"Special English" - should we limit vocabulary?

Wayne Barnes Ewell <countrymanto@...> wrote:
>
> Could it be that if we limited the English 
words we use to teach that students would 
show faster progress?
> 
and then quotes

> "I like that the program is based on 
1,500 words," Sarah Paulsworth said in an 
e-mail message from Azerbaijan, where she 
works as a journalist and a volunteer 
English teacher. "It is a very tangible 
goal for students..."

---

I think the question is about faster
progress is relative.  As a learner, you 
need to understand at least to some 
degree what you are listening to or 
reading.  

In my own learning of French, in which I
am quite proficient, and in which there are
many cognates which I can guess even if I
haven't encountered them before, limited 
vocabulary is actually counter-productive.

This is also true in Spanish, in which I
am considerably *less* proficient, but 
because there are so many cognates with
either English or French, my receptive
understanding is very high.  So, limited
vocabulary limits what I have a chance
to learn.

However, in modern Greek (which I no
longer remember so well), or in a non-
IndoEuropean language (such as Japanese
or Mandarin), if the reading or listening
segment doesn't limit the vocabulary 
more or less to the basics I know, I end
up not understanding anything.  And, of
course, if I don't understand much of
anything, I'm not going to learn very
much.

Karen [ karen.stanley @ cpcc.edu ]
http://people.cpcc.edu/~skh6004e
Central Piedmont Community College
Charlotte, North Carolina, USA









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