75 ESL Teaching Ideas

 Prof. Abdelhamid Fouda 

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Introduction

These are the ideas included in Hall Houston's Random ESL Idea Generator. If you have a JavaScript-enabled browser, you can use the generator to get a randomly-selected idea from this list. Perhaps you will find it useful to print out this list and refer to it from time to time.

The Ideas

1. Alter the pacing of your class. If you rush through your class at full speed, slow things down and take time to ask your students personal questions based on the materials you are using. If you tend to proceed at a snail's pace, prepare some additional activities and push yourself to accomplish more than you usually do.
2. Ask a student to demonstrate a dance, and assist the student in explaining the movements in English.
3. Ask students to name as many objects in the classroom as they can while you write them on the board.
4. Ask students to present to the class a gesture that is unique to their own culture.
5. Ask students to write one question they would feel comfortable answering (without writing their name) on an index card. Collect all of the index cards, put them in a bag, have students draw cards, and then ask another student the question on that card.
6. Ask your students if there are any songs running through their heads today. If anyone says yes, encourage the student to sing or hum a little bit, and ask the others if they can identify it.
7. Assign students to take a conversation from their coursebook that they are familiar with and reduce each line to only one word.
8. At the end of class, erase the board and challenge students to recall everything you wrote on the board during the class period. Write the expressions on the board once again as your students call them out.
9. Begin by telling your students about an internal struggle between two sides of your personality (bold side vs. timid side OR hardworking side vs. lazy side), providing a brief example of what each side says to you. After a few minutes of preparation in pairs, have students present their struggles to the class.
10. Bring a cellular phone (real or toy) to class, and pretend to receive calls throughout the class. As the students can75 ESL Teaching Ideas only hear one side of the conversation, they must guess who is calling you and why. Make the initial conversation very brief, and gradually add clues with each conversation. The student who guesses correctly wins a prize.
11. Bring a fork, knife, spoon, bowl, plate and chopsticks (if you have them) to class, and mime eating some different dishes, letting students guess what they are. Then let your students take a turn.
12. Bring an artifact from the student's culture to class, and ask them questions about it.
13. Bring in some snacks that you think your students haven't tried before, and invite the students to sample them and give their comments.
14. Call on a student to draw his or her country's flag on the board, then teach him or her how to describe the flag to the class (It has three stripes...).
15. Choose one topic (food, sports) and elicit a list of examples (food - chicken, pudding, rice). Then have your student come up with the most unusual combinations of items from that list(chocolate-beef or wrestling-golf).
16. Collaborate with your students on a list of famous people, including movie stars, politicians, athletes, and artists. Have every student choose a famous person, and put them in pairs to interview each other.
17. Come to class dressed differently than usual and have students comment on what's different.
18. Copy a page from a comic book, white out the dialogue, make copies for your class, and have them supply utterances for the characters.
19. Copy pages from various ESL textbooks (at an appropriate level for your students), put them on the walls, and have students wander around the classroom and learn a new phrase. Then have them teach each other what they learned.
20. Copy some interesting pictures of people from magazine ads. Give a picture to each student, have the student fold up the bottom of the picture about half an inch, and write something the person might be thinking or saying. Put all the pictures up on the board, and let everyone come up and take a look.
21. Describe something observable in the classroom (while looking down), and tell students to look in the direction of what you described.
22. Draw a map of your country or another country that your students know well. By drawing lines, show students where you went on a trip, and tell them about it. Then call on several students to do the same. The trips can be truthful or fictional.
23. Draw a pancake-shape on the board, and announce that the school will soon be moving to a desert island. Invite students one by one to go to the board and draw one thing they would like to have on the island.
24. Draw a party scene on the board, and invite students to come up and draw someone they would like to have at the party.
25. Empty a bag of coupons onto a table, and have students find a coupon for a product that they have no need for.
26. Experiment with how you write on the board, altering your writing style, the size of the letters, the direction you write, and the color of the chalk/pens.
27. Explain to your students what it means to call someone a certain animal (dog, pig, fox) in English, and then ask them what these mean in their languages.
28. Fill the board with vocabulary your students have encountered in previous classes (make sure to include all parts of speech), and get them to make some sentences out of the words.
29. Find out what famous people your students admire, and work together with the class to write a letter to one of them.
30. Find out what your students are interested in early on in the semester. Go to the Internet from time to time to collect articles on these subjects for students to read during the class period.
31. First, instruct your students to write on a slip of paper the name of one book, CD, or movie that changed them in some way. Collect the papers, call out the titles, and ask the class if they can guess who wrote it. Finally, let the writer identify him or herself, explaining his or her choice.
32. Give each student a piece of chalk/pen and tell them to fill the board with pop song lyrics. Then put them in pairs, and get them to use the words on the board to create a new dialogue.
33. Give students a reward (such as a candy or a sticker) each time they take the artificial language in your textbook and turn it into an authentic question or comment about someone in the class.
34. Hand a student a ball of yellow yarn. Have him toss it to another student, while saying something positive about that student and holding onto the end of the yarn. Continue in this manner until there is a web between all the students.
35. Hand each student an index card, and tell them to write down a sentence that includes an error they have made this week, along with the correct version of the sentence. Next, tape all of the index cards on the board for students to look over.
36. Hang up four different posters (example - one of a world map, one of a famous singer, one of a flower, and one of Einstein) in the four corners of your room. Tell students to choose one corner to stand in, and talk about why they chose that poster.
37. Have each student make a list of the five most useful phrases for tourists visiting an English speaking country.
