Logic and rhetoric

People who come from a non-Western language background, have a much tougher time learning English. They do not have the Latin and Greek based vocabulary that is common to so many European languages.They have also not been exposed to the Western wa...
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Vocabulary

The key to fluency and literacy is better control over vocabulary, both words and phrases. It is not the learning of grammar rules. But how is this best done? There are many people who have studied English for ten or more years and have very poor ...
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Multiculturalism

Even though I speak nine languages I am quite opposed to multiculturalism, or at least the ideology of multicultualism. The ideology of multiculturalism in Western countries promotes the position that immigrants should hold on to their ancestral c...
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Conversation class

We had a conversation class tonight with about 20 English learners, in Blenz cafe on the corner of Richards and Hastings in Vancouver. It has been raining hard the last few days and I am concerned about the snow conditions in the nearby mountains,...
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Intensity is key

I enjoy learning languages and I am sure one reason is because I have had success. I certainly enjoy learning languages more now than when I was a high school student learning French in Montreal in the 1950s. In those days I had no strong desire t...
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Lighten up

More than most fields of learning, language learning is a matter of attitude. In a way it is an escape from reality. Reality is your native language. The new language is make believe, at least at first. You are pretending to be something you are n...
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