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Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 1; January 03
Words I want to Blot Out
Level: Elementary to advanced
Time: 15-30 minutes
Purpose: to get people to know each other better by talking about pet hates
and to make them realise how much there can be, for the other person,
in what seems an anodyne word to them
Preparation : Choose five words you would like to delete from the language for
whatever personal reasons. Here are two lists to get you thinking:
A Greek beginner learner of English :
DON'T, TURKS, ENGLISH, MOUSAKA, RAIN, PLEASE.
One of the authors :
SUBJECTIVE, OBJECTIVE ( because they are unreal categories ) ADVERB ( because it goes with many other bits of language, besides the verb) WELL-KNOWN ( because it is often used to put others down. )
Lesson outline:
- Put the words you want blotted out of the language up on the board. Explain why you dislike them.
- Ask the students, working individually to think of ten words they would like to obliterate.
- Tell them to pick the 5 most interesting ones and to explain them to three other students. ( They work in fours).
- Ask them to pick the 2 most interesting ones from each four and put these up on the board. Each group explains the reasons for wanting deletion.
Variation : You can ask the students to pick the five
most ugly sounding words in English
most ugly looking words on the page
most imprecise words in the language
the most different from the equivalent words in their mother tongue. etc…..
