Title: Morphology/Lexicon in Language Education and Professional Writing.Thread: After reviewing chapters 5 & 6 chapters of "Introduction to Language" it should be evident that phonology and phonetics

DB 4 - Phonetics in My Current Situation

COLLAPSE

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     The video presentation for this week struck a chord for me as a future educator. Dr. McClelland spoke from experience and from the heart and I resonated with much of what he shared throughout the video. In my undergrad internship within the 6th grade classroom, I experienced what he spoke of concerning students’ disengagement with engagement. The students within my classroom were thoughtful and intelligent, but they struggled with dedication to writing and written expression. Their reading skills were on-level usually, but their ability to sit down and write a thorough and complete paragraph was greatly lacking. I would assign brief essays at the end of my lessons in order to encourage better summarization and creativity in them, but most of the responses were undersized and basic. For 6th graders, from my knowledge and study, it should be just the opposite! Dr. McClelland re-laid, “This is my theory…In teaching people how to write, in teaching people grammar, how do I teach people whose attention spans are a half a second? How do I teach them to write in connected sentences that make sense?” (2011).

     On account of this question, I began to reflect on my current working situation and my future working situation. I have one class left in my master’s degree following this term’s completion. I am planning to begin the application process for teaching positions this summer, given that my city allows children back in schools for the fall. I ponder my language in an interview with potential supervisors, and what my language, grammar, and pronunciations say about me. I also think about my posts and replies within the discussions boards for my classes. The way that I speak and articulate my convictions and responses are a direct reflection of my character and outlook on life; therefore, it must be honorable, thoughtful, and grammatically correct. Scripture attests to this truth in two specific places, the first in Matthew, Jesus answered “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person” (15:18, English Standard Version). And again in Proverbs 16:21, “The wise of heart is called discerning, and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness.” I could go on and on with the biblical references that support sound speech, but those two references suffice. In representing Christ and our academic backgrounds, correct speech and grammar are integral in communication.

     I consider two specific things to be vital in my current academic and future professional situations. An Introduction to Language introduced two points useful points for me presently: knowledge of phonetics and word stress. It is imperative as a future English teacher that I understand each sound of the English alphabet and “how each sound differs from all others” (Fromkin, 2014, p. 190). The practice of sound segments and understanding how each word is broken down into individual consonants/vowels in conjunction with the mouthpiece we use to voice them (pp. 190-193). Secondly, as a future ELA teacher, I found word stress to be very important. The same word can mean something entirely different when it is pronounced differently. Sometimes when I read a word like “subject” I need to re-read the sentence again to see the way it should be pronounced and contextually understood. The same goes for teaching students word stress in a stress-timed language like English (p. 253). These two things were significant to me in the reading from this week and made me much more intentional with my word stress and pronunciation.

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References

Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hyams, N. (2014). An introduction to language. (10th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

McClelland, C. (2011). Mass Communications, Modern Technology, and Grammar. Retrieved from:

https://learn.liberty.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_607199_1&content_id=_39459407_1

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