38. Have students come to the board one by one, draw a poster for an English language movie (without the title) they think the other students have seen, and let the other students guess which movie it is.
39. Hire a musician (flute? harmonica? banjo?) to play for a few minutes of your class period.
40. In small groups, have your students design a billboard for something other than a product (wisdom, humility, friendship, etc.).
41. Inquire to see if your students have any unusual talents (can wiggle their ears, can bark like a dog), and encourage them to demonstrate.
42. Instead of saying "Very good!" all the time, vary the ways you praise (and correct) students as much as possible.
43. Instruct your students to find something in their wallets/purses/pencil boxes, and tell the story behind it.
44. Invite your students to stand up and explore the classroom from new angles (look in drawers, under desks, behind posters, on top of cabinets). Then have students report their findings.
45. Just a few minutes before the bell rings, call on your students to choose the ten most useful words they came in contact with during this class period, then have them narrow it down to the three most useful words.
46. Pass around some magazines, and have each student choose an ad that he or she likes. Give students an opportunity to explain their choices.
47. Play a listening activity from your book an additional time with the lights turned off.
48. Play a recording of instrumental music and have some students draw on the board what the music makes them think of.
49. Play five very different sounds from a sound effects tape or CD, and assign students in pairs to create a story based on three of the sounds.
50. Play music that enhances certain activities (quiet music for a reading activity, dance music for an energetic TPR activity). Ask your students for their reactions.
51. Prepare colored letters of the alphabet on cardboard squares and put them in a bag. Students must draw a letter from the bag, and work together to create a sentence on the board. Each student must raise his or her hand to make a contribution, but the word the student calls out must begin with the letter he or she chose. Put the expanding sentence on the board, adding words only when they the grammar is correct.
52. Prepare several paper bags, each with a different scent inside (perfume, cinnamon, cheese), pass the bags around the class, and let students describe what they smell.
53. Print phrases such as "in the library" "at an elegant dinner with the Royal Family" "in a noisy bar" "in a dangerous neigborhood" on separate strips of paper, put them in envelopes, and tape them to the underside of a few students' desks/tables before they arrive. Write on the board a useful expression like "Excuse me. Could I borrow a dollar?" When students arrive, tell them to look for an envelope under the desks/tables. The ones who find envelopes must say the sentence on the board as if in the context written on the page. Other students must guess the context from the student's tone of voice and body language.
54. Produce a list of commonly used sentence-modifying adverbs on the board, such as suddenly, actually, unfortunately, and happily. Then launch into a story, which each student must contribute to, with the rule that everyone must begin the first sentence of his or her contribution with a sentence-modifying adverb.
55. Provide each student with a list of the current top ten popular songs. Play excerpts from some or all of the songs, and choose some questions to ask your students, such as: Did you like the song? Have you heard this song before? How did the song make you feel? What instruments did you hear?
56. Purchase a postcard for each member of your class, writing his or her name in the name and address space. Turn them picture side up on a table, have each student choose one (without looking at the name), then he or she will write a message to the person whose name is on the other side. If a student chooses the postcard that has his or her own name on it, the student must choose again.
57. Put students in pairs and ask them to guess three items in their partner's wallet/purse/pencil box.
58. Put students in pairs. Tell them to converse, but to deliberately make one grammatical error over and over, stopping only when one student can spot the other's intentional error.
59. Put students into small groups to create an application form for new students to the school.
60. Put the students in small groups, and ask each group to plan a vacation for you. They must plan where you will go, what you will do, who you will go with, and what you will buy. When they are finished, have each group present their plans.
61. Review a phrase or sentence that you want students to remember, by holding a competition to see "Who can say it the loudest/the quietest/the quickest/the slowest/in the deepest voice/in the highest pitched voice?".
62. Set up a board in your classroom where students can buy and sell used items from each other by writing notes in English.
63. Supply each student with a copy of the entertainment section of the local newspaper, and tell them to choose somewhere to go next weekend.
64. Take a particularly uninteresting page from your coursebook, and put students in groups to redesign it.
65. Teach on a different side of the room than you usually do.
66. Tell each student to report the latest news in their country or city to the class.
67. Tell your students to practice a conversation from their coursebook that they are familiar with, but this time they can only use gestures, no words.
68. When they are practicing a dialogue, have students play around with the volume, intonation, pitch, or speed of their voices.
69. Write "Tell me something I don't know." on the board, then ask students questions about things they know about and you don't, such as their lives, cultural background, interests, and work.
70. Write a common adjacency pair (Thank you./You're welcome OR I'm sorry./That's alright) on the board. Ask students if they know of any expressions that could replace one of the ones you just wrote. Write any acceptable answers on the board.
71. Write a number of adjectives, such as mysterious, happy, peaceful, sad, angry, and frustrated on the board. Call out a color, and ask your students to tell you which adjective they associate with that color.
72. Write a word on a slip of paper and show it to a student. This student must whisper it to the second student. Then the second student must draw a picture of what he or she heard, and show it to the third student. The third student, then, writes the word that represents the picture and shows it to the fourth student. Then the fourth student whispers it to the fifth student.... and so on. This continues until you get to the last student, who must say the word to the class.
73. Write an idiomatic expression (such as "It beats me." or "I'm fed up.") in big letters on the board. Call on a few students to guess what it means before you tell them.
74. Write down the names of about five very different people on the board (a small baby, a rude waiter in a restaurant, a fashion model, a stranger in a crowd, and a grandfather). Give students a common expression, such as "Good morning!" or "Sorry!", and ask students how they might say it differently when talking to a different person.
75. Write your name on the board vertically, and add a suitable adjective that begins with each letter of your name. The next step is to invite students to do the same.

