Thread: Using Thai in class

Originally Posted by manned-rake

It indicates that the student's problem was not 'mechanical', but 'cognitive', i.e. she couldn't get past the English tendency to spell the schwa with whatever vowel happens to be lying around. Unlike Thai, which is SWYS and offers pronunciation information to the eye, English is a language whose pronunciation needs to be learned "by ear". You reinforced a very bad habit. Not the end of the world, but not a good thing. In my opnion, an opportunity lost.

manned, if you are trying to teach the schwa to ESL students I commend you. You can't even get English academics to agree on the schwa.
BTW, Thai is not always a SWYS language. You have consonants that change their sound depending on where they are, you have consonants that have a different sound if 2 certain one are put together and you have vowel combos that change consonant sounds.
And she did learn the word "by ear", the Thai was a silent mark above a letter that wasn't in the word she was saying.

^I misread your post altogether. I guess I just jumped to the conclusion that you were spelling the word's "sound" using Thai.

Can't begin to imagine what "teaching the schwa" would look like, so I guess I don't do it.

Originally Posted by teacherfinder

Berry, Was that "Garan" over the "D" or the ป ? Because, as I'm sure you're aware of, if it was over the ป, that would have been purely visual cognition versus aural cognition, which has been out of date since Mandrickson, at Stanford, in the '40s.

Yes!

^Well... yes and no actually.

Only those working with the Dummer & Shyte hypothesis would consider it "out of date".

Speaking it? The occaisonal "nee-up" (quite!) comes in handy sometimes .. but it has a short shelf life .. the novelty wears off quickly. "Understanding" it is helpful too when the foul mouth little buggers are mouthing off to each other. e.g .. "Ai hee-uh ?? .. what does that mean? .. Nothing? .. I'll go and ask the Thai teacher what it is" ........ "Oh no, no no .. I'm sorry!" ..