Talk:Urban myths conversation questions

RP - might this be better worded - and more obviously a myth - if it were "RP is the most common form of British English"?
 * I'm trying to think of the best way of presenting this. Perhaps we should include "surprising but true facts" along with "well known but false ones" and ask the students to decide which are which. If we did that we'd need to include a teacher's crib sheet, perhaps with links, as well.--Bob M 09:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Good idea, but what would we present as true facts...? Needs a lot of research!--Technopat 09:40, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Amazing. I just had an edit conflict with - I'd also suggest that for "true" we'd accept the word of Wikipedia or snopes.--Bob M 09:42, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * In fact Snopes' language category might be a fertile ground.--Bob M 09:44, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * But now duty calls.--Bob M 09:45, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * But now that I think about it yet again, I wonder. (Although perhaps the half bottle of red wine may be helping.)
 * "We" live in a society in which evidence is (or should be) the deciding factor.  But there are (or one can imagine) societies in which, shall we say,  other "realities" may hold sway.  Do English teachers have the obligation to explain that these "other realities" are incorrect? Or is our function to provide students with the means to articulate these other opinions?
 * Consider: Creationism, conspiracy theories about 9/11, global warming.
 * I'm coming to the opinion that we should say something like: "the modern scientific/legal consensuses is that x is true" (or something of that nature) and leave the question of "truth" to the class.--Bob M 13:26, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * OK--81.32.26.66 17:36, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

General questions
In the general questions we start with:


 * How many urban myths do you know? Just one or two? Dozens?
 * How do you know if it's an urban myth? Do you ever try to check?
 * Have you ever helped spread an urban myth? Did you know at time that it was a myth or did you think it was true?

I'm not quite sure this works. The thing about urban myths is that the people who spread them don't actually know they are myths. So the majority of people will just say they know no urban myths and never spread them. The third question works though.--Bob M 09:17, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Not sure I agree that most people don't actually know that they're talking about myths - some people in the class will consider them as such and others won't. My experience is that people tend to start by saying "I'm not sure if it's true, but I heard that..." to which others reply whatever they themselves believe. --Technopat 09:45, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * OK.--Bob M 09:56, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Snow job
I'm confused by this one: What does the "9/10/11" mean?--Bob M 17:55, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The Eskimo/Inuit languages have 9/10/11 different words to describe different kinds of snow.
 * Sorted out. The original referred to the fact that I've heard 3 different versions, i.e. 9 different words, ten different words, etc.--Technopat 18:22, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I see, but I'm still confused. I thought that the urban myth was about 100.--Bob M 18:24, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow! Changed accordingly. --Technopat 18:41, 30 June 2009 (UTC)