LANGUAGE EVENT

Coverage of The 47th Annual International IATEFL Conference & Exhibition

(April 8-12,2013)

1st Day: Plenary Lecture:Professor David Crystal

Professor David Crystal delivered an interesting lecture at  IATEFL's plenary session. I enjoyed it so much. Being from Canada, I had to wake up at 4:00 a.m. Montreal time which was 9:00 a.m. in U.K. to attend the event alive before going to work. 

I liked the excerpt of Beatles song  that Professor Crystal had used in his  lecture. The ESL teachers can use some songs that could be suitable for ESL classes ,but unfortunately, there are many students who do not respond positively to such songs.That is attributed to the idea that there are many students from different parts of the world and are unfamiliar with the English or North American cultures. Accordingly, they can not feel the words of the songs and taste the music that could help them like the song and learn new English material.

Professor Crystal talked about Blends .  Here in Montreal where I live ,we use blends that are mixtures of English and French words. For example, we say 'metro card' which refers to the subway card ,but the French word 'metro' is used instead,'dep store' which refers to the convenient store ,but the French word 'Depanneur' has been borrowed into Montreal's English and is abbreviated into "dep',etc....  In Montreal, we have such astonishing blends that even the other Canadian provinces do not anything about. I  think it is vitally important to ask Professor Crystal about his opinion about these types of Montreal English blends ,as he might think that it is a unique linguistic phenomenon in English.

The issue of culture and relating it to learning English is a critical issue. When the ESL students are unfamiliar with the English or North American cultures ,that would represent an obstacle that would prevent them from being fluent in English or being unable to utilize it properly in everyday life.

Professor Crystal in this plenary lecture and in his previous events has been attempting to draw the ESL teachers' attentions to this issue .The ESL teachers have to take into consideration the cultural element when preparing any material for their students or planning any ESL/EFL classes, so that they would attain success in their teaching.