The Sensory Room: Helping Students With Autism Focus & Learn

Prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

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 **  LINGUISTICS  

Short Questions & Answers of Linguistics **

What is semantics? 

Ans. Semantics is the study of the meanings of words, phrases and sentences

Q. What is Signifier? 

Ans. Signifier is the sound or pronunciation of a word

Q. What is Signified? 

Ans. Signified is the meaning indicated by the signifier/pronunciation of a word

Q. What is Conceptual meaning? 

Ans. The basic meaning conveyed by words e.g. the word needle means "thin, sharp, steel instrument"

Q. What is Associative meaning? 

Ans. The type of meaning that people connect with words e.g. the word needle may be associated with "pain, illness, blood, drugs or knitting"

Q. Conceptual meaning is also called? 

Ans. Denotative meaning which means dictionary meaning

Q. Associative meaning is also called? 

Ans. Connotative meaning which means what the words actually connote in different situations

Q. What is meant by Semantic Features in Semantics? 

Ans. Basic elements such as 'human' included as plus (+human) or minus (-human) used in the analysis of words.

Q. Give an example of a semantically incorrect sentence? 

Ans. "The horse is reading the newspaper." This sentence is structurally correct but semantically incorrect

Q. What is Semantic Role? 

Ans. The part played by a noun phrase, such as the subject, in a sentence is called semantic role 

Q. Semantic Roles are also called? 

Ans. Thematic Roles

Q. How many common semantic roles are there? 

Ans. 7

Q. What is the first semantic role called Agent OR Doer? 

Ans. Agent is the doer of an action e.g. 'Ahmad' in the sentence, "Ahmad called me."

Q. What is the second semantic role called Patient OR Theme? 

Ans. It refers to what is acted upon by the Agent e.g. 'boat' in the sentence, "John steered the boat."

Q. What is the third semantic role called Recipient OR Receiver? 

Ans. It indicates a receiver in a situation e.g. 'Ali' in the sentence, "The children sent Ali a postcard."

Q. What is the fourth semantic role called Instrument? 

Ans. It identifies the entity that is used to perform an action e.g. 'Razor' in the sentence, "The boy cut the rope with a razor."

Q. What is the fifth semantic role called Experimenter? 

Ans. It is the entity that has the feeling e.g. 'The Boy' in the sentence, "The Boy feels bad."

Q. What is the sixth semantic role called Source? 

Ans. It identifies where an entity moves from e.g. 'The House' in the sentence, "The Boy ran from the house."

Q. What is the seventh semantic role called Goal? 

Ans. It identifies where an entity moves to e.g. The Window in the sentence, "The boy walked to the window."

Q. Does a semantic role change in passive voice? 

Ans. No, because nothing changes in the real world e.g. "John steered the boat" becomes "The boat was steered by John." Still John is the Agent

Q. What is Synonymy? 

Ans. The lexical relation in which two or more words have very closely related meanings e.g. 'Conceal' is a synonym of 'Hide'

Q. What is Antonymy? 

Ans. The lexical relation in which words have opposite meanings e.g. 'Shallow' is an Antonym of 'Deep'

Q. What are Gradable Antonyms? 

Ans. Words with opposite meanings along a scale e.g. small-medium-large-extra large

Q. What are Non-gradable Antonyms? 

Ans. Words which are direct opposites e.g. alive-dead

Q. What is Hyponymy? 

Ans. The lexical relation in which the meaning of one word is included in the meaning of another word e.g. daffodil is a hyponym of flower because flower is common name for different flower

Q. What are Co-hyponyms? 

Ans. Two or more words that share the same broader category are co-hyponyms e.g. dog and horse are co-hyponyms as both are animals

Q. What is Superordinate? 

Ans. Superordinate means higher-level term e.g. dog and horse both have the same Superordinate "Animal"

Q. What is Prototype? 

Ans. The most common example of a category is called prototype e.g. Robin is the prototype of bird

Q. What are Homophones? 

Ans. Two or more words with different spellings and meanings but the same pronunciation e.g. to-too-two

Q. What are Homonyms? 

Ans. Two words with the same spellings and pronunciation but different meanings e.g. mole(on a skin) and mole(an animal) 

Q. What is Polysemy? 

Ans. A word having two or more related meanings e.g. foot of a person, of bed, of mountain

Q. What are mostly used for Word Play? 

Ans. Homophones, homonyms and Polysemy

Q. What is Metonymy? 

Ans. A word used in place of another with which it is closely connected in everyday experience e.g. Hollywood is used for English movies while it is actually a district of USA

Q. What is Collocation? 

Ans. Words that frequently occur together e.g. salt and pepper

Q. The basic principle of Lexicography is? Ans. Synonymy. Note: lexicography is the process of writing, editing and compiling a dictionary

Q. The soul of language is? 

Ans. Meaning

Q. Words are not only associated with situations but also with? 

Ans. Other words

Q. Who developed a field called general semantics? 

Ans. Alfred Habdank

Q. What are the two main areas of semantics? 

Ans. Logical semantics and lexical semantics

Q. Macro Linguistics? 

Ans. It is concerned with the way languages are acquired, stored in the brain and used for various functions

Q. Geographical Linguistics? 

Ans. It studies the geographic distribution of language

Q. Diachronic OR Historical Linguistics? 

Ans. It studies the history and development of languages

Q. Comparative OR Contrastive Linguistics? Ans. The study of similarities and differences between languages

Q. Psycholinguistics? 

Ans. It examines how humans acquire, use and understand language 

Q. Sociolinguistics? 

Ans. It studies the relationship between language and society. It tells how language is affected by social factors such as gender, ethnicity, age or social class

Q. Ethnolinguistics? 

Ans. It studies the relationship between language and culture

Q. Biolinguistics? 

Ans. The study of language functions as derived from the biological characteristics of an organism.

