Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements, Dedication, & Testimonials
Acknowledgements
My thanks firstly go out to my instructors at Simon Fraser University who introduced me to the world of linguistics. I must also thank the various institutions that provided employment so I could further indulge my passion for this most interesting forest of ideas: Coquitlam Continuing Education, Richmond International High School and College, VanWest College, Aso Izuka Hospital, Jeddah Private School, The Higher Colleges of Technology and Vancouver Island University.
Of course I thank my family and all those individuals who asked for assistance. I owe a debt of gratitude to the TEAL organization of British Columbia, TESL Canada, TESOL Arabia and to TESOL International. I wish to give special acknowledgement to those students who have translated or are translating my work and to those who questioned my ideas.
I must also recognize those professionals who inspired me to continue my course. Stephen Krashen, whose ‘acquisition’ theory, monitor theory and ‘i+1’ methodology, as they relate to teaching, gave me great courage. Here was someone unafraid to go beyond dogma. To my Faculty Associate, Joyce Lange a grateful nod. I must also acknowledge Kieran Egan and my Linguistics professors at Simon Fraser University. Thank you Margaret Wilson who supported my formative work at Richmond International High School & College.
Special thanks to Catherine Eddy and Lee Gunderson who sparked my preposterous prepositions ideas. I would like to thank my supervisor, Shane McKenna who offered support every time. My extraordinary thanks to Peter Hatherley-Greene who gave me constant support and encouragement in my quest for a better way to teach English. To my niece, Iris Moore many thanks for the drawings for Preposterous Prepositions. And to Xue Bai for the Chinese translation – thank you for your contribution. Thanks also to Amro Abu Kuhail, Suhail Al Amri and Emmel Baki for their work confirming my Arabic translation.
Mostly I would like to acknowledge my many students in schools, colleges, universities, and homestays for their kind questions as they struggled to learn English – especially my F19-LF3 class.
Dedication
For my daughter, Beverley, who had such a hard time with English in school, but never gave up. For my daughter, Rachel, who shines like the sun, but feels she is in the shadows. For my son, Liam, with whom I share my name. You are all so strong it makes me proud.
What People Have to Say
Any frequency list of English words will show them prominent in the top 20 – the most frequent word class there, with 8 out of 20 in the British National Corpus, for example.. Child language acquisition.
studies also show them playing an important role as soon as 2-element sentences begin to be formed, especially in helping them to acquire new words – a word like ‘table’, for example, is made more meaningful by being associated with in, on, and under, and many early words are first learned as prep phrases… And one reason I like the reference grammars of Randolph Quirk et al is the prominence they give to prepositions and the structures they enter into. Over the years several linguistic theories have drawn attention to the importance of prepositions, such as case grammar and cognitive grammar, but
little of this seems to have influenced ELT. So I think your focus is a sound reflection of English linguistic
Thank you for teaching me. I learned many things and improved my English skills pretty well, thanks to you. I can’t tell how much I appreciate what you’ve done!
I’ll really miss you and your class!
Now, I know how to speak english easily with other people, beacause of your teaching!! It was nice to meet you 🙂
I’ll keep in touch with you.
I send me best wishes to you. Thanks!!
approachable. Thank you..
