Ajahn WIll's homework

My dear students,

I enjoyed seeing you all yesterday in our new classroom, and I'm happy to see that eight 1st year students have stayed in the Linguistics MA program to study with me.  

Your homework this week is to continue studying chapter 1 in Meyer's Introducing English Linguistics and to read carefully chapter 1 in The Little Prince.  

For your 3rd writing assignment, I would like you to write a short paper about the first chapter of The Little Prince, giving your impressions, thoughts and opinions about it.  I am interested in what you think and feel about the story of the two drawings the author made when he was a child and the negative reaction he received from "grown-ups" (adults).  Writing about this is more important than just summarizing the chapter.  Do you think children can understand some things better than grown-ups?  Because the narrator was not taken seriously by adults, he believed his drawings were a failure and gave up art to become a pilot. Have you ever had this experience of disappointment because others did not understand you?  What do you think the author of the book means by "matters of consequence," "true understanding," and "sensible man"?  

Do not write more than one page.  I am more interested in your thoughts than in perfect grammar.  Please send this assignment to me by email attachment before 6 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 23.  Don't forget to write a message to me in your email with a greeting and a signature so I can know who is sending it to me.

Continue to think about your activities this week and describe them to yourself using English words.  This will give you something to talk about during "Check In" when our class begins next week.  In addition, please continue to listen to and notice English words and sentences with the perspective of a linguist.  Notice the phonetics, morphology, syntax and semantics. When you find something interesting bring it to school to share with the other students.

Have a good week and I'll see you next Saturday morning.

With metta,

Dr. William

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Chapter 1

I think that He was a sensible child since he was a little because when he was six years old, He was interested in a book (True stories from nature) and He saw a picture in a book which it was a picture of a boa constructor in the act of swallowing an animal. When he saw that picture, he want to draw that picture by himself and when he succeeded in making his first drawing. He brought it to show to the grown-ups but The grown-ups didn’t understand in his drawing picture which all grown-ups thought that it was a hat because of this could make him disappoint as he hopes because the grown-ups didn’t look deeply in that picture without true understanding and they were not able to understand that picture so he drew an elephant picture (inside of boa constrictor)and the grown-ups could understand it but he disappointed it since the first picture he drew and he thought that he failed of his drawing picture, he gave up what he wants because the grown-ups couldn’t understand in his drawing after that he chose another profession, and learn to pilot airplanes. Something the child can understand better than grown-ups like this story but the grown-ups lack of imagination in a child’s idea which sometime the grown-ups can’t understand that what a child needs or what he think?  I never disappoint like him and I never have a bad experience like this.

The word “Consequence” in this story means a good result he got and making him understand on vision of grown-ups and all people around him.  The next word “ True understanding” in this story means deeply looking inside something or realize in something not just looking outside. And the last word “ sensible man ” in this case means a person who knowing and understanding something according to this story if the grown-ups were sensible men, you could know the meaning of picture and realize in the picture a child drew.

Phra Thaweesak Chanpradit

MCU, MA Linguistics

Wat Srisudaram, Bangkok.