goal for education, isn't it? To my mind, one simple reason why Japanese students are not taught simple connections is because people, that is to say, native speakers, don't know how they do it. It is not generally understand how it works. And even if you don't know how something works, you can still assign it a name,( that thing in the sky is Ra, the basic physiological system of humans is: blood, yellow or black bile, and pleghm.) In time an entire menagerie of fantastic beasts can be stocked, fed and watered just like kings have always done, and the plebs can marvel at the romantic articles and the fussy gerunds and thrill to the cry of the fabulous collocation.

Yet people consistently learn their own language without one single visit to the linguistic zoo.

         

There's really no point crying.

  If you were to ask Lionel Messi exactly how he puts an opponent on the floor before precisely chipping in to score,  it is unlikely that you would receive a satisfactory explanation. In the same way, native speakers of a language don't really understand how they do it. 

So how do they** do it?

 People's brains are set up to think in terms of basic information. Consequently, the first piece of basic information we always have to deal with is: something.
 Observation of young infants suggests that they are constantly addressing what can be termed the something problem.*** All babies# are born into a forest of information, and their brains immediately attempt to sort things out. On the most basic level, even before language, there is a constant on-going effort to categorise things in terms of what is it?
  At this point it is useful to note that, as adjectives are basically something, so the the question what is it? can produce ideas of good/bad, safe/scary, and delicious/not delicious as well as my mum/hunger, being held/ alone, food/not food.
  From this, it follows that we structure our thoughts in the most basic way as:

                          (something)  is (something)+

  This is the way we think about things at the most basic level, even before language, and it is on this skeleton that the muscle of language fits. Nobody, at the most natural level, thinks in terms of SVO or articles or adjectives, and it is because of this that we can learn our native language without ever once worrying about the need to wrestle an Indo-european diphthong.

And so, the question is: Is this the way it works?++
I am going to answer: Yes. So that Tesol should, fundamentally be about basic information. Basic information that leads to basic ideas.
 Which will then bring us, as unavoidable as is the sulphorous stench upon Lucifer's slags , to......


                                           

  

                 Join us+++ next time, for: Ideas in Tesol (2): The Whichfinder Specific !!


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* Although, you probably shouldn't. But by putting it to one side, it is also still here.

** By they I mean us.

*** But probably shouldn't.

# Including the other animals.

+ It is interesting to note that, because communication is basically always: Info ----> Idea, we must necessarily make sentences basically as follows:
                           1. Information  -------------------------------------------------------> 2. Idea
                                                    3, Description/explanation of connection

   For example:  1. This            --------------------------------------------------------> 2. a chair
                                                     3. is

Again, to emphasise the point. nobody thinks in terms of SVO. So why is it taught that way?



++ And if it isn't, then how does it work, would you say?

+++ Obviously, I'm saying this for my three regular readers, only one of whom is fictional.++++

++++ And none of whom are directly involved with Tesol. You see, one fascinating thing I have discovered about trying to discuss these things is that, generally,  people outside Tesol, and more broadly, outside education are more likely to be willing to discuss these ideas.

      Here are some genuine reactions from people involved with education/Tesol:

(School manager to me (angrily) : "I don't have to explain anything to you!"

(University Tesol teacher to me (in a personal e-mail) : "I will never read your blog!"

(Manager at the largest provider of private education in the world, on being asked by myself as to what is their definition of education): "Who the fuck has a definition of education?"

(More than one person on being asked to consider the most basic way communication works):
"I think if we understood how communication works we would lose the magic"

(Ofsted - UK Office of standards in education, on being asked, by e-mail, for their definition of education): "Ofsted does not have a definition of education."

(University lecturer in Communication on being asked, on his blog, if Info--->Idea might be a better way of looking at things): "..........." (no response)

(Ofsted - UK Office of standards in education, on being asked, by e-mail, how they manage to measure standards in education when they have no clear idea about what it is): "........" (no response).

(Manager of private company that has the task of finding volunteers from the local community to help children to read on being asked by myself, by e-mail, why they they refused my mum's application simply because she hadn't been to university (I assured them that she had taught me to read and reads very well, herself)): "........." (no response).

(Japanese Publisher of text-books when responding to my pitch of a basic text-book explaining how communication basically works with the title being: コミュニケーション道　(The way of Communication): "I don't want communication in the title".
Me: "Why not"
Pub. "It's too vague."
Me:" But the point of the book is to make it clearer."
Pub. "....." (No response.)

(TED representative on being asked to explain why "communication is basically the only thing we ever do"* is not an idea worth sharing): "....." (no reponse).

etc,etc.

* I think it is an idea worth sharing, but I have often been frustrated in my efforts to do so. My own idea from this information is that I should try harder.

    

"The task is not to see what has never been seen before, but to think what has never been thought before about what you see everyday."

Erwin Schrodinger