vocabulary practice activities

[piggys]

I am also a bit perplexed; I don't like the way this thread seems to have drifted towards an 'English' versus 'non English' native speaker. What is the issue here? (and what on earth is 'affinity bias'..........who made that term up?). What is this mysterious 'white elephant', OP?

OP as KCG points out when you initiated this thread you described in detail your attempts at generating grammar and vocab exercises. Unfortunately, the grammar in many of those exercises is very weak. This is not a criticism, merely an accurate observation. I raised this issue because this discussion board is full of people wanting advice about grammar and vocabulary and how to develop it, and I don't think you were doing anyone a favour (least of all yourself). I certainly did NOT enter the discussion touting for proof reading and editing work; I have more than enough to keep me busy thanks.

Why has this thread become about race? how ridiculous.

[Sally-Anne]

I wasn't comfortable by this 'native speaker' assertion. It implies in literacy education 'native speaker good, non-native speaker bad' thing.

Absolutely not! As a graduate in foreign languages, I am very familiar with the rules surrounding professional translation work. Professional translators will (or should) never translate into their acquired foreign languages, only from those languages into their own native tongue.**

No matter how great your exposure to the second language, your command of it will never equal that of a native speaker. You may have the same command of the raw vocabulary, but you will never have the complete, nuanced understanding of it that a native speaker has.

It's as simple as that. No racial undertones, no innate bias (or "Affinity Bias"), which I assume is what you mean?

** And when they do try to do the opposite, that is when you get the howlers that we are all so familiar with from hotel "welcome" books and the like, such as this one, picked up from a quick Google:

“Getting There:
Our representative will make you wait at the airport. The bus to the hotel runs along the lake shore. Soon you will feel pleasure in passing water. You will know that you are getting near the hotel, because you will go round the bend. The manager will await you in the entrance hall. He always tries to have intercourse with all new guests.

[StackOverFlow]

I am also a bit perplexed; I don't like the way this thread seems to have drifted towards an 'English' versus 'non English' native speaker. What is the issue here? (and what on earth is 'affinity bias'..........who made that term up?). What is this mysterious 'white elephant', OP?

OP as KCG points out when you initiated this thread you described in detail your attempts at generating grammar and vocab exercises. Unfortunately, the grammar in many of those exercises is very weak. This is not a criticism, merely an accurate observation. I raised this issue because this discussion board is full of people wanting advice about grammar and vocabulary and how to develop it, and I don't think you were doing anyone a favour (least of all yourself). I certainly did NOT enter the discussion touting for proof reading and editing work; I have more than enough to keep me busy thanks.

Why has this thread become about race? how ridiculous.

What I am trying to do in this thread depends on from which point you stands.
I FEEL if you are a tutor, which I think you are, you will see as I am 'touting', a 'threat' if I may use the word, because English literacy is 'native speakers' territory and must be crafted to a super high standard by the 'native speakers'.

If you are a parent, you can actually take away a few things by looking at the examples in #1.

What I would advise you is, hone your craft and open your eyes wider. Our next generation is nurtured with the advance of big data (in this case natural languages analysis), ubiquitous learning - time to dig out your headphones and mic.

[mad?]

I'm not a tutor. I would also like to understand what you are trying to do/say. My concern is that many parents come to this forum for help and on seeing your posts might use some of your examples, not realising that they are incorrect. If it is not your purpose to suggest people use the examples you have provided, it might be better not to provide them, thereby removing any confusion?

[kenyancowgirl]

I wasn't comfortable by this 'native speaker' assertion. It implies in literacy education 'native speaker good, non-native speaker bad' thing.

Absolutely not! As a graduate in foreign languages, I am very familiar with the rules surrounding professional translation work. Professional translators will (or should) never translate into their acquired foreign languages, only from those languages into their own native tongue.**

No matter how great your exposure to the second language, your command of it will never equal that of a native speaker. You may have the same command of the raw vocabulary, but you will never have the complete, nuanced understanding of it that a native speaker has.

It's as simple as that. No racial undertones, no innate bias (or "Affinity Bias"), which I assume is what you mean?

** And when they do try to do the opposite, that is when you get the howlers that we are all so familiar with from hotel "welcome" books and the like, such as this one, picked up from a quick Google:

“Getting There:
Our representative will make you wait at the airport. The bus to the hotel runs along the lake shore. Soon you will feel pleasure in passing water. You will know that you are getting near the hotel, because you will go round the bend. The manager will await you in the entrance hall. He always tries to have intercourse with all new guests.

I am crying with laughter at the dentist's now!!

[Guest55]

...What I would advise you is, hone your craft and open your eyes wider. Our next generation is nurtured with the advance of big data (in this case natural languages analysis), ubiquitous learning - time to dig out your headphones and mic.

What does this mean? I am completely lost with the point of this thread.

[piggys]

What I am trying to do in this thread depends on from which point you stands.
I FEEL if you are a tutor, which I think you are, you will see as I am 'touting', a 'threat' if I may use the word, because English literacy is 'native speakers' territory and must be crafted to a super high standard by the 'native speakers'.

If you are a parent, you can actually take away a few things by looking at the examples in #1.

What I would advise you is, hone your craft and open your eyes wider. Our next generation is nurtured with the advance of big data (in this case natural languages analysis), ubiquitous learning - time to dig out your headphones and mic.

Ironically, the grammar and phrasing in this is so unusual that it's almost impossible to understand , OP. I didn't get your meaning about being 'a threat' either. Did you mean to say that comments on this board are threatening? I can't see any threats anywhere. Perhaps you are implying that you see yourself as threat to existing sources of grammar and language building exercises.

[doodles]

OP I am not a tutor, just a parent who falls into the graduate native speaker bracket (I think). I have read this thread from start to finish and I really don't understand it at all. I'm afraid that I have been left feeling as if I've had one too many sniffs of the cooking sherry.

Could you perhaps just outline what you had in mind when you started the thread.

[yoyo123]

I am a native speaker, who is also a graduate. I am also a very experienced primary school teacher. The grammar exercises are not grammatically correct.
They do not flow correctly. I would not accept many of the examples if they were presented to me.

This has nothing to do with race,the English is just wrong.

[Stroller]

Mastery simply isn’t available to all, in any discipline. Languages or not. Native speaker or not.

It’s the same in the OP’s language of choice, computing. Some devs are good, others program calls that trigger a stack overflow, causing a crash.

The examples provided on the first page of this thread are not written with a mastery of English. OP, if you wrote them, I encourage you to recognise that these comments are truthful and intended to help. I’m not selling you anything. I’d hate your child or anyone else’s to think they were using a fancy method in the hope of gaining a competitive advantage, when in reality the material is flawed and their time would be better spent using more professional content. Or just having fun. At least that way they won’t have to unpick the mistakes later.