Author Archives: schaefew

Indovinello

Posted on 9. December 2012 by schaefew

Es ist ein schönes Gefühl, von Studenten etwas zu lernen, aber so eine Hilfestellung wie Vincenzo De Bartholomaeis bekommt man nicht alle Tage. Er arbeitete an einem alten Kodex, der zwei viel später verfasste handschriftliche Anmerkungen enthielt. Das Dokument war … Continue reading →

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Unverkäuflich

Posted on 9. December 2012 by schaefew

Oft hört man von Europäern, die in China ins Fettnäpfchen treten. Besonders Deutsche scheinen das ständig zu tun. Gut zu hören, dass es auch manchmal den Chinesen bei ihren Auslandsreisen passiert. Chen Weidong, der Energieexperte des chinesischen Staatsunternehmens CNOOC, wollte … Continue reading →

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Strangers

Posted on 8. December 2012 by schaefew

Many of the men who later became household names in Linguistics did not originally come from Philology or related disciplines: Roget, author of the famous dictionary of synonyms, took his first degree in Medicine, Boas, author of the Handbook of … Continue reading →

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Naturally artificial

Posted on 8. December 2012 by schaefew

The success of informal learning, and especially of the child acquiring its mother-tongue, has always impressed language teachers, and attempts to reproduce the same effect by creating the same conditions have been a regular feature of language teaching history. Locke’s … Continue reading →

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Learning to use vs. using to learn

Posted on 8. December 2012 by schaefew

There is, in a sense, a ‘strong’ version of communicative language teaching, much closer to the original proposals than the ‘weak’ version now largely accepted by teachers and textbook writers. In the ‘weak’ version, communicative activities have been accepted as … Continue reading →

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Vitale Stadt

Posted on 5. December 2012 by schaefew

In einer Fernsehsendung wurde von einer weniger bekannten dritten Rede berichtet, die Kennedy 1963 in Berlin hielt, eine Rede an die in Berlin stationierten amerikanischen Soldaten.  Er sagte, die Zahl der amerikanischen Soldaten sei nicht sehr groß, aber es sei … Continue reading →

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Zeit zum Aufräumen

Posted on 2. December 2012 by schaefew

Eine durchschnittliche Ehe dauert vierzehn Jahre. Bei 21% aller Scheidungen ist ein Seitensprung der Auslöser, bei 29% die Unordnung. 12% würden ihren Partner verlassen, wenn er 50 Kilo zunähme. (Finis, “Das Letzte”, in: Die Zeit 49/2012: 63)

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Leise Weiße, laute Grüne

Posted on 2. December 2012 by schaefew

In einem Test wurden 162 Testpersonen von 8 bis 88 Jahren sieben technisch identische Autos vom Typ Ford Fiesta vorgeführt. Der einzige Unterschied: die Farbe. Getestet wurde das Hörerlebnis. Das Resultat: Die Vorbeifahrt der weißen Autos wurde als besonders leise … Continue reading →

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Babbling away in Latin

Posted on 2. December 2012 by schaefew

Montaigne was brought up as a native speaker of Latin! His father, determined that his son should have every advantage in life, and in particular a perfect education, put him in charge of a German who was totally ignorant of … Continue reading →

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Magical beginnings

Posted on 1. December 2012 by schaefew

One of the most ardent advocates of a natural method of language learning was Lambert Sauveur (1826-1907), a French emigrant to the United States. In Sauveur’s school in Boston, students spent at least one month entirely on intensive oral work, … Continue reading →

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Sweet = Higgins?

Posted on 26. November 2012 by schaefew

Henry Sweet, the man who ‘taught phonetics to Europe’, graduated with a fourth class degree when he was thirty! Later, he was turned down several times for a professorship, something which crippled his relations with colleagues and fellow professionals for … Continue reading →

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Naturally invented texts?

Posted on 26. November 2012 by schaefew

Henry Sweet, the man who ‘taught phonetics to Europe’, is less well known as the author of  The Practical Study of Languages, a book which made him the orgininator of applied linguistics to the teaching of languages. Sweet recognised one … Continue reading →

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Paedagogical natives?

Posted on 26. November 2012 by schaefew

Henry Sweet, the man who ‘taught phonetics to Europe’, in his pedagogical work made a clear point in favour of the non-native teacher. For teaching Germans English, he believed, a phonetically trained German was far superior to an untrainded Englishman, … Continue reading →

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No transcription, please!

Posted on 24. November 2012 by schaefew

When I speak about phonetics in class, or even when I talk about the teaching of pronunciation, the first thing students come up with is phonetic transcription. This has always puzzled me, transcription being – at best – a useful … Continue reading →

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Tönende Geschichten

Posted on 24. November 2012 by schaefew

In Westfalen erzählt man sich, wie ich aus Studentenzeiten weiß, Dönekes. Jetzt erfahre ich von einem Freund, dass die in Norddeutschland Döntjes heißen. Abgeleitet sind die Wörter von dönen, ‘erzählen’, und das hat ganz einfach mit Ton zu tun.

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