Don’t crimp your style!
Did you know there’s a great Urban Dictionary on the web?
If you didn’t then you’re crimping your style! You or your blog shouldn’t look shanky if you’re going to impress your audience. But then you don’t want to get yourself a work avalanche so pace it.
These and thousands of other phrases and expressions are on the Urban Dictionary website, to which you can add your own, too! In true dictionary style, there’s even the word of the day which I’ve just signed up for.
Thinking aloud:
- This is a descriptive approach to language with no base “point of reference”, so to speak, so language is movable and changeable, difficult for teachers to ‘catch’ (and I know some teachers who are still -and only - teaching the language they used to use 30 years ago, when they themselves were learning English at university).
- Are there expressions I’m particularly interested in, such as those connected with a particular group, such as office clerks, management, programming, etc. Now that could be handy for ESP.
- For lessons, who chooses what to ‘discover’ ? Do I select and teach or do I set class time for students to discover for themselves.
- Will I ever use these new words and expressions? Will my students? Where and when? … except inside the classroom… How do I find out?
- How useful will these words and phrases actually be? For me and for my language students. There’s no body of lexicographers guaranteeing their meaning or usage. There is a blog though, which is still more non-expert intervention.
- Unfortunately, there’s no way of understanding anything about how often the words/phrases are used (the frequency of use) on this website (unlike the MacMillan online dictionary) so there’s a risk of teaching/learning something already obsolete or completely useless just as there’s a chance of teaching something fantastic.
- Some of the words, well quite a lot really, might be offensive in/to certain groups, making it even harder to choose whether ‘to teach or not to teach’, but it is exciting for adult students who are forewarned. This goes back to my second point above.
Bear in mind these points before deciding what to teach or indeed if to teach using the Urban Dictionary. Frankly, I’m glad it’s around. I try to take one word/phrase a week and introduce it everywhere in every lesson – just briefly. In my coming lessons, I can tell student I had a “work avalanche” over the Christmas holidays so I wasn’t able to mark all their homework. I can ask them “Did I correct your homework or not?” (no) Why not? (because you had a work avalanche) Was that a lot of work or a little? (a lot) Was I submerged in work, like an avalanche covers everything in snow? (yes) …… now make up any more of your own concept checking questions….. teach the form (a countable noun) …. register (informal) …. and pron “WORK avalanche” (stress on “work”, “avalanche” said in a francais style with the stress on Av ).
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