Q. Creolistics? 

Ans. It is the study of both creoles and the pidgin languages from which creoles develop.

Q. Evolutionary linguistics? 

Ans. The study of the origin and subsequent development of language.

Q. Clinical Linguistics? 

Ans. It deals with the application of linguistic science to the study of communication disability in order to treat an individual

Q. Forensic Linguistics? 

Ans. It helps in legal domain to identify speaker from voice recording etc

Q. Cognitive Linguistics? 

Ans. It describes how language interacts with cognition, how language forms our thoughts. It is the study of language as a mental phenomenon

Q. Corpus Linguistics? 

Ans. It deals with the principles and practice of using corpora in language study. It studies language as expressed in corpora (samples) of real world text

Q. Philosophy Of Linguistics? 

Ans. Philosophy of linguistics is the philosophy of other special sciences as applied to linguistics

Q. Text Linguistics? 

Ans. It is concerned with the description and analysis of extended texts (either spoken or written) in communicative contexts.

Q. Discourse Analysis? 

Ans. It is a research method for studying written or spoken language in relation to its social context.

Q. Neurolinguistics? 

Ans. It deals with the relationship between language and the structure and functioning of the brain

Q. Applied linguistics? 

Ans. The study of applying linguistics to real-life situations e.g. language teaching

Q. Computational Linguistics? 

Ans. The application of computer science to the analysis, synthesis and comprehension of written and spoken language

Q. Linguistic Philosophy? 

Ans. It tells that philosophical problems could be solved either by reforming language or by understanding more about the language that we presently use

🔸 MICRO LINGUISTICS 🔸

Q. Micro Linguistics? 

Ans. It is concerned only with the structures of the language system

Q. Phonology? 

Ans. It is the study of how speech sounds function in a particular language 

Q. Synchronic Linguistics? 

Ans. Synchronic linguistics is the study of a language at one particular period (usually the present). It is also known as descriptive linguistics

Q. Descriptive Linguistics? 

Ans. It describes the structure of a language as it exists, without reference to its history or to comparison with other languages

Q. Grammar OR Syntax? 

Ans. Grammar is the way we arrange words to make proper sentences

Q. Semantics? 

Ans. It is the study of the relationship between words and how we draw meaning from those words

Q. Pragmatics? 

Ans. It studies how context affects meaning in human language

Q. Dialectology? 

Ans. The branch of linguistics concerned with the study of dialects. Dialect is a regional variety of language 

Q. Morphology? 

Ans. The study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same language

Q. Phonetics? 

Ans. It studies the sounds of human speech

Q. Phonemics? 

Ans. It is the study of phonemes. The /s/ in ‘soar’ distinguishes it from /r/ in ‘roar’ in pronunciation as well as meaning

Q. Morphophonology? 

Ans. It deals with the phonological representation of morphemes. E.g. plurals "-es" and "-s", as in "bus, buses", versus "bun, buns"

Q. Lexicology? 

Ans. It studies the stock of words (the lexicon OR vocabulary) in a given language

Q. Lexicography? 

Ans. The process of writing, editing and compiling a dictionary

Q. Translation Theory? 

Ans. Translation Theory is concerned with the translation method appropriately used for a certain type of text

Q. Etymology? 

Ans. The study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history

Q. Stylistics? 

Ans. It is concerned with the study of style in texts especially literary works

Q. Phraseology? 

Ans. It is the study of fixed expressions, such as idioms and phrasal verbs whose meanings can't be predicted by translating every single word

Q. Quantitative Linguistics? 

Ans. Statistical and other quantitative concepts, models and methods which are used in the analysis of languages OR texts.

Q. What is Morphology? 

Ans. Morphology is the study and analysis of the structure, form and classes of words

Q. We can also say that morphology is the study of? 

Ans. Morphemes

Q. What is a morpheme? 

Ans. A word or a part of a word that has a meaning or a function e.g. in the word 'dogs', the morpheme dog has meaning but the morpheme -s makes it plural

Q. The plural suffix must follow? 

Ans. The stem of the word e.g. dog-s, cat-s, stone-s

Q. Each functional and lexical piece of a word is called? 

Ans. A morpheme e.g. the word 'dog' has one morpheme and the word 'dogs' has two morphemes

Q. The term Morphology means? 

Ans. The study of forms which means the study of morphemes

Q. Although Morphology was first used in Biology, when was it used for the first time in the study of language? 

Ans. In the middle of the 19th century

Q. What is the main difference between word and morpheme? 

Ans. A word stands by itself and a morpheme may or may not stand alone

Q. When a morpheme stands by itself, it is called? 

Ans. Root because it has a meaning of its own e.g. the morpheme 'cat'

Q. When a morpheme depends on another morpheme it is called? 

Ans. An affix because it has a grammatical function e.g. 's' in cats

Q. What are Free Morphemes? 

Ans. Morphemes that stand by themselves as single words e.g the words open and tour

Q. What are Bound Morphemes? 

Ans. Morphemes such as 'un' or 'ed' that can't stand alone and must be attached to another morpheme as 'un and ed' in the word undressed

Q. Free Morphemes fall into? 

Ans. Two categories Lexical and Functional 

Q. What is Lexical Morpheme? 

Ans. A free morpheme that is a content word such as a noun or verb e.g. Girl or hit

