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Oleo de José Tola
From: Juanita Tosado
T1: Tosado@alpha.montclair.edu
Date: 4/30/98
Time: 12:27:35 AM
Remote Name: 12.68.163.34
Processing defines in how does the learner intakes the language. There are two examples of processing which are sequential and parallel. Parallel is when the reader may process several of things at once. In other words, may look at the whole sentence has comprehend the use of verb in the sentence and its relation to the object of the sentence which reflects to the subject.
In reference to Beyond Methods edited by Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig and Beverly Hartford, the example used to express parallel processing is “Mary has spent her money.”
In this sentence the verbs has and spent may be processed at the same time because the information on spent in influencing the verb has. In this level of processing the learner is quite advance and understands fully of each component in the sentence.
Sequential Processing is taking each part of the sentence and making sure it follow a pattern of his or her typical understanding of the language.
In our class of Methodology in Teaching ESL, my classmate Mauricio taught the class the meaning and understanding of the sequential processing. He used this example
“ The old man the boats.”
He taught us that sequential processing is breaking up the sentence into the essential components of a sentence. This form of processing is used on a lower level learning because the student is just understanding how a sentence is created. The processing also helps the teacher grasp the level of the student understanding of the sentence because he/she would be able to teach in that level and never beyond the level. The consequences in teaching beyond the student level are having massive confusion and as a teacher one must build confidence not discourage new learners.
Levels:
S (SENTENCE) = NP (NOUN PHRASE) + VP (VERB PHRASE)
NP= ART N (ARTICLE + NOUN)
VP = TV NP (TENSE, VERB)
NP= ART ADJ (ARTICLE + ADJECTIVE)
VP = TV (TENSE)
Now lets examine the sentence the way Mauricio taught us. (Mauricio please feel free to correct me. I will not take offense.)
OLD = ADJ, N (Old could represent an adjective or a noun.) MAN = N, TV (Man could represent a noun or a tense verb.)
When referring to the sentence THE OLD MAN THE BOATS and you are a beginner you would assume that this is a sentence which includes a noun and a verb.
THE OLD MAN THE BOATS.
1ST processes Art Adj. N,V Art N This is the step that the learner defines each part of the sentence to help understand the sentence.
2nd processing NP TV This could never be a sentence.
3rd processing Art N V Art N
This is a sentence because now there is a noun and a verb. Even though, it may seem that it is a long process, the beginner learner would benefit from this type of processing because he or she understands the components of the sentence.
When teaching English as a Second Language these two processes would be very useful because the learner would eventually move up to the parallel processing when one is more efficient in the language.