Humanising Language Teaching
Year 2; Issue 5; September 2000

Looking at language "is like looking into the cabin of a locomotive. We see handles all looking more or less alike. … But one is the handle of a crank which can be moved continuously (it regulates the opening of a valve); another is the handle of a switch, which has only two effective positions, it is either off or on; a third is the handle of a brake-lever, the harder one pulls on it, the harder it brakes; a fourth, the handle of a pump: it has an effect only so long as it is moved to and fro." Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations § 12

For the teacher:

When you or your student look at a piece of text full of words, you can sometimes be overawed - like looking at the handles in a steam train, or the buttons and levers and flashing lights in the cockpit of an aeroplane. 'Grouping' words can make it easier to remember what they do. Dictionaries do this. But what criteria do dictionaries use to classify words? Would other categories be as useful?

For the classroom:

1. Ask your students in groups to divide words in English into, say, six categories. To help them, you could give them a text, or words written on cards. What categories did they come up with? Were six categories too few?

2. Traditionally, we have divided words into the grammatical categories of nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. These are often the categories dictionaries use to classify words. How do your students know what category the dictionary has put the word in? What abbreviations are commonly used, for example?

3. List the dictionary categories on the white board. What can your students do with the words in these categories? Try to make your students think about how they use these words, in what contexts, and how, rather than just define what a noun is, for example.

4. How do your students know what category a word 'belongs' to? Give them some 'invented' words - like denk, sard, brank, orseth, etc - as well as some 'real' words. What clues do the words have in themselves which might suggest how they might be used?

5. You will soon need to give your students some examples of how these words (both real and invented) are used in practice. Examples will give the game away - e.g. "she likes to denk on Sundays", "there's a denk on the grass", "it was a denk afternoon". Examples which show words in action can be more useful than knowing its classification. Your students could write down an example of a word's use, instead of a definition, as a way of remembering it.

6. There are many other ways of classifying words. Your students may have thought of some already. Ask them to think of others - these could be based on what the word looks like (e.g. words which begin with 't'; words with an 'x' in), or based on what the word sounds like (e.g. words with soft sounds; words which sound like the wind in the trees), or based on occurrence (e.g. words from newspapers, words I don't often see), or based on meaning (e.g. words I use at work), or based on subjectivity (e.g. words I like; words I find difficult to remember), or any other category (e.g. words to use when I don't know what to say) etc.