Q. What is Functional Morpheme? 

Ans. A morpheme that is used as function word such as a conjunction (and) or a preposition (in)

Q. Lexical Morphemes are? 

Ans. Verbs, nouns, adverbs and adjectives 

Q. Functional morphemes are?

 Ans. Conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns

Q. Lexical Morphemes are also called? 

Ans. Open class words... Because new words are added to them everyday

Q. Functional Morphemes are also called? 

Ans. Closed class words... because new words can't be added to them

Q. Bound Morphemes fall into? 

Ans. Two categories, derivational and inflectional

Q. What is Derivational morpheme? 

Ans. Morphemes that make words of different grammatical category from the stem e.g. Derivational morpheme 'ness' changes the adjective good to the noun goodness

Q. What is inflectional morpheme? 

Ans. Inflectional morphemes are used to show if a word is plural or singular, if it is paste tense or not, and if it is comparative or possessive form

Q. English has how many inflectional morphemes? 

Ans. Only eight... For noun -'s for possession and -s for plural; for verb -s, - ing, -ed, -en; for adjective -er and -est

Q. The main difference between inflectional and derivational morphemes is? 

Ans. Inflectional morpheme doesn't change the category of word while derivational changes the category

Q. What is Morph? 

Ans. Morph is the other name of morpheme e.g. the word cats consists of two morphemes cat and -s... Cat is lexical morpheme and -s is inflectional morpheme

Q. What is Allomorph? 

Ans. One of a set of forms that a morpheme may take in different contexts e.g. the -s of cats, the -en of oxen are allomorphs of the English plural morpheme

Q. Morphology plays an important role in? Ans. Theories of the acquisition of language and in theories of language change

Q. Our morphological knowledge has what two components? 

Ans. Knowledge of the individual morphemes

 AND knowledge of the rules that combine them

Q. What is Syntax? 

Ans. The way in which words are put together to form phrases, clauses, or sentences

Q. What allow(s) the grammatical inflection of words and are used to change the syntactic class of words? 

Ans. Morphemes

Q. Allow and kick are examples of which type of morpheme? 

Ans. Free morpheme

Q. What is Eponym? 

Ans. New words based on the name of a person or place are called Eponyms e.g. the word jeans from the Italian city Genoa where this type of cloth was first made

Q. What is Backformation? 

Ans. The process of reducing a word such as a noun to a shorter version and using it as a new word such as a verb e.g. Babysit from babysitter

Q. What is Coinage? 

Ans. The invention of new words e.g xerox

Q. The most typical sources of Coinage are? Ans. Commercial products that become general terms e.g. aspirin, nylon, zipper

Q. The most salient contemporary example of Coinage is? 

Ans. The word google which is originally a misspelling for the word googol

Q. What is Borrowing? 

Ans. The process of taking words from other languages... As English has taken words from many languages

Q. What is Compounding? 

Ans. The process of combining two or more words to form a new word e.g. Bookcases, textbook, fingerprint

Q. What is Blending? 

Ans. The process of combining the beginning of one word and the end of another word to form a new word e.g. Brunch from breakfast and lunch; smog from smoke and fog

Q. What is clipping? 

Ans. The process of reducing a word of more than one syllable to a shorter form e.g. 'ad' from advertisement and 'flu' from influenza 

Q. What is Hypocorism? 

Ans. A process in which a longer word is reduced to a shorter form with y or ie at the end e.g 'movie' from moving pictures and 'telly' from television

Q. What is Conversion? 

Ans. The process of changing the function of a word, such as a noun to a verb e.g. the noun vacation as a verb in 'they are vacationing in Lahore'

Q. What are Acronyms? 

Ans. Acronyms are new words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words e.g. NASA from National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Q. What is Affix? 

Ans. A bound morpheme such as un- or ed- added to a word e.g. undressed

Q. What is Derivation? 

Ans. The process of forming new words by adding affixes e.g. Unhappy from happy and misrepresent from represent

Q. What is etymology? 

Ans. The study of the origin and history of words

Q. The word etymology is originated from? Ans. Greek

Q. What is suffix? 

Ans. A bound morpheme added to the end of a word e.g. ness in illness

Q. What is prefix? 

Ans. A bound morpheme added to the beginning of a word e.g. 'un' in unclear

Q. What is the general name for prefixes and suffixes? 

Ans. Affixes

Q. The study of the systems and patterns of speech sounds is? 

Ans. Phonology

Q. Phonology is based on the theory that? Ans. Every speaker of a language unconsciously knows about the sound patterns of that language

Q. Phonology is about? 

Ans. The general sounds i.e. when we think of the 't' sound in the words "tar, star, writer" as being the same, we actually mean that phonologically although phonetically they are different 

Q. What is used to indicate phoneme in abstract? 

Ans. Slash marks e.g. /t/, /k/

Q. What is used to indicate each physically produced sound also called stops or plosives? 

Ans. Square brackets as in [t], [k]

Q. An essential property of phoneme is that? 

Ans. It functions contrastively e.g. the phonemes /f/ and /v/ in fat and vat.. Meaning changes if we substitute f or v

Q. What is phoneme? 

Ans. The smallest unit of speech that can be used to make one word different from another word e.g. c and b are different phonemes in the words cat and bat

Q. In phonology what do we use in charts for an existing feature or missing feature?

 Ans. Plus + and Minus - respectively... e.g. +voice for voiced sounds and -voice for voiceless

