Here are a few grammatical errors I found in some essays:
People will spend more time to visit their friends.
Corrected: People will spend more time VISITING their friends.
A plenty of cars are on the streets causing traffic jams.
"A" should not be in front of "plenty." "Too many cars" is actually a better choice considering the context of the sentence.
Word of the day: bureaucracy, "a system of administration marked by officialism, red tape, and proliferation." This definition is from Merriam Webster. Because of all the bureaucracy, I didn't receive my parking permit for months.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
What is a collocation and why is it important?
I was helping a non-native English speaker edit an essay and I came across several phrases that sounded foreign to me, for example, "changed our life to the best," and "illnesses that kill people daily." These sound more natural to my ear as, "changed our life for the better," and "fatal illnesses."
Later this week, I read an article in an asian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) journal about 'collocations'. This was a new word for me. Basically, researchers in linguistics gather together a bunch of data - ideally transcribed speech, but usually, written text, and analyze it. There are interesting patterns with regard to how often some words follow other words. When words tend to appear together, this is called 'collocation'. "For the better" is a common phrase for a native speaker, so it makes sense that a close but not exact substitution sounds foreign. The article actually finds a correlation between speaking proficiency of English by EFL learners in Taiwan and knowledge of collocations in English. That said, it is still unclear whether explicitly teaching collocations directly improves speaking and writing. Well, my view is that knowing some common collocations can't hurt. The article is titled, "Lexical collocations and their relation to speaking proficiency of college EFL learners in Taiwan." It's Article 9 or Volume 10 at this link: http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/March_08_jth.php
Here are a few examples of collocations:
carry something too far (He carried the joke too far.)
take care of something (I have to take care of a few things at the office.)
draw her attention to something (Bill drew her attention to the note on the door.)
And now for the word of the post: archive - "a repository or collection especially of information." It can also be a verb, "to archive," or file in such a repository. So if the journal article is not available in the current periodical section of the library, it's probably been archived.
Later this week, I read an article in an asian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) journal about 'collocations'. This was a new word for me. Basically, researchers in linguistics gather together a bunch of data - ideally transcribed speech, but usually, written text, and analyze it. There are interesting patterns with regard to how often some words follow other words. When words tend to appear together, this is called 'collocation'. "For the better" is a common phrase for a native speaker, so it makes sense that a close but not exact substitution sounds foreign. The article actually finds a correlation between speaking proficiency of English by EFL learners in Taiwan and knowledge of collocations in English. That said, it is still unclear whether explicitly teaching collocations directly improves speaking and writing. Well, my view is that knowing some common collocations can't hurt. The article is titled, "Lexical collocations and their relation to speaking proficiency of college EFL learners in Taiwan." It's Article 9 or Volume 10 at this link: http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/March_08_jth.php
Here are a few examples of collocations:
carry something too far (He carried the joke too far.)
take care of something (I have to take care of a few things at the office.)
draw her attention to something (Bill drew her attention to the note on the door.)
And now for the word of the post: archive - "a repository or collection especially of information." It can also be a verb, "to archive," or file in such a repository. So if the journal article is not available in the current periodical section of the library, it's probably been archived.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Purpose of TOEFL Blog
Hello TOEFL Test-takers,
Welcome to my TOEFL blog. My goal is to help you score better on the TOEFL. I am a native English speaker with a BA in English and American Literature, a minor in Linguistics, and a Ph.D. in Psychology with an emphasis on spoken language processing. I have experience developing spoken language tests and tutoring non-native English speakers. I hope you find this information useful.
A few days ago, I came across a nice article by ETS. I always wondered if the speaking items of the TOEFL took into consideration speech patterns that actually occur in university settings. According to this article, there was a speech corpus collected at universities for just this purpose. The article actually lists all the words from the corpus - what a fantastic vocabulary list for folks preparing to take the test! The article is called, "Representing language use in the university: Analysis of the TOEFL 2000 spoken and written academic language corpus."
I think for every few blog posts, I'll mention a word from the list to help with vocabulary development. The most frequent words should be easy for anyone taking the TOEFL (words like "about," "all," "everyone"). So, I'll start with the less frequent words that occur mostly in speech. The first word is "aggression." "The boy was minding his own business when the girl suddenly starting scratching and hitting him. I was surprised by the girl's aggression (an unprovoked attack).
Welcome to my TOEFL blog. My goal is to help you score better on the TOEFL. I am a native English speaker with a BA in English and American Literature, a minor in Linguistics, and a Ph.D. in Psychology with an emphasis on spoken language processing. I have experience developing spoken language tests and tutoring non-native English speakers. I hope you find this information useful.
A few days ago, I came across a nice article by ETS. I always wondered if the speaking items of the TOEFL took into consideration speech patterns that actually occur in university settings. According to this article, there was a speech corpus collected at universities for just this purpose. The article actually lists all the words from the corpus - what a fantastic vocabulary list for folks preparing to take the test! The article is called, "Representing language use in the university: Analysis of the TOEFL 2000 spoken and written academic language corpus."
I think for every few blog posts, I'll mention a word from the list to help with vocabulary development. The most frequent words should be easy for anyone taking the TOEFL (words like "about," "all," "everyone"). So, I'll start with the less frequent words that occur mostly in speech. The first word is "aggression." "The boy was minding his own business when the girl suddenly starting scratching and hitting him. I was surprised by the girl's aggression (an unprovoked attack).
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