10 February 2012 / by Radmila Gurkova

Language - the endangered species

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McF3CoVHbYM

There are 6,500 languages in the world and 3,500 are “endangered”!
How many languages can you think of?

Every two weeks a unique language dies when the last speakers pass away. Mark Turin is an anthropologist working on language death as an academic linguist and has been living within a remote mountain village in Nepal for ten years with a community where they only speak Thanghmi, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by less than 20,000 people. The children in the schools are only taught Nepali, which makes the village language a threat for extinction.

There are many languages that have expired and have limited use today – The Laghu which was spoken in the Solomon Islands until it disappeared in 1984 or the Old Kent Sign Language which was a precursor for the modern day version and Gamilaraay which is still used by the tribe of New South Wales.

So make sure you keep your language alive and others too by learning more than your own!

DEBATE



  • How many languages do you want to speak?

  • Would you like to learn Sign Language?

  • How long would it take you to learn 6,500 languages?


KEYWORDS






























































Word Image Definition Example Listen
Endangered Threatened with danger The bald Eagle may be endangered Listen
Unique Existing as the only one or as a sole example This is a unique product Listen
Threat   An indication or warning of trouble Al-Qaeda is a threat to our safety Listen
Extinction   The act or process of dying out The extinction of a species Listen
Linguist A person who is skilled in many languages He could speak to 20 nations Listen
Speak To communicate vocally To speak to a person of various matters. Listen
Taught The past for teach They taught themselves to play music. Listen


GRAMMAR STRUCTURES:

Click here to learn about the word 'eventually' 

Click here to see the post on the 'past perfect tense'

07

November 2014
7 Questions for ESL Teachers to Change ESL Education
by Radmila Gurkova
My name is Liz Ward. I am an Australian teacher with over 30 ...

24

October 2014
7 Questions for ESL Teachers to Change Education
by Radmila Gurkova
My name is Bridget Berry. I’m American – I grew up right outside of Washington, D.C. in the state of Virginia. I graduated from West Virginia University with a Bachelor’s degree in English with a focus in secondary educati...

17

October 2014
7 Questions for ESL Teachers to Change Education
by Radmila Gurkova
We interviewed Virginia Roquero, a 22 year old recent TEFL graduate from Spain, whose education, due to a British mother and a Spanish father, has been developed in two languages from the very first day of life. Despite her youth, Virgi...

10

October 2014
Teaching ESL to Young Learners and Teenagers
by Radmila Gurkova
What are the best approaches and strategies to teaching ESL to young learners and teenagers? The question is relevant enough and  worth dedicating a lot of specific attention to. More than a list of tips, we teachers need to understand what is our youngest target audience is like: what defines young learners, pre-adolescents ...

19

September 2014
Teaching is Art and Art in Teaching
by Radmila Gurkova
A talented teacher is how we usually define a vocational teacher who connects with their students and conveys the message in a clear and engaging way. Having a talent for teaching is what we look for when choosing professionals for our ESL classes. We love teachers that have the talent of teaching a...

12

September 2014
Transmitting in the Classroom. What we can take from classical music.
by John Shepherd
Whether it be listening to a film director talking about his new blockbuster creation, or watching a protestor stand at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park and tell us about what is wrong with the world, we are transfixed by the same common denominator, passion. Used correctly, passion can transfix an audience, leave a crowd mesmerised...

05

September 2014
Learning environments for young learners in English
by Radmila Gurkova
...

15

July 2014
Become an ESL teacher in Barcelona, get this life!
by Radmila Gurkova
Becoming an ESL teacher in Barcelona and living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world is a dream of many people. Making it come true is not so difficult if you are a native English speaker and you love languages and working with people. You can take advantage of your English language and peoples skills and become en ESL teacher. ...

25

June 2014
Eleven great years teaching English. And counting...
by Radmila Gurkova
...

18

June 2014
Use the news in ESL activities. World cup inspiration.
by Radmila Gurkova
A great way of filling your ESL classes with a fresh air is choosing activities based on current news. Use the news in ESL activities is an approach that we will be displaying through examples of teacher friendly ESL topic activities prepared by our teachers. Based on breaking news and current events, the ESL activities based...