My wife questioned me if there's a subject that I cannot teach effectively (per my standards of making the students salivate for more). I mentioned my weakness at teaching languages, English for example.
I can teach English from a mechanical/rote POV, but I've found it hard to be fascinated by it (let alone light a kid's curiosity).
Thus, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about this question:
If I didn't know English (or any language) and I had to articulate my ideas, how would I do it?
This piqued my interest in linguistics and how it has to do with syntax, semantics, phonology, morphology, grammar etc., Given such a POV of not having language and then coming up with one piqued my interest in learning English more effectively (and perhaps using that for teaching, if at all).
Hence my question - hypothetically, is it possible to create a language in a classroom setting, piece by piece?
And use that as a guide to talk about language constructs to better understand the need for them?
I'd want to experiment this on myself and was wondering if there are any references that teach the linguistic aspect via language construction?
Things I'm looking for:
- I have a list of phonemes and the next step is coming up with words/numbers and rules of building words vs. random sounds
- Word Composition i.e., very simple sentence formation
- Grammar: What doesn't sound "good" and what does? What is considered 'valid' and what exceptions are allowed?
Tenses, plurality would be good, but it'd be asking too much from this question.
