Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 48

• A Moroccan teen blogs about linguistics (and other matters…).

  By ljd42 on June 6, 2020

  

  How many Americans know that Morocco is in Africa? Probably not very many. I’m guessing 4%. And half of those know Morocco’s location only because they’ve seen the world’s best movie (Casablanca, of course) and have paid attention to the geography…. Read More ›

• Apparently I was unclear…

  By ljd42 on June 4, 2020

  Apparently I was unclear In yesterday’s post. In no way was I advocating getting rid of trig as a unit in regular high-school math, as some readers apparently thought. I wouldn’t do that; whenever I taught precalc, which I did… Read More ›

• How about replacing trig? But with what?

  By ljd42 on June 3, 2020

  

  “You can’t get rid of trig! It’s my favorite unit!” Said no one ever. Well, that’s not quite true. Some of us quite like trig, at least if it’s approached as a set of functions rather than ratios in right… Read More ›

• Another walk in the neighborhood

  By ljd42 on June 1, 2020

  

  It was such a nice day that I just had to take a good walk, this time in the sub-neighborhood next to mine: Ashmont Hill, a diverse place with the slogan “the way city living should be.” Whatever you think… Read More ›

• A high-school student from Lincoln creates a significant linguistic theory.

  By ljd42 on May 31, 2020

  

  Once upon a time you were probably learning Spanish, French, Italian, or Latin. (If you weren’t, keep reading anyway.) You probably had to learn hundreds of verb forms in your chosen language, if it was one of those. Not so if… Read More ›

• Culling the herd (the herd of books, that is)

  By ljd42 on May 29, 2020

  

  There’s no such thing as too many books. Well, maybe there is. I wrote about this problem in a blog post five months ago — at this point it feels like five years, of course — when I resolved to do something… Read More ›

• Tavolo again

  By ljd42 on May 28, 2020

  

  How excessive! Takeout two nights in a row! But desperate times call for desperate measures, as Hippocrates (supposedly) said. So Barbara and I got delicious takeout from Tavolo last night: stuffed quahogs, margherita pizza, tagliatelle bolognese, flourless chocolate cake —… Read More ›

• Kapow!

  By ljd42 on May 27, 2020

  

  Unusually delicious takeout last night from Kapow (actually styled “Kapow!”) in Lower Mills, Dorchester: Tom Yum soup, chicken wings, excited eggplant (!), steamed gyoza, udon garlic noodle with duck, and shrimp pad Thai — more than enough for both Barbara… Read More ›

• Your brother-in-law’s mother’s sister is your _________________?

  By ljd42 on May 26, 2020

  

  Fill in the blank in the title — but no need to do it in Latin, as in the figure. English will be fine. What? You can’t do it? You say English doesn’t have a word for that relationship? You… Read More ›

• My diverse neighborhood: everybody counts!

  By ljd42 on May 25, 2020

  

  As I was taking my walk today, I came across this multilingual sign at the corner of Dot Ave and Park Street. Can you identify all five languages? Remember to fill out your census forms! In order to count, you… Read More ›

• What are your favorite poems?

  By ljd42 on May 24, 2020

  

  What are your favorite poems? Is an epic poem too long to count as an answer to this question? I hope not — but I’ll play it safe and split the difference. My favorite pair of poems are… drumroll, please…… Read More ›

• Read it on the internet (if you can)!

  By ljd42 on May 23, 2020

  

  “So many boxes to be found on the internet!” I’m guessing that you’ve seen something like this, perhaps in Facebook, Twitter, email, etc. Right? And perhaps you know that the boxes represent characters in fonts that you don’t have on… Read More ›

• Freedom City

  By ljd42 on May 21, 2020

  

  So Donald Trump dies from an apparent heart attack after taking hydroxychloroquine, and President Pence calls on far-right militias to enforce a “Make America Great Again” fascist-style government. OK, it’s fiction. More or less. My opening sentence is not quite… Read More ›

• What’s wrong with Advanced Placement tests?

  By ljd42 on May 19, 2020

  

  Three cheers for the College Board! Right? Everyone loves AP tests. Well, maybe you do, maybe you don’t, but read on. You might be surprised. Although Jonathan Halabi, a New York City math teacher, occasionally gets too much into the… Read More ›

• The Mechanic

  By ljd42 on May 18, 2020

  

  I should have known. Months ago, back on May 4th — OK, OK, I know that it was really just two weeks ago, but it feels like months — I was watching Greater Boston on Channel 2, as one does, and Jim Braude was… Read More ›

• Does William fit?

  By ljd42 on May 16, 2020

  

  “William, you don’t fit in that box.” “Yes I do.”  

• Do you know the hidden rules of conversation?

  By ljd42 on May 15, 2020

  

  “Can you pass the salt?” “Yes, I can.” And then of course he doesn’t. This is an easy example of violating the hidden rules of conversation as described by philosopher Paul Grice. The rules are commonly known as the Gricean… Read More ›

• Takeout from The Bowery

  By ljd42 on May 14, 2020

  

  The Bowery in Lower Mills has just reopened for takeout and delivery, so Barbara and I decided to try their new Sea Shanty offerings last night (no singing included): clam strips, excellent lobster rolls in a toasted bun with first-rate French… Read More ›

• “…And Madly Teach”

  By ljd42 on May 13, 2020

  

  Try to imagine, if you possibly can, a time when all teaching Is done remotely, when teachers don’t see their students face-to-face, when students spend classtime sitting at home in front of a screen watching a teacher in a studio… Read More ›

• What gender is Covid-19?

  By ljd42 on May 11, 2020

  

  The French Academy has been shocked — shocked, I tell you — that some people have actually been saying “le Covid 19” instead of “la Covid 19”. The underlying issue is that maladie (“illness”) is feminine, but virus is masculine. So the French, in… Read More ›

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