Why the Magic Number Nine?

Only one reason: That's exactly how many I could cram into a letter-sized sheet.

Little Fox Number Nine: Using SPELLING to nail PRONUNCIATION

9. SPELLING ç with some pronunciation thrown in

Itt does’nt mater any more were de producta coms form. Wen yew oder on line, they staff can’t bee drop-shipt two you adderess frum Mombai, Shenzen, ore Calgry. Every thing a rives ata yore nearesta possed ofice.

ANSWER KEY: It doesn’t matter anymore where the product comes from. When you order online, the stuff can be drop-shipped to your address from Mumbai, Shenzhen, or Calgary. Everything arrives at your nearest post office.

9. SPELLING ç with some pronunciation thrown in

Two estart aa bigguh pooder bidness lack Madonna inwollwoo geting eh restauranter lesson, hells insbection, sarvice treening, anda a finansher alone, vitch requeer de entrepreneur too fox ontoo Manny sings.

ANSWER KEY: To start a bigger food business like McDonalds involves getting a restaurant licence, health inspection, service training, and a financial loan, which requires the entrepreneur to focus on too many things.

Student Samples Successful and Otherwise

Foxes bagged: Success stories

• Sample 1
• Sample 2
• Sample 3

Foxes afoot: Success latent

• Sample 1
• Sample 2
• Sample 3

What's This Allusion to Little Foxes?

Traditionally, it was King Solomon's lover who wants nothing to eat away at their blossoming love when she insists (2:15), poetically, to

Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.

She apparently succeeds. As she concludes,

My beloved is mine, and I am his; he grazes among the lilies.17 Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle or a young stag on cleft mountains.

So also the quest to catch all the little problems that add up to an unreadable, unlovable text, of which nine are specifically targeted in this poster presentation.

Presentation Abstract

Those wishing to see them nine foxes framed in a different way can order this painting from Sophy White.

Presentation Abstract (as submitted to TESL Ontario Conference): The traditional approach to editing is largely piecemeal, tackling comma splices one week, capitalizations the next week, subject-verb agreement the next few days, etc. It's hard to see the forest for the trees, or, the vineyard for the vine. The "Catching Nine Little Foxes That Spoil the Vine" Worksheet presents a more holistic picture to the learner and sensitizes one to textual features that--ideational and interpersonal considerations aside--are nonstandard and tend to annoy the native reader. The nine selected features range from Prepositions (improper/absent/extra) and Sentence Integrity (comma splices/run-on sentences/fragments) to Punctuation (proper nouns, hard returns, spaces around words, quote marks, periods, etc.) and Spelling--stuff that sometimes seems trivial to the ESL learner. The fun part in all of this is how adaptable the handout can be in terms of LINC-related themes and peculiar learner difficulties, especially for the Spelling section, where the incorrect sample can be made to reflect the learner's speech, e.g. fox for focus, Madonna for McDonalds. The methodology, too, is fairly rewarding to the instructor besides three fairly predictable mornings. Beginning with the warm-up sheet that encourages the student to "catch five more" errors, and going on to multiple peer checking and teacher-class checking, the process has received a fair bit of anecdotal acclaim from learners. The takeaway is a checklist that is applied to peer writing correction and, hopefully, lifelong sensitivity to scribal "little foxes that spoil the vine."