meaningful
From storyasking
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meaningful? what makes a chunk of language meaningful? have you heard it before? do you understand it? in this context? is it useful? is it news? is it real? do you believe it? does it affirm what you believe? does it change your mind? does it make you laugh? what difference does it make? who cares?
[edit] usefula good story often communicates a message, an insight, some kind of wisdom, a useful instruction like a life lesson learned.. a meaningful story often has a moral.. what is the moral to the story? what is the story about? what is it trying to say? [edit] to the pointgeeks have a useful measure of meaning they call the signal/noise ratio.. if a transmission is cluttered with lots of noise, it's hard to understand what it means, the message is garbled.. if a transmission has a lot of signal, it's easier to understand; it's more meaningful.. infoglut expands exponentially.. people are generating more and more information and knowledge and sharing it on the internet, in conversations, in classrooms, using all kinds of languages.. what makes any chunk of info meaningful? why? [edit] truth[edit] feelingswhat make language meaningful to someone in particular? does it need to connect with what that someone likes, dislikes, fears, wants or needs? language, to be meaningful, might first need to connect with someone's feelings.. ask any advertiser, people don't take action based just on facts.. people also make choices and take action based on their feelings.. people want to be accepted, approved of.. people want to be part of a group, a bigger picture.. people also want to shine their own uniqueness.. people want to feel good.. simple questions might help a story be meaningful: who is this story about? what do they want? what do they need? [edit] funny bonewhat happens to people when they lose their sense of humor? answer: it's a sad day.. does having a sense of humor mean having an open heart and an open mind? a little humility? does that help us learn? it may be true that we laugh at silly stories, but does that mean such silliness is totally meaningless? people love to laugh and tend to remember and want to share stories they think are funny.. one of the most amazing feats of TPRS is, even on the very first day of class, students can be basically immersed in the target language, already laughing and learning? ask yourself, what other language method can claim that?
[edit] silencecan silence be meaningful? meaning can be communicated by recombining words and phrases to describe a context and maybe resulting feelings, but again: is it just the words that create the meaning or is it also how the words put together? is there meaning between the words? if words are really meaningful, sometime even native speakers need time to think about what is said.. what it means.. silence can be very meaningful.. read between the lines.. maybe meaning isn't so much in words as it is between them..
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Ben says it this way:
I know what the definition of the word “hyperextend” is. But it doesn’t really mean anything to me. However, if I were to hyperextend my elbow, that would mean something to me, because it is my elbow that is hyperextended.
Likewise, information that we present to our students cannot be meaningful to them and they will not acquire it unless it is about them.
Therefore, in order for words and expressions in a foreign language to be remembered (learned, acquired), they must first be personalized.
It is not enough that our students in stories comprehend the meaning of a word. They will forget it if it is not made meaningful (not just understood but having personal importance).
More than being understood, more than merely comprehended, even more than being merely interesting, the words we use in our stories must be personalized around the particular interests of our students to be effectively acquired over the long term. Such is the nature of acquiring a second language.
