#2738. Create Your Own Language!

Language, level: Middle
Posted Mon Nov 18 19:28:41 PST 2002 by Chris Delmar (jancdelmar@aol.com).

Parkside Intermediate School, San Bruno California
Materials Required: PC or Macintosh work-station, Current version of Internet Explorer with Real Audio Plug-in
Activity Time: This lesson could take place over 5 days
Concepts Taught: Language Arts and Linguistics

The following activities may be completed individually, in pairs or even larger groups. I beleive it
would be more effective as a group activity but have designed this section to suite classrooms with
only one or a few computers.
This lesson could take place over 5 days or much less if work was assigned as homework or pre-lesson activities.
If split into groups make sure that their is a mix of non-native English speakers so as not to isolate groups into Spanish or other language groups.
Students require a basic understanding of the parts of speech and be able to recognize nouns, verbs, adjectives and direct objects.
Make sure students add their own English words they feel are important to know to complete the list of English words before they continue to the next part, filling out the rest of the chart with their imaginary new language words.
Consider modeling the exercise on the white-board or the over-head if you feel your students need the modeling. Perhaps fill out the first level of each word category and creating a few sentences as examples for them.