Thread: Present Simple v. Future Simple

Jaysus... who let the Masters student in here? Did you eat a linguistics dictionary for breakfast or something Matty? Anyhow as my dear old English teacher would say, stop word-wanking you're impressing no-one. And be concise lad, you're not writing your dissertation here...

I do tend to think you've thrown much of the baby out with the bathwater with the whole morpheme thing. There is no escaping the fact that in English we talk about the past and non-past in much more different ways than we do the future. Perhaps it is because we can 'know' the past/now and therefore can grammatize the language in concrete ways that the 'unknowability' of the future does not allow.

I do agree that teachers need to have a sound knowledge of these types of grammatical issues if they are to make informed decisions on what and how to teach their class of 50 in deepest darkest Issan.

Originally Posted by manned-rake

People with no or limited experience of ESL teaching often overstress the "environmental" factor, imagining that there is no escape from English for ESL students. There is. And plenty take advantage of it.

Second that in fact many students bring that bubble into class on their iPhones...

Originally Posted by jonny danger

Can you teach in Thailand? Academics Vs. Practicality .. you fail.

---Update---

Originally Posted by markle

I do tend to think you've thrown much of the baby out with the bathwater with the whole morpheme thing.There is no escaping the fact that in English we talk about the past and non-past in much more different ways than we do the future. Perhaps it is because we can 'know' the past/now and therefore can grammatize the language in concrete ways that the 'unknowability' of the future does not allow.

You've really got to appreciate this kind of response...bent towards clarifying and correcting instead of mostly ignoring and lots of dismissing. Markle actually read something, had a think, and responded accordingly. If someone is wrong, try to tell them why you think so. If you don't know why, you're probably just reacting to something...else. There are other places for discussions about those 'elses'. This kind of response is food for thought instead of poison for feelings. The former is why I have 15k posts here. The latter is why I'm no longer a happy member in this online space.

See, now there's a topic! Does the semantics and 'cognitive packet' of 'the future' in contrast to 'the past' etc. determine the character of the system used to denote it? I'd argue not primarily - I think the history of the language has more to do with that, that it the markers themselves are relatively arbitrary. But I love the idea that they might not be...

There are a few people on here who do enjoy attempts at discussing stuff like this. There are many who don't. No foul. There's a way too large percentage of the many who really get off on interfering with any rumblings of discussion. Foul. I mean, the adjective.

They trot out stuff that sounds nice, like 'real life experience trumps this!' but there's no there there and it just functions as a 'fuck this' and adds to the poisoned pot.

I'd really like to respond to Samsara about his 'teaching in Isaan' response. Just not here. It just doesn't feel good and to be honest my ADD isn't up for the challenge.

To hit the late horse, it's a shame there's no modding here with any clear notion of this. It's an atmosphere of thought that certain places muster. We're off the map.

I'm trolling.

This is why I can't keep up and can't continue with this thread or any, because I know it will all be drowned out by this stuff. It almost feels like it's 'in the clear' now...but we know it's never really going to be. That's just an explanation of my absence from here. I hope it carries on!

Later. I got my PMs to folks I wanted to in in the meantime..cheers.

Btw, my inbox is cleared out a bit, deppy