Q. What are aspirated speech sounds? 

Ans. aspirated sounds are pronounced with a forceful expulsion of air e.g. p, t and k in pat, top and keel

Q. Nasal sounds in English are represented by a small mark called? 

Ans. Tilde

Q. What is minimal pair? 

Ans. Two or more words that are identical in form except for a contrast in one phoneme in the same position in each word e.g. bad, mad

Q. What is Phonotactics? 

Ans. Constraints on the permissible combination of phonemes in a language e.g. we can never have words like "fsig" or "rnig"

Q. What is syllable? 

Ans. Any one of the parts into which a word is naturally 

divided when it is pronounced. Each part must have a vowel e.g. the word doctor has two syllables doc and tor

Q. The basic elements of syllable are? 

Ans. Three... They are Onset, Rhyme and Coda

Q. What is Onset? 

Ans. The part of the syllable before the vowel e.g. 'Cl' in clean

Q. What is Rhyme? 

Ans. The part of the syllable which consists of a vowel e.g 'ea' in clean

Q. What is Coda? 

Ans. The part of a syllable after the vowel e.g. 'n' in clean

Q. What are Open Syllables? 

Ans. Syllables which have Onset and Rhyme but no Coda are open syllables e.g. Me, to, no

Q. What are Closed Syllables? 

Ans. Syllables which end which a consonant or coda e.g. Chit, kit, kick

Q. What is Consonant Cluster? 

Ans. Two or more consonants in sequence is called Consonant Cluster e.g. st in stop

Q. What is Co-articulation? 

Ans. In spoken language, the process of making one sound almost at the same time as the next sound is called Co-articulation

Q. What are the two well-known co-articulation effects? 

Ans. Assimilation and Elision

Q. What is Assimilation? 

Ans. The process by which one sound becomes more like a nearby sound e.g. Handbag is pronounced as hanbag

Q. What is Elision? 

Ans. Elision is the omission of sounds in speech e.g. we pronounce the phrase 'he must be' as 'he mus be'

Q. Assimilation and elision are parts of? 

Ans. Normal speech

Q. What are phones? 

Ans. Phones are general human sounds irrespective of their place in the sound system of a language

Q. What are allophones? 

Ans. One of two or more variants of the same phoneme. The aspirated 'p' of pin and the unaspirated 'p' of spin are allophones the phoneme p.

creating culture where we can learn from our mistakes...

 Prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

===============================

The paradox of social media, and so much of our technology, is that it keeps us locked in an eternal present, while at the same time creating an eternal archive that never fades away. The result isn’t just higher levels of anxiety, depression and loneliness, it also makes it harder for us to grow and evolve — which is, after all, our essential purpose at the heart of every spiritual and philosophical tradition. Evolution did not stop when we evolved from the apes. There is an instinct embedded in us, our fourth instinct, beyond the more recognized instincts of survival, sex and power, that drives us to evolve and to grow through our mistakes, through pain and through self-discovery.

But we’ve reached a dangerous moment in our culture where we assume a frozen ideal, a state of arrested development, from which no growth or improvement are assumed possible. Because growth cannot happen without the necessary ingredients of redemption, forgiveness and self-forgiveness. If we’re not allowed to learn from our mistakes, atone for them, become better people, then we can grow neither individually nor collectively. After all, the great documents we live by assume a progression — whether it’s the never-ending journey toward “a more perfect union” or Martin Luther King’s “arc of the moral universe” bending toward justice — and even our Constitution had amendments.

But true change at the systemic level has to be accompanied by change at the personal level. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it, “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.” Martin Luther King knew that, which is why he had made it clear that to change society, “you’ve got to change the heart.”  

And by making our worst moments live forever, that’s exactly what our modern technology and our current culture make increasingly difficult to do.

We’ve all seen it happen. An offensive tweet is sent out, or one is found from a decade ago, and the algorithms fire up a storm — one that will live forever, come to define someone for life and limit their possibility for growth. It happens every day on social media. It’s happening to someone right now as you read this. And it has to stop. We can choose to be a society in which we widen the circle of our concern, or we can become a circular firing squad. It won’t be the first time in history. During the French Revolution, prominent revolutionaries who had worked together to bring down the French aristocracy started accusing and even killing each other. Maximilien Robespierre introduced the reign of virtue, which became a Reign of Terror — virtue signaling becoming cancel culture in the extreme. In April 1794, one of the revolutionaries, Georges Danton, was led to the guillotine for urging moderation. “Robespierre will follow me,” he prophesied to his executioner, and indeed three months later it was Robespierre who was led to the guillotine. In a reign of virtuous terror no one is virtuous enough!

Forgiveness doesn’t suspend judgment, it doesn’t mean not holding people accountable or ignoring injustices or forgetting the past. It simply allows the offender the possibility of atonement and progress. Of course, forgiveness is not easy, but who wants to live in a world where there is no forgiveness, no compassion and no love?  

And there are powerful examples of forgiveness that we can learn from. Like Nelson Mandela, who emerged from 27 years in prison and chose to forgive his captors instead of exacting revenge. “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom,” he said, “I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.” 

We can see a particularly powerful example in the life and legacy of the late Congressman John Lewis. He was arrested some 40 times while protesting for civil rights in the 1960s, and another half-dozen times protesting for various causes as a congressman. In 1961, Lewis was beaten and bloodied by a mob for entering a “whites only” bus station waiting room in South Carolina. Half a century later, in 2009, Elwin Wilson, a former Ku Klux Klan member who had been in that mob, came to Washington to seek Lewis’ forgiveness. 

