Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Primary education

Early Inspiration for a Teaching Career

A Defining Moment in High School

My passion for teaching English began when I was in my third year of ESO in high school. One day, while my English teacher was explaining the lesson, I had a moment of clarity: I knew I had to study English. From that moment on, my path was clear. I have always considered her one of the best teachers I have ever had.

Childhood Influences

A significant factor that solidified my desire to be an English teacher was my early exposure to the language. My mother enrolled me in an English academy when I was just four years old, which stimulated my interest as I always enjoyed those lessons. Another key experience that reinforced this was teaching English to my younger cousins.

Academic

English Verb Tenses

• Present Simple: I take
• Past Simple: I took
• Present Continuous: I am taking
• Past Continuous: I was taking
• Past Perfect Simple: I had taken
• Present Perfect Simple: I have taken
• Future Simple: I will take
• Conditional: I would take
• Modal Verbs: I must take / I had to take
• Past Perfect Continuous: I had been taking

Reported Speech Transformations

• Time/Place: Here to there, this to that, these to those, now to then, next week to the following week, today to that day, tonight to that night, tomorrow to the following day, yesterday to the day before, last week to the week before.

Usage of Say, Speak, and Tell

• Say: Used for sorry, thank you, hello, goodbye, nothing.
• Speak: Used for languages (e.g., speak English).
• Tell: Used for a joke, a story,

Character Descriptions from the Book

• Sniff: A person who recognizes changes early.
• Scurry: A person who decides to take action faster regarding changes.
• Hem: A person who always resists change; someone who feels apprehensive about changing.
• Haw: A person who always considers that change is good and decides to embrace it.

Which Character Do You Identify With?

Personally, I identify with Haw because I adapt when there is a change. I have decided that I want to move forward in my life and my studies, and in the future, I want to have a job.

What Is Your Cheese?

I am looking for changes in my life; I want to earn my degree, find work, meet new people, continue studying, and find a wife.

Key Lessons and Sentences from the Book

• Change happens: We have to know

The Hellenic Branch

The only extant language in this branch is Modern Greek.

Greek is one of the oldest Indo-European languages. Mycenaean dates from 1300BC. The Ancient Greek of Homer was written from around 700BC. The major forms were Doric (Sparta), Ionic (Cos), Aeolic (Lesbos), and Attic (Athens). The latter is Classical Greek.

The New Testament of the Christian Bible was written in a form of 1st Century AD Greek called Koine. This developed into the Greek of the Byzantine Empire. Modern Greek has developed from this.

Greek has three genders and four cases for nouns but no form of the verb infinitive. The language has its own script, derived from Phoenician with the addition of symbols for vowels. It is one of the oldest alphabets in the world... Continue reading ""entirely belongs to" shareholding" »

Balto-Slavic Languages

This branch contains two sub-branches: Baltic and Slavic.

The Slavic Branch

These languages are primarily confined to Eastern Europe. In general, Catholic populations use the Latin alphabet, while Orthodox populations use the Cyrillic alphabet, which is derived from Greek. Indeed, some of these languages are very similar, differing only in the script used (for example, Croatian and Serbian are virtually the same language).

Key languages include:

• Bulgarian: One of the oldest Slavic languages.
• Russian: The most widely spoken Slavic language.
• Others: Polish, Kashubian (spoken in parts of Poland), Sorbian (spoken in parts of eastern Germany), Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Macedonian, Bosnian, Ukrainian, and Byelorussian.

Slavic languages... Continue reading "Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian Language Families Explained" »

The Germanic Language Branch

The Germanic branch is divided into three sub-branches: East Germanic (currently extinct); North Germanic, containing Old Norse, the ancestor of all modern Scandinavian languages; and West Germanic, containing Old English, Old Saxon, and Old High German.

The Germanic language group can be traced back to the region between the Elbe River in modern Germany and Southern Sweden some 3,000 years ago.

The Germanic group itself also split over time as the people migrated into other parts of Continental Europe:

• North Germanic: This evolved into Old Norse and then into the various Scandinavian languages, including Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic.
• East Germanic: Spoken by peoples who migrated back to Eastern and Southeastern

Features of English Practical Criticism

The origins were a desire to rescue literary studies from historicism and contextualism, and proponents wanted to turn literary study into a scientific method — to give seriousness and a true methodology to the analysis of literature. Richards thought that the only way to do that was to restrict the study to the text alone.

Richards gave his students sheets of paper on which literary fragments had been printed: short poems or fragments of longer works. He did not print the name of the author, the title, or the date, in order to decontextualize the text for study. He told the students to work with the text with no additional information. From these studies, he wrote Practical Criticism in 1929, from which... Continue reading "Practical Criticism and New Criticism: Principles & Fallacies" »

The Rise of New Criticism

The New Critical method was rapidly adopted, particularly in the North, due to its inexpensive and easily transferable characteristics. Prominent scholars in the North included Austin Warren, W.K. Wimsatt, and Cleanth Brooks. Brooks, in particular, emerged as the most influential New Critic.

Transforming Literary Study

Traditionally, English literature was taught as the History of English Literature, an extrinsic method. New Critics sought to transform these departments into centers of Literary Criticism. They achieved this through three key methods that fundamentally changed the organization of the teaching profession:

• Staffing University Departments

  Gradually, New Critics began to occupy chairs of literature previously

The Genesis of New Criticism

English Foundations: I.A. Richards' Influence

The roots of New Criticism were initially in England, specifically at the University of Cambridge, championed by I.A. Richards. A lecturer, Richards linked New Criticism to the USA by moving to Harvard in 1939. He found in America a very suitable ground to develop his theory of criticism, as Americans sought new methods for literary study without relying on external context. Richards' seminal work, Practical Criticism, explains his method in detail.

René Wellek and Cosmopolitanism

René Wellek contributed significantly to the cosmopolitan component of New Criticism, ensuring it was not an exclusively Anglo-American method of criticism.

American Roots: The Southern Literary

Understanding New Criticism

New Criticism is a significant critical movement characterized by renewal and innovation. It has two main branches:

• The British branch, known as Practical Criticism.
• The American branch, called New Criticism.

Originating in England in the 1920s, New Criticism reached America, where it found fertile ground for growth. It significantly influenced the study of literature and poetry in Western countries.

At the beginning of the 20th century, American critics were captivated by European, particularly British, art and culture. They experienced a sense of cultural inferiority, feeling limited to European or Native American traditions.

New Criticism's influence is undeniable; one must either oppose it or align with it. It is impossible... Continue reading "Understanding New Criticism: Origins and Impact" »