In 2012

[Tom Zurinskas]

Hi Katy,

Virtual education is the next big thing and at a time in USA when education budgets are being pinched because of the economy.  Computers are cheap now and almost everyone has them.  Once a video or computer program is made it lives forever.

English is still the lingua franca of the world.  One would hope online instructions would serve to standardize the lingo.  However there is a trend called ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) that holds that some folks simply cannot say English as well as natives do because they haave not having spoken certain phonemes of English before.  So a heavy non-native speaker accent is acceptable as long as interpretable.  Thus the aim of teaching best pronunciation my be compromised.

My take is that truespel phonetics can help here.  It should be used instead of the IPA for phonetics.  It spells out schwas and shows all the nuances (like ~s or ~z for plurals) of standard USA English and can help straighten out foreign accents, even to the extent that folks can actually type what they hear phonetically.  This can't be done in IPA (without much difficulty).  In USA k-12 schools, newspapers, and gov publications do not use IPA.

Learning to read is the key.  Phonemic awareness should start in 1st grade with truespel phonetics.  Kids should recite the 40 phonemes as easily as the 26 letters of the alphabet and write (type) little stories phonetically as was done in the 80's with PC jrs using "Writing to Read" phonetics.  We need to standardize phonetics in an English way and finally integrate dictionaries, translation guides, ESL materials, and reading tutorials in one English based phonetic system.  That's what truespel phonetics is about.

Feds launch open-source ‘Learning Registry’
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/11/15/feds-launch-open-source-learning-registry/
Launched by the U.S. Departments of Education and Defense, the new “Learning Registry” is an open-source community that takes advantage of technology tools to help users share information about learning resources more effectively among a broad set of education stakeholders.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/09/30/reinventing-education-revisited/
Reinventing Education, Revisited  September 30th, 2011
Two years into San Diego embarked on a five-year journey to transform its classrooms and completely revamp the way San Diego students learn. Since that time, the i21 Interactive Classroom Initiative (i21) has expanded into more than 1,300 classrooms and has distributed some 78,000 netbooks and other mobile devices to teachers and students.
Across the board, teachers have reported an increase in student engagement, more attention to the tasks at hand, and a more enthusiastic response to lessons, because students enjoy learning in this new medium.  Teachers also say the technology helps them manage their classroom, helps students who otherwise have struggled in some subject areas, and helps students locate information and develop valuable workforce skills.
Khan Academy site to allow uploaded content from teachers

The Khan Academy, an online repository of educational videos, soon will allow teachers to upload their own instructional videos to the academy's collection, and create and customize their own "knowledge maps" for their classes. "The deal will be, you can use our tools if we can put your stuff onto our noncommercial public domain," the site's founder Salman Khan said. "We don't know how it'll turn out, but we suspect there will be some amazing things put up." http://KQED.org/Mind/Shift blog (11/18)


Tom Zurinskas, Conn 20 yrs, Tenn 3, NJ 33, now Fl 9.
See how English spelling links to sounds at http://justpaste.it/ayk




>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Katy Steinmetz <Katy_Steinmetz at TIMEMAGAZINE.COM>
> Subject: In 2012
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> We're sussing out what's on for 2012 over here, making brave predictions,
> glimpsing into the future, indexing the next with the clairvoyance of
> Tiresias. (At least in theory.) And I would love to hear, from anyone, if
> you have thoughts about what might change/develop in terms of language in
> 2012.
>
>
> Katy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org