Humor4u

A summary of the closing plenary (Mis)-Applied Linguistics at the TESOL France colloquium on 18 November 2012 Chia explaining 'stealth pair work' Chia Suan Chong started her plenary at the 31 st annual TESOL France colloquium by warning us there would be 65 slides in her PowerPoint and introducing the concept of stealth pair work – speaking quietly, in a muted voice with a person sitting next to you. Considering the fact the audience consisted of about 200 ELT teachers, this wasn't an easy task. I had been really looking forward to this talk, so I was prepared to shut up for 60 minutes. I had expected Chia to debunk ELT myths and show how certain findings of applied linguistics research have been misapplied in ELT. Instead, the talk went in a different direction as Chia took us on a journey through the history of ELT. From all translation to no translation Her colourful account of different methodologies started from the Grammar Translation method. According to this oldes...

I'm pretty happy...I was thinking I wouldn't be able to make it to CTNX this year, but it turns out I can! Also, I will be there selling the Skadi book , which is finally done!  It feels really exciting to hold a finished book in my hands.  Pretty neat.  SO!  About the book...it's pretty big, magazine size, 128 pages, and is in full color.  It's mostly made up of the comics from the first two years that Luke and I did Skadi, though there are a couple newer comics thrown in, as well as a bit of new art.  You can pre-order the signed book for 20 bucks plus shipping and handling at the new SKADI STORE , or you can wait and pick one up at CTNX.  I'll be sharing a booth HERE with Luke Cormican and Gabe Swarr. Besides the 100 pages of comics, there are also nine beautiful pinups from art heroes Bill Pressing , Brianne Drouhard , Emmy Cicierega , Pedro Vargas , Becky Dreistadt , Alex Kirwan , Kristen McCabe , Shawn Dickinson , and Seo Kim .  There'...

If nothing else we have learned one thing, when disasters strike there is an initial onslaught of coverage, intense and dramatic coverage with much slick "mainstream" presentation and of course saturation of advertising opportunity. Disaster coverage has a shelf-life though.... and it seems any particular chronic incident drops off the radar once perceived it has no further promotional juice. This is a terrible pattern because the real news is always in the months and years subsequent to the initial circumstance. I'm always amazed how quickly the spotlight shifts away from the ongoing daily miseries of the victims and afflicted and often crass "recovery" mismanagement is a mainstay of any later followup "news"... rather than the uplifting words of comfort one would hope for or even expect. It seems the criminal element is drawn like flies to a rotting carcass when emergency "funds' are made available. It is here I should list examples of both ...

The age of suspicion, NOT paranoia. A few decades ago... record storms could be wholly attributed to natural events and circumstances. Since the advent of extreme technology and demonstrated ill-advised use of it... we now live in a period where the waters of understanding are thoroughly murky and clarity of cause and effects is blurred. As our world spirals into a state of chaos and overwhelming changes, we can never deduce the causal patterns since government has succumbed to the desires of corporate interests and routinely approves insane implementation of horrendous practices which are known to carry risk far beyond the sensibility of any good purpose. We have lost all semblance of established baseline, a must if one is to understand what is going on and why. The crime scenes are so trampled with self-anointed elitist boots that we may never know the extent of their culpability. Who knows what impact insane application of technology has c...

I have recently received an email from a colleague, an EFL teacher in Israel, about how her students find it difficult differentiating between near-synonyms. I repost here my reply alongside the original email with the author's kind permission. Hi Leo, I wonder whether you can help me. Do you know any place on the web where I can compare the meanings of near synonyms? I've used the concordance type sites which give me lots of collocations, but that isn't what I want. It doesn't help my pupils to give them 10 collocations for each word (e.g. regular, usual, routine ) some of which are identical. I need to be able to put my finger on a general rule(s) like, one is for people and the other is for abstract ideas (I know this example is irrelevant to those particular words) Thanks for any help you can provide. Renee Wahl Dear Renee, First of all, it's great to know that you use concordance software. I wouldn't give pupils 10 collocations for each word as it is a bit ...

Sometimes, people combine data that really don't belong together - conflict all over the place! The I-squared statistical test in a meta-analysis can pin it down. It tests the amount of variance between results of different studies to see if there is more difference than you would expect just because of chance. The test measures how much inconsistency there is in the results of trials (technically called heterogeneity). Cochrane includes a (very!) rough guide to interpreting the I-squared : 75% or more is "considerable" (read, an awful lot!). Differences might be responsible for contradictory results - including differences in the people in the trials, the way they were treated, or the way the trials were done. Too much heterogeneity, and the trials really shouldn't be together. But heterogeneity isn't always a deal breaker. Sometimes it can be explained. Want some in-depth reading about heterogeneity in systematic reviews? Here's an article by Paul Glasziou ...

Anecdotal observation leads many of us to the realization our environment is changing, once in a while "officialdom" discloses information which supports said personal observation, this is usually couched in terms of either a climate change 'taxation" opportunity or as a cost burden to corporate interests, seldom is the human misery aspect considered or practical adaptation strategies offered. The topic of extreme earth change is most often cited by authorities as a phenomena of huge surprise. The only surprise in these conversations is that folks seem entrenched in a thought we live in a fixed and frozen galactic situation. It is a dynamic environment,extremely fluid and constantly active. Solar system CHANGE is normal. Observing the changes is normal. Experiencing the changes is normal. Not addressing the coming and unavoidable "shifts" is abnormal. If you think the solar system will stay in the (current) short lived "sweet spot" to accommodate ...