“Without a moment of hesitation, I looked back at him and said, ‘I accept your apology,’” Lewis wrote in his book Across That Bridge. After which, Lewis continued, “the man’s son started crying, he started crying and they hugged me and I hugged them both back and I started crying too, they started calling me brother and I called them brother.” The two met several more times after that. “This was a great testament to the power of love to overcome hatred,” wrote Lewis. And it’s why historian Sean Wilentz calls Lewis “a steady force for America’s redemption.”

We all want change, both for ourselves and for our society. And for that to happen, we have to create a culture in which we’re allowed to be forgiven and learn from our mistakes. That means forgiving others, and forgiving ourselves. Our purpose in life isn’t to be perfect, but to always strive and work toward becoming better. When our technology works against this fundamental drive, we need to re-evaluate our relationship with technology and ask ourselves if we are allowing it to create a dystopian world no one would want to live in, fueling conflict and hate and shrinking our humanity. As theologian Barbara Holmes put it, “Love is the greatest mystery of all. Not love as a warm and fuzzy feeling, but love as the animating force that holds us together.” 

Read More on Thrive: A Culture Without the Possibility of Redemption Is a Toxic Culture

MA English / BS English / BA Term / Semester 1 to 8

 Prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

===========================

MA English  / BS English / BA

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Oedipus Rex: Hamartia

 Prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

≈=================================

Oedipus Rex: Hamartia

According to Aristotle, a tragic hero is a distinguished person occupying a high position or having a high status in life and in very prosperous circumstances falling into misfortune on account of a hamartia or some defect of character. He should be good or fine man though not perfect. There is nothing to arouse the feelings of pity or fear in seeing a bad character pass from prosperity into misfortune while the ruin of a man who represents near-perfection in the moral sense is repugnant and horrible. The tragic hero is neither a moral paragon nor a scoundrel. He should be true to type, and consistent or true to himself. Aristotle would attribute disaster or catastrophe in a tragedy to an error rather than a deliberate crime.

The main requirements of Aristotle in regard to the tragic hero are thus (1) high social standing, (2) moral excellence or goodness, and (3) some fault of character, or error committed by the hero in ignorance. Oedipus answers to all these requirements. Oedipus is a man of royal birth; he is brought up by a King and a Queen and he himself afterwards becomes a King and marries a Queen. He is thus a man of social eminence and possessing excellent qualities of character, though his is by no means perfect. We cannot say that his misfortune is due to any defect in his character, though his defects do produce the impression that such a man must pay for his defects. It would be wrong to say that he is a puppet in the hands of fate. Within certain limits he is a free agent, though it must be recognized that the prophecy of the oracle would yet have been fulfilled.

Oedipus is a good king, a great well-wisher of his people, a man of integrity, an honest and great administrator and an outstanding intellect. He is a pious man who believes in oracles, respects the bonds of family, and hates impurity. His belief in the prophecies of gods is the very basis of the whole play. The suppliant people approach him almost as a god and he is honoured as a saviour. When Creon reveals the cause of the citys suffering, Oedipus declares his resolve to track down the criminal and he utters a terrible curse upon him. We can say that Oedipus is almost an ideal King. He also shows himself as a devoted husband and a loving father. He shows due consideration for the opinions and feelings of Jocasta and he lavishes all his affection on his daughters. His relations with the Chorus are also very cordial and he shows all due courtesy to them. In short both as a man and as a king Oedipus is worthy of high respect.

However, Oedipus has his faults. He is hot-tempered, hasty in his judgment, proud of his intelligence, and random in his decisions. He quickly loses his temper when he finds the prophet reluctant to reveal the things that he knows. He jumps to the conclusion that Tiresias and Creon have hatched a conspiracy against him. This attitude of distrust towards the prophet is in sharp contrast to Oedipuss genuine piety. Oedipus belongs to the world of politics and human standards rather than to the divine order of the world. His piety fails also later on when, under the influence of Jocasta, he becomes somewhat skeptical regarding the oracle.

An outstanding feature of Oedipuss character is an inherent feeling of pride in his own wisdom. Because of this arrogance, Oedipus certainly alienates some of our sympathy. When self-confidence takes the form of pride, haughtiness, arrogance or insolence, it becomes disgusting and obnoxious. His attitude of intolerance towards both Tiresias and Creon and his highly offensive and insulting words to both of them create in us the impression that he is paving the way for his own downfall. Of course, Oedipus has already committed the crimes which make him a sinner in the eyes of the god, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of other people. But the tragedy lay in discovery that he is guilty of them. If the crimes had remained unknown there would hardly have been any tragedy. Tragedy comes with the fact for discovery both for Jocasta and himself.

It would be a flaw in the logic to say that Oedipus suffers because of his sin of pride, but his pride is not the direct cause of his tragedy. He tried to avoid the fulfillment of the prophecies made by oracle. He killed his father and married his mother. His tragedy is a tragedy of error. If he had been a little more careful, things would have taken a different shape. He might have avoided the quarrel on the road if he had not been so proud or hot-tempered; and he might have refused to marry a woman old enough if he had not been blinded by the pride of his intelligence in solving the riddle of the Sphinx. But, then, the prophecies of the oracle would have been fulfilled in some other way, because nothing could have been prevented their fulfillment. Pride has little to do with Oedipuss killing his father and marrying his mother.

