extended definition

For my extended definition I'm thinking about defining the term "diva". A pet peeve of mine is overused words and phrases in our culture. "Diva" is just one of many over-used words thrown around today. I also considered "pro-active", a word I particularly hate. I found surprisingly little about it from the OED though. I might ultimately pick another corporate buzzword depending on how much information I can find on the colloquial usage of diva.

editorial, rough draft

The focus in language instruction needs to shift from giving grammar, and reading and writing as much attention as listening and speaking in the early stages in foreign language courses taught at U.S. universities. This should be replaced with the more effective ‘natural communication” methods promoted by Stephen Krashen, an expert in the field of linguistics who specializes in theories of language acquisition and development at the University of California. (http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html)

I am a native speaker of English, a teacher of English as a second language, and a student of Mandarin Chinese. In my experiences as both a learner and a teacher, I have found difficulties dealing with both student and teacher expectations. In my Chinese classes, the students were expected to learn the four proficiencies (listening, speaking, reading, writing) equally at the same time.

As a teacher of English as a second language, I had to deal with the differing expectations of English language students who not only had varying levels of English proficiency, but were expecting rigid, grammar-based lessons. They wanted rules to memorize.

I learned how to teach English as a second language at Oakland University. In my classes, we learned that the old “grammar translation” method of teaching was no longer the favored method. The new theories put forth by Krashen and others focus on communication-based, real-world English. Linguists like Noam Chomsky teach of concepts like “Universal Grammar”, wherin everyone, no matter what their native language is, knows fundamentally how to put words together to create meaning. These theories bring a different, more natural approach to language teaching and acquisition. Another fundamental difference between how English is taught and how foreign languages are taught is how soon reading and writing is brought to center stage.

As anyone knows, when we learn our native language as babies, we don’t learn to read, write, speak and listen all at the same time. Babies listen first; imitate what they hear, begin to produce language in spoken form, and finally learn to read and write. The later, continues to be a subject of study throughout adulthood for many as any university student of literature or rhetoric can attest.

As teachers of language, we have to remember why students are taking a foreign language in the first place; to be able to functionally communicate in the target language. As Krashen puts it: "The best methods are therefore those that supply 'comprehensible input' in low anxiety situations, containing messages that students really want to hear. These methods do not force early production in the second language, but allow students to produce when they are 'ready', recognizing that improvement comes from supplying communicative and comprehensible input, and not from forcing and correcting production." Stephen Krashen (http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html)

There has been a lot of study done in teaching English as a second language. I don’t know if as much effort has been put forth in other languages that are taught to native English speakers in American universities, but obviously the same concepts championed by Krashen and others for teaching English should apply to native English speakers attempting to learn a second language.

There are examples of this focus shift outside the classroom. In my Chinese studies, one of the most effective learning tools I found is ChinesePod.com. Part of Praxis Language, Chinese Pod offers a learning experience unlike that which I found at Oakland University, who’s curriculum is based on the “Integrated Chinese” system originating from the Chinese School of the East Asian Summer Language Institute at Indiana University. Chinese Pod uses an audio podcast with a short dialogue, followed by an idiomatic translation and discussion of relevant cultural aspects of the vocabulary. A paid subscription provides the student with transcriptions in PDF form with English, Pinyin (a Romanized form of Chinese), traditional and simplified characters, and various study tools including one-one lessons with Chinese teachers. Chinese Pod focuses on input in the early stages which mimics 1^st language learning.

The Integrated Chinese method, adopted by OU, expresses their philosophy as: “The Chinese title of Integrated Chinese, reflects our belief that a healthy language program should be a well-balanced one, paying attention to all four skills, listening, speaking, reading and writing.”

The problem with this method is that reading and writing are far more difficult that listening and speaking. I spent so much time trying to memorize characters so that I could pass quizzes and tests that after 3 semesters, I could barely speak a complete sentence that wasn’t one of the memorized dialogues from the book. Real conversational meaningful language production was absent. I could not express concepts or thoughts in the target language. Frustrated, I quit after the third semester. I continue my Chinese language studies through ChinesePod. In speaking with my former classmates, I find the same frustrations felt by all. I don’t know if Spanish, German, or other languages are taught the same way, but I suspect they are.

