In MIT OpenCourse website, I read throgh a course called Language Acquisition. Unfortunately, they didn't provide video in this course. However, I took a look at their assignment which gave me a really big surprise. One of the problems in their assignment goes as following:
Consider the following interchange.
Child: Nobody don't like me
Mother: No, say "nobody likes me."Child: Nobody don't like me.
(eight repetitions of this dialogue).
Mother: No, now listen carefully; say "Nobody likes me.
"Child: "Oh, nobody don't likes me."
Does this interchange argue for or against the usefulness of negative evidence in language learning? Be brief. Two or three sentences are enough to explain.
This dialogue exists in the textbook "Introduction to language".
MIT also provide the answer to this problem:
Answer: This interchange argues against the usefulness of negative evidence. First, it suggests that children do not pay attention to their parents' correction: the child in the example hears the correction eight times before even attempting to follow it.Second, the example suggests that children do not understand what their parents are correcting them for: the child here does not correct the appropriate part of the sentence, and the child's final sentence is in fact less correct than the original.In order to get full credit, you needed to state both points: that children ignore corrections, and that they don't understand what the correction is for. Both points are arguments against the effectiveness of corrections for language acquisition.
What really surprised me is that the question goes exactly the same as the one in the exam of 清大.If I have known this website earlier, I could write my answer in full credits!
From the Academic Earth Website, I see the video of The American Novel Since 1945 by Amy Hungerford in Yale University. During the first half part of the video, Professor Hungerford introduces the outline the the course in the semester. That is, they are going to read novels, iincluding Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping and so on. What they will talk about in class contains war, race, sex, woman, etc.
From this video, I found that the sound of the lecturer is clear enough that I can understand the content easily.However, during the last 30 mins of the lecture, the literature content becomes difficult to catch on. That's why the scrip is necessary for us.
On the other hand, I think the resource from these OpenCourse websites are quite useful. First of all, I can practice my listening skill from the lecture. Lecturers pronounce clearly and loudly enough. Secong, I can try to do the assignment or exams oflinguistic courses so as to handle my future study in graduate school. But there is a disadvantage. Most of these courses are science and engineering related. There is only one kind of English literature course in Yale university and there is even no video provided in the linguistic course in MIT.