If Oedipus had not relentlessly pursued his investigations, he might have been spared the shock of discovery. Something in him drives him forward on the road to discovery. After Tiresias has first refused to tell him anything and then uttered some frightening prophecies. Oedipus is discouraged by Jocasta to continue his investigations. But he pays no heed to her philosophy of living at random. She makes another effort to stop his investigations when she has herself realized the truth, but again she failed. The Theban shepherd too tries, but in vain. It is this insistence on the truth that leads to the discovery in which lies the tragedy. We may interrupt this insistence on the truth as a form of pride, the pride of intellect, or the pride of knowing everything. The link of cause and effect is unmistakable between Oedipuss pride of intellect and Oedipuss discovery for his sins. But there is no strong link between his pride and the actual committing of his sins because the sins would have been committed in any case, if the oracle was to be fulfilled. The oracle did say that Oedipus would be guilty of those crimes but no oracle said that Oedipus must discover the truth.

Oedipus is thus an authentic tragic hero in the Aristotelian sense because his tragedy is as much due to his own initiatives in discovering the truth as to external circumstances. To the modern mind, a high social position is not necessary for the tragic hero nor do they recognize the validity of oracles too. 

In Oedipus we see the helplessness of man in the face of the circumstances and his essential greatness. The manner in which Oedipus blinds himself after realizing his guilt and in which he endures his punishment raise him high in our esteem. The spirit of Oedipus remains unconquered even in his defeat and that is the essential fact about a tragic her

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

 Prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

================================

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is a poem of guilt and redemption, discuss.

The Ancient MarinerAnswer: Through stages of penance, repentance, absolution and redemption, Coleridge is able to depict the idea of salvation in ‘The Rime of Ancient Mariner’.

The Rime of Ancient Mariner is one of the most famous three poems of S. T. Coleridge. The poem was planned by Wordsworth and Coleridge on the afternoon of the 20th November, 1797, when they were walking in the Quantocks. Among the great poems of Coleridge, it is the only complete one. It was founded on a dream of Coleridge’s friend Cruikshank, who fancied he saw a skeleton ship, with figures in it. Wordsworth soon dissociated himself from its composition and finished it on 23 March, 1798.The poem is written in modified form of ballad stanza and is memorable for its skilful unity, vivid phrases and ‘shadows of imagination’ made real. A simple tale of crime and punishment, it embodies the central thought that the real prayer f God consists in the love of God’s creation.

The Ancient Mariner is a simple allegory of guilt and regeneration. Beginning with the commission of guilt, each part tells of a new stage in the process towards regeneration and concludes with whatever redemption is possible in this case.

The sins start from the Mariner shoots the Albatross. He has committed a hellish thing that shows perversity of will, or lack of understanding of the purpose behind the world’s creation or lack of appreciation on the Mariner’s part of the worth of God’s creation. The bird is hailed in God’s name ‘as if it had been a christian soul’. It is friendly with the Mariners. It is accepted as a welcome guest. Then almost suddenly, but most wantonly and recklessly, it is killed. This killing is not something trivial; it signifies the violation of the sanctified relations of the host and the guest. It is a symbolic representation of ‘the essential frivolity of many crimes against humanity and the ordered system of the world’.

First the Mariners’ shipmates become accomplices in the crime. They condemn the Mariner for having killed the bird of good omen, but when the fog clears off and a glorious sun shines in the sky, they approve of his action:

Twas right, said they, such bird to slay.

That bring the fog and mist.

It means that they judge of an action not by an absolute standard of right and wrong but by an arbitrary criterion of its utility to themselves. Suddenly the ship is becalmed. Bloody sun stands right up above the mast and shines scorchingly, in a hot and copper sky. The ocean begins to rot. At night, death fires dance and water burns green, blue and white, like a witch’s oil. The tongue of the mariners’ withered at the root because f utter drought. In an effort to throw the entire guilt on the ancient mariner, they hang the deed Albatross round his neck.

With the appearance on the scene of the phantom ship with its ghastly crew, Death and life-in-death, the forces of retribution are set into motion. The Mariners’ condition is metaphorically suggested when he feels that as the ship comes closer to them. Life -in death play at the dice. The mariner is won by life-in-death while sailors asleep forever. He only survives for his guilt being more serious.

Since Mariner has committed a sin against God’s creation as well as God, he is alienated both of them-

Alone, alone, all all alone

Alone in a wide wide sea!

And never a Saint took pity on

My soul is agony.

He regrets that so many beautiful men lie dead on the deck while ‘a thousand thousand slimy things’ live on. The climax is reached when for seven days and seven nights, he has to face the curse in the dead man’s eyes but he does not die. Then comes a turn for the better. Under the light of moon, the mariner watches the water-snakes moving in tracks of shining white and feels fascinated with their rich attire. A spring of love gushes from his heart and he blesses them unawares. Immediately he is able to pray and the albatross falls into the sea. This marks partial revival.

From here, the process of regeneration continues. The mariner is able to sleep, and when he gets up long awaited rain brings him comfort and freshness. Now no longer his heart is dry as dust, this feeling of freshness is quite inevitable. There is commotion in the sky and a strong wind begins to blow. The ship begins to move with the roaring sound of the wind though it is not touched by it. If the wind may be taken as a symbol of the onward flow of life, this itself is a sign of partial recovery. A troop of celestial spirits stand by the bodies of the dead men and begin to work on the ropes. They pull at one rope but not even a single word is exchanged between them. The mariner is no longer alone, but the company he has got is still terrifying. Then he hears heavenly music in the air and is comforted by it.

The mariner reaches back his own country. He meets holy hermit, confesses his guilt and is shriven and restored to a place among living men. The memory of hideous act he once committed becomes so insistent at times that he is forced to give utterance to it. This brings him relief. In a way, he is regenerated.