"R" is for "Range" (More words with multiple meanings)

Most test rubrics (= a set of instructions or a description of skills that assessors use for evaluating an individual's abilities in speaking or writing, e.g.) state that for students to obtain the highest score on an English exam, they must display a range of grammar and vocabulary. What does that mean exactly? What does range mean?

Range is another word with multiple meanings. It has so many, in fact, that I've devoted a separate post for it. Range is a verb and a noun that relates to a variety of topics. First, we can speak of mountain ranges, such as the Rockies or the Alps or other lines of mountains. Second, there is the range of a singer's voice from low to high notes or a range of ages of students in a classroom from 18 to 35 years old. This meaning of range is what assessors are looking for in a test-taker's grammar and vocabulary production. That is, assessors want to see that a person can understand and use simple to complex language during the test. (Similarly, range is used as a verb, so it can be said that "The class ranged in age from 18 to 35 years old.") Third, a range is another term for a stove. In the USA, in the kitchen, people either have a gas range or an electric range. Fourth, a range refers to the large open fields where 'buffalo roam' and 'the deer and the antelope play' (as in the famous American ballad entitled "Home on the Range") or where cowboys herd(ed) cattle. Finally, golfers, hunters, and cameras have rangefinders, devices that compute how far away something is.

Whenever you learn a word like range, which is only five letters long and a single syllable but has multiple meanings, pay attention because that is precisely the kind of word that Mr. and/or Mrs. Cambridge like to include on their exams. Also, pay attention to the contexts in which the word is used and prepositions that go with the word. In addition to all the previously mentioned meanings of range, you will hear people talking about being in range or within range or being out of range. These expressions are related to the idea that something or someone is near enough or too far away to be detected or to consider something. For example, if you have an annual income of $30,000, then a Mercedes-Benz is probably out of your price range. If you encounter something at close range or from close range, you are very near it.

So, the next time you hear someone say range or you see this word used in writing, think about these multiple meanings. What other small words do you know that have so many meanings?

Helping Arabic Speakers to Write Cursive

When we were children in elementary school, we learned to print letters and later on, we learned to write in cursive. My husband and many other native speakers I know gave up writing cursive once it was no longer mandatory. That is, teachers used to demand handwritten essays, not ones with printed letters. Because these native speakers had already mastered printing, they did not have the interest to learn yet another writing system. Not only that, their handwriting was evaluated as poor or illegible which made these students dislike writing even more.

Apparently, there were and are some teachers that think we shouldn't go through a two-stage process teaching students first to print and, later, to write cursive. We should just start with cursive. If young adults want to learn to print later on, they can easily pick that up. Before I started teaching Arabic speakers, I never thought about why non-native students have such difficulty writing longhand. Now that I have seen Arabic speakers writing in Arabic and realize that they didn't go through a two-stage process to learn Arabic, it seems obvious that we should teach students to write in cursive first. The letters flow into each other in one direction whereas when you print, you have to pick up your pen or pencil to make a new letter.

Since, as far as I know, there are no classes offered at IEPs to teach students how to write cursive, I decided to go online to see what materials are available for my students to learn. Arabic writing definitely seems to bear resemblances to cursive writing in English, except the script is produced and read from right to left instead of from left to right. Because time did not allow me to actually teach my students to write script, I did some research online and found some great sites. I'm passing them on to you in case you are facing the problem of wanting to learn to write or are a teacher wanting to guide students to learn by themselves.

For those students that would like to see an animation of cursive writing, I recommend Donna Young's site. On this page, you can see the letter "a" being written. To the right in another box, you can click on other letters (small or capital letters) that you want to see "animated." If you want to see how words are written in cursive (i.e., how the letters are connected together), you can also choose many examples at this same site. Unfortunately, the whole word examples are not in animated form. Nevertheless, you can download numerous worksheets for practice writing words in cursive and connecting the letters together.

Another site, perhaps easier for lower level students to understand how to use, is called "Handwriting for Kids." On the page I have just linked you to, you can find study sheets that students can practice using, including writing numbers (showing which direction to move your writing instrument depending on whether you're right- or left-handed). At this site, to see the animation of lowercase or uppercase letters, all you have to do is place the cursor over the letter.

A final consideration in helping non-native speakers to write cursive is the relevance of handwriting in the modern world. For a brief discussion on that topic, check out this FoxNews clip between a young entrepreneur and a former 4th grade teacher.

Revisiting Indian English

One popular post that I've had here at 'Many Englishes' was on the topic of prejudice against Indian English. That was back in 2007.

Since then, I've had fewer phone exchanges with Indian customer service representatives than I had a four years ago, and we're not getting so many marketing calls at dinner time from non-native English speakers either. Maybe some American companies have learned that it doesn't help their product to outsource the telemarketing to people who are not fluent in American English. Perhaps these organizations have also become more discriminating in their choice of telemarketers, or accent reduction training programs have been very effective.

Indeed, last year I heard a discussion on NPR (National Public Radio) about just this topic. Instead of looking at Indian English from the outside, however, I'm trying to look at it from the Indian perspective (as much as I can from where I sit in San Diego). About three years ago, an article came out in the Washington Post which stated that "English-speaking is a self-confidence issue in India." What that apparently meant was that Indians themselves felt that it was important to speak English well in their own country. The article comments about a commercial where a young man from a well-to-do family feels embarrassed that his maid is listening to and singing along with a song in English which he himself can't understand.

What does it all mean? For a variety of comments and reflections on English in India, I offer some reportage from various online sources, such as Chilli in India, Global Voices, Mortarboard, and Language in India (1, 2). These latter reports and articles are presented to open up my readers (mostly American) to views on English from Indian English speakers.

Build Vocabulary from Advertisements and Headlines

Because headlines and advertisements are meant to be eye-catching and extremely condensed summaries of the news or products, they pose a unique problem for most non-native speakers. However, if you see headlines as a way of learning idioms, expanding your knowledge of expressions that often have double meanings, and practicing English in a fun way, you may be surprised by the results.

Here is a copy of some expressions that I cut out of various magazines and discussed with my intermediate level students in a vocabulary class. What is a pet peeve? a trendsetter? the rat race? They are all common expressions in American English. How about watch your words? How many meanings of "watch" do you know? How many ways can you use "watch", meaning "be careful"? What does opt out of something mean? Again, just learning a few phrases can take you quite far if you learn to use them appropriately. You can grow your vocabulary every day. Once you understand the phrase or word, listen and look for it on the radio, on TV, on the Internet, in the newspaper, and in magazines. See how many ways the expression is used. Let the English in!