How will the knowledge of the history of english language help me explain things to students in an esl class?

Answer 1

Definitely. I taught ESL in Korea to junior high and high school kids, and learning the Greek and Latin origins of certain words really helped them out. In particular, learning the roots of suffixes such as "con", "sub", and "anti" were invaluable. Also... I'm not sure of other cultures, but the Korean kids I taught were especially interested in the history of words - making them more receptive to learning the language.

Answer 2

If you are interested in the history of the English language, I would suggest you buy a concise etymological dictionary. It is different from other dictionaries because it gives you the origins of the words ie. Latin, Green, Finno-Ugric, Arabic, Indo-Germanic and how the words morphed into their present state. Knowing the origins of words will help you explain to the students why the spelling, pluralization, endings and pronunciation differ from the rules. Many words we use today have Latin, Greek or Saxon (Germanic) roots. England had many colonies around the world and many words from those countries have made their way into English (ie. did you know that bungalow, shampoo and verandah come from India?, zero comes from Arabic.....) This is also one of the reasons why teaching English is so frustrating because all the "adopted" words do not follow the rules. I found that one of the most successful strategies to learning English and to increase native speaker's vocabulary (ie. for SAT exams). is to learn the common Latin/Greek suffixes, prefixes and roots, in that order. Once they have this tool, they can guestimate quite accurately the words they encounter. Also, in a memorization crazed Asian cultures, I suggest to the students that instead of memorizing useless vocabulary lists for tests (to be instantly forgotten after the test), if memorize they must, then memorize the above. This is the old cliche "Give a man a fish and he won't be hungry today, but teach a man how to fish and he will never be hungry again" Anyway, this a long answer to a short question but I hope it helps. Good Luck

Answer 3

Here are two specific examples. (Check out the Words Their Way website or buy the book for more information.) "Orthography follows morphology"--in other words, spelling follows meaning. The last sound in "human" can be hard to spell, since its the tricky schwa. But knowing that "human" is related to "humane" gives a clear clue that the letter is an a. This, of course, leads to teaching word roots as a way to find meaning and figure out spellings.

Another example of this is the Greek ch. CH is usually pronounced /ch/ as in cheese. But in words of Greek origin, this is often are pronounced /k/--like in school and scholar. Once again, these words have related meanings, so that is a clue to their spelling and pronunciation.

Knowing the history of the language often helps to explain some of the quirks and parts that don't seem to make any sense. Students may appreciate knowing all of the words that come from different languages to see how English has been influenced in so many different ways.

Answer 4

if you point out a grammatical structure that's outside their experience, foreign to their own language and any others they speak, they'll likely ask you why it's that way. it gets tiring saying "because it is" and they appreciate when you do have an answer (at least as to how it became that way if not "why")!

also, like the first answerer said, you'll find common ground with other languages. english derives mostly from anglo-norman, an early dialect of french (thanks to william the conqueror), with heavy germanic and some celtic influences as well. not only will speakers of romance languages and german immediately pick up on cognates, but knowing the development of the language could be a good touchoff into explaining linguistic divergences.

for example, romance lang's and german and some other languages as well have two or three forms of "you," one being singular and informal, the other plural and/or formal. you could point out that english also used to have this and see if anyone knows what the other form was (thou) and whether they can tell you which one's sing. informal (thou) and which is pl./formal (you). will also help them read shakespeare! this could kick off a discussion about linguistic change (e.g. latin american spanish drops out "vosotros"), or perhaps more usefully, another about registers--if we no longer have two forms of "you," what are some other ways to distinguish between polite, formal speech and a casual conversation with friends? something they need to know if they're learning it for their careers.

even recent language history will help. if they learned english from a textbook written in the 50's or by someone who learned it then but didn't keep up to date, they might have some odd expressions! likewise, some might be interested in literature from a certain period.

Answer 5

Most languages stem from Latin, with the exceptions of Japanese and Chinese. If you know the Latin derivative of a word or how the words have morphed over time, it may help you find a common place to understand your students, and them you. Just look at how many words between languages are so similar.