Works cited

Electronic resource: (http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html) accessed 11/24/08

Electronic resource: (http://chinesepod.com/) accessed 11/24/08

Electronic resource: (http://eall.hawaii.edu/yao/icusers/) accessed 11/24/08

Worksheet 10

A. For my editorial piece I'm planning an argument for increased financial aid in the form of grants, scholarships and workstudies as opposed to loans. In my preliminary research I am finding many schools across the U.S. that are transitioning away from loans and toward grants and scholarships. Oakland University seems to be behind on this.
B. The arguments seem to be about ownership of the expenses of education, whether private or public.
C. Readers are very opinionated about private vs public funding of may things; I'm sure education is no different. Many are opposed to tax dollars going toward anything besides defense. I believe most people argue emotionally on this topic rather than logically.
D. Three of several sources of information are:

The misinformation about financial aid: inaccurate perceptions about the cost of college often stand in the way of economically disadvantaged students pursuing a college degree.

by Horwedel, Dina M
This article is similar to the examples we viewed in class in that it discusses the cost/benefit concerns of potential students. This article focuses on the Hispanic population of California, but the fundamentals are universal. In a nutshell, it says one of the biggest problems facing high school students trying to decide whether or not to attend college is misinformation.

House Republicans Challenge New England Senators on Shaping Aid Policy.

from " The Chronicle of Higher Education. 48.23 (Feb 15, 2002)
This article may be a little too old to use, but the attitudes haven't changed, so I still think it's relevant. In it, the author discusses how in the good old days, Republicans and Democrats put aside partisan bickering to ensure college educations were funded. Today, however they can't agree on why college costs so much and why it should be a federal problem, not a state or local one.

Harvard takes lead in easing college costs.

from " Newsday (Melville, NY). (Dec 11, 2007)
This is one of several article I have found on universities attempting to ease the burden on students by offering more grants and scholarships. There are several, all saying basically the same thing. What I need to find out now is why and how they are and why OU isn't or can't.

argument strategies

I find the most convincing arguments are those with data or statistics to back them up. Emotional arguments are interesting to listen to...sometimes, but they don't convince me by themselves. I know people who argue vehemently about things they know nothing about. This kind of ties in with the articles for this week in that at least 4 of these people I'm thinking about, have never set foot inside a college. Aside from practical things like helping you land and keep jobs, a college education also teaches you to look at things from different perspectives. It also teaches you to check your sources. Just hearing it "on the TV" or reading it in the paper is not good enough. My personal favorite is "I hear that..." followed by an emotionally-charged empty-headed argument about some controversial topic that your interlocutor knows nothing about.
If you really want to convince people, back up what you say with something other than "the news" or "some guy at work". As I mentioned in class, a few semesters ago I wrote a paper for a biology class on global warming. I tried to show arguments from the side that global warming is a man-made phenomenon and should be addressed vs global warming is a natural fluctuation and nothing to worry about. I found it very difficult to find reliable sources for backing up the "nothing to worry about" argument. There were plenty of "don't worry about it" arguments out there, but not written by anyone who actually knows anything about the climate. They were written by spokesmen for public policy think tanks, authors who work for economic magazines, and others in the corporate world or government.
Needless to say there agendas at work here. These people are also educated and can make convincing arguments if taken at face value, one of the fallacies on our list, but these people are not climatologists and have no formal education in climatology or perhaps the sciences in general. They know how to argue and convince the pedestrian masses, however and so politically charged things like climate change become "controversial".
Some of these journalists would say things like "scientists still can't agree" or similar things. It sounds good, but it's simply not true. The scientists do seem to agree. In fact, all but one from the ones I was able to find with public statements about climate change. The one climatologist I was able to find in the "nay" column was countered by evidence pointing to inaccuracies in his data which was based on 1970's satellite data that other climatologists point out is no longer considered accurate.
In the 1990's there was a proliferation of talk radio shows and TV talk shows with guests pulled from the ranks of the "average Joe" who spouted ill-conceived opinions on all sorts of topics. That brought new meaning to "I heard on the radio that..." Who cares what you heard? Who said it? What do they know? What do they have to back up their arguments besides superlatives?
The problem is time. We don't have time to research everything we want to opine about. When people put forth "arguments from authority", the reader assumes this authority figure knows what they are talking about. My climate paper is an example. I'm not a climatologist and wouldn't know what to do with the raw climate data if I was presented with it. I have to assume that when a climatologist interprets this data in a certain way, he or she knows what they are talking about. Maybe they don't. Maybe they have an agenda too. I do know enough, however to take arguments from non-authorities, without data to back them up, no matter how eloquently or emotionally put, with a lot of salt.

