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Humanising Language Teaching
Year 1; Issue 2; April 1999

An Old Exercise

INVENTING A LANGUAGE


Lesson outline:

Many decades ago Alan Maley did his Post Graduate Certificate in Education at one of England's Northern universities. One of the language awareness exercises he was asked to do on that course was to invent a language that had to be as far from any language he already knew as possible.

In my view this is one of the great classical exercises in language teaching. I have done it in mother tongue with ten year olds, with teenage second language learners and with people on inset TT courses.

The set-up instructions are simple: "Come next class with some text in a language that you invent that should be as far in sound and grammar from any language you already know as possible."

Some people focus on the intonations, the music and the sounds of their language. Others get hung up on its written forms. For others the new grammar is central. Some focus on the way the words segment reality.

I need say no more. Try the exercise with your students and e-mail their creations to us for inclusion in a future issue of Humanising Language Teaching. Alternatively send their work to Mario Rinvolucri, Pilgrims, Pilgrims House, Orchard Street, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 8BF United Kingdom.


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