https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v CATESOL October 2021 Poster Presentation en-us 2021-09-29 00:48:01 UTC 2025-10-10 13:49:21 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-uploads.storage.googleapis.com/720315362/48534045c2c7b5dcb8c647f959a21b71/first_aid_3.jpg mark110292 https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1776570171 Essay 1:
people, successful, they
Essay 2: 
can, so, for example]]> 2021-09-29 02:25:48 UTC https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1776570171 mark110292 https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1784922355 The three words in the first essay account for 12.6% of total word count; the other three for 6.2% in the second essay--and I'd bet my grandma's vanilla knickers the repetitive use of "student/students" in the second essay made readers' toes curl. 

Note that the six items represent five different word classes--noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb--and that excess need not be confined to single words.]]> 2021-10-01 18:39:19 UTC https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1784922355 mark110292 https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1784956192 The above description is background for instructors; the remaining padlets (#4-#13) are for classroom use, arranged in the order of instruction into two groups. The intent is to subdivide and scaffold awareness, explicit instruction, controlled practice, and extended practice on a manageable set of strategies.

The estimated minimal proficiency of the target population is CEFR B1. It was felt that, as the teaching points are the strategies, the content was of negligible value and therefore free to vary across CEFR levels.

The first group is headed by an orange riot squad shield (Instruction 1a) collecting samples of overused vocabulary; its purpose is to raise student awareness of repetition. This is followed by three green padlets of explicit instruction in remediation strategies (Remediation 1-3) and concludes with a second orange panel (Instruction 1b) with additional samples on which students try their hand in pairs at applying the remediation strategies.

Now that the students are aware of and have had a bit of practice with remediation, the second set introduces four somewhat more difficult strategies (in blue, Remediation 4-7). An orange lab door (Instruction 2) then offers new samples for pair practice of this second set.]]> 2021-10-01 18:59:42 UTC https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1784956192 mark110292 https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1786309310 This strategy may very well be the students' go-to; what may not be so obvious is how a demonstrative can refer to a clause--and that is dope for academic genres. ]]> 2021-10-02 19:22:12 UTC https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1786309310 mark110292 https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1787898728 This second remediation sample does not include a change of meaning. 

Note that derivation changes need not be limited to words that can appear as verbs; for instance, "happy" and "happiness."

On anecdotal evidence alone, L1 Chinese writers tend not to be aware of, hence do not take full advantage of, routine nouns as verbs: "pencil" as the verb in the phrasal verb "pencil in," for example. ]]> 2021-10-03 20:21:48 UTC https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1787898728 mark110292 https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1790805699 Synonyms need not be one-to-one exchanges; word-to-description changes are just as possible. Exclusively pillaging of a dictionary or thesaurus for an eye-for-an-eye matches may indicate innocence of this latter one-to-many option.

"Synonyms in context" might be a more accurate expression given the constellation of meanings words exhibit.  ]]> 2021-10-04 20:22:38 UTC https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1790805699 mark110292 https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1800596300 The "poetic" taint of the first and exotic jargon of the following two strategies may render these as pretty distasteful. It seems likely, however, that exposure to these techniques in course readings will bring their benefits into a familiar light. In this connection, metaphor surely holds the greatest promise since, after all, dead metaphors permeate the language, in colloquial as in academic contexts.]]> 2021-10-07 17:49:00 UTC https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1800596300 mark110292 https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1800634581 As with Remediation 4, lingo may have penalized the more widespread use of these handy strategies.

Introducing the terms to students may, in fact, be easier than at first appears by taking advantage of the abundance of words prefixed with "hyper" and "hypo": hyperactive, hypersensitive; hypodermic, hypothesis--to name a few. ]]> 2021-10-07 18:05:27 UTC https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1800634581 mark110292 https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1800641963 This represents a step up in difficulty insofar as it requires the sentence to be recast. One might therefore be tempted to say this strategy is at the conceptual rather than linguistic level, so more appropriate for higher proficiency students. ]]> 2021-10-07 18:08:42 UTC https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1800641963 mark110292 https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1800654973 Without a doubt this is the most challenging strategy since it reaches backward into what the writer has discussed (anaphoric reference) and forward into what the writer will be discussing (cataphoric reference).

An appreciation of what the audience can be expected to know and need no reminder of is at the heart of conveying this implicit frame to students for use in their list of revision strategies.]]> 2021-10-07 18:14:38 UTC https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1800654973 mark110292 https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1800820860
Instruction 1a is designed as the first in-class, whole-class activity. Its objective is to raise student awareness of repetition (in a manner we have seen in this session's pop quiz) as a feature-of-concern in student writing. 

Here, all samples are taken from student compositions, with minor alterations in a few instances to correct for grammar. If the level of students is relatively low, however, clarifying the instructional point with instructor-created samples is advised; at otherwise more proficient levels, motivation and retention would be better served with authentic, anonymized class material after receiving the students' permission to serve as target practice. ]]> 2021-10-07 19:43:11 UTC https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1800820860 mark110292 https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1801126220 2021-10-07 23:45:31 UTC https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1801126220 mark110292 https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1803261404 Instruction 2 is an immediate follow-on to Instruction 1a, 1b in that it asks students to identify overused vocabulary and engage with the potentially more extensive remediation strategies of 4-7. This set might be particularly challenging for students below CEFR B2.  ]]> 2021-10-08 20:01:14 UTC https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1803261404 mark110292 https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1803361987 Subsequent "mini-reviews" and practice with student-sourced samples of repetitive vocabulary help excite sensitivity to the problem and cement facility with these seven remediation strategies.

Homework exercises ensure individuated practice.

The hope is that padlets #4-#13 provide a groundwork for students to engage in informed, task-specific peer review.

As my teaching experience has only involved L1 Chinese students, I have been reluctant to extrapolate these strategies to other L1s.

Finally, it is perhaps worth noting that a set of four verbs--can, help, let, and make--seem to form the core of overused verbs among Chinese students in both written and oral contexts. Unfortunately, given the complications involved in their remediation, treatment of this "Gang of Four" will have to await the next conference.
 
As a technical aside, hunting down overuse can be done with Windows (Ctrl+F) and Mac (Command+F). LexTutor (https://www.lextutor.ca/freq/eng/) and Coh-Metrix (http://141.225.61.35/cohmetrix2017) (images above) are host not only to type/token identifiers, but to a panoply of free online tools of textual analysis.


]]> 2021-10-08 21:50:43 UTC https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1803361987 mark110292 https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1804457549 Please post your reflections, critiques, and questions here. Thank you!]]> 2021-10-09 19:07:25 UTC https://padlet.com/mark110292/au3wrfj4fodv6o4v/wish/1804457549