on revising

As I said in an earlier post, writing is subjective like other arts. The more I study it, the more frustrating it becomes. It would be easier if there were hard-fast rules that simply could not be broken. English is too flexible. Never write in fragments(unless that is the tone or voice you are going for). Never write in the passive voice (unless you are trying to shirk blame, or your boss tells you to write that way) Never write in short simple sentences (unless that is the style you are going for) So basically, write the way your boss or instructor tells you, until they are no longer your boss or instructor, then go back to writing the way you want. It's just like when I was going to school for photography. I had to shoot subjects my prof liked if I wanted a good grade. After I was done with that class I went back to shooting what I liked. That's not to say I didn't learn anything; I certainly did and I shot my old subjects in new ways, but the subjectivity frustrated me.
Looking at the article we had to read for this blog, notice all the green squiggly underlines, indicating grammatical aberrations picked up by Word. Now of course people will say "Well, that's just Word. ignore it. What does Microsoft know anyway?" Microsoft certainly doesn't know everything about writing, but I'm sure they hired professional grammarians when writing the code for Word. It's just like the photographic exhibit at the DIA by the famous NY photographer. It's ok for her, but don't you do it; at least not until you become a famous author, then you can break all the rules.

On, "On Writing"

I am really enjoying King's On Writing book. One thing about King's writing that I have always appreciated is his conversational style. He pulls you into his writing by using language from the street that is Earthy and colloquial but then once he pulls you in, you realize he has something intelligent to say and his use of foul language doesn't take anything away from the substance.

Writing is an art form, much like photography. When I first graduated from highschool, I attended CCS with the intention of getting a degree in photography. In my first year we learned all about the mechanics of making technically perfect photographs. If we submitted prints that suffered from poor contrast or exposure or were spotted poorly (spotting was the term used for "inking in" the white dust spots you invariably get in analog, old-fashioned negative-to-print photography), your grade would reflect it, and you would likely also be subjected to a lecture.
I recall on one of our many trips to the DIA to look at the work of some famous New York photographer who was famous (or infamous) for producing poor quality prints complete with chemical stains, poor exposures, no dust spotting, etc, I commented to my professor that if I had turned in a photograph like any of these he would throw me out on my ear. He said "yeah, you're probably right." But since this is "so and so", I said (whoever this famous and now forgotten New York photographer was), her work is put on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts! My prof replied: "Yup."
I realize now what I failed to realize at 18. Miss famous New York photographer certainly knew better and was assuredly capable of creating correctly exposed photographs, with good contrast and no discernible dust spots; she chose not to. She was allowed her technical faux pas because her work said something and was effective in its own way. Writing is the same thing. Before you break the rules, you have to know the rules.

on memior bashing

I have to admit, the only memoirs I am interested in reading are ones written by historical figures I have an interest in. I don't think that memoirs should only be written by people who possess a shared public interest, however. It is probably good for everyone to write their memoirs if for no other reason than to clarify their own thoughts, leave something to posterity and family history, and of course, writing practice! I just don't thing everyone should hope their memoir will become the next best- seller; any more than they should hope that their next poem or work of fiction will become the next best-seller.
Tom Bodet wrote some interesting books in the late 1980's based on his experiences in Homer Alaska. In one called "Small Comforts" (my apologies to the MLA police; I don't have the option to underline the book title here), he speaks on his writing experience, and I paraphrase here: I have never written anything that I didn't read and think to myself, who really cares? I am always pleasantly surprised when someone does. Bodet didn't really write this series as memoirs, per se', in fact I think they are classified as fiction, but they are based on real people and real experiences. Told in his warm, off-hand style, they are enjoyable, easy reads.
All art is subjective and what is interesting/boring to one is not to another, so write on. Maybe someone will care; maybe not...

First person female

we've read about women writers in the 19th century writing under male pseudonyms because they either would never be published because they were women, or what they wrote about would be considered a scandal if found that it came from the pen of a woman. So it is interesting to see the role reversed in this article-though for decidedly different reasons. I haven't written much fiction yet, though I could see myself writing in female characters and think nothing of giving them voices. I don't think they would be androgynous or masculine characters, just because I wrote them. Sometimes people feel you can't really relate to a certain type of character if you come from a completely different background. George Carlin once said white men have no business singing the blues. As funny as i found that skit, and despite the fact that i have an enormous respect for Carlin, I don't agree with the statement. I think white men can sing the blues. I think a black man can be president, too for that matter, and i certainly think men and women can write as each other. After all, if you look at the science fiction genre, most stories take place in impossible places with impossible characters, but many people "buy it" and get a lot of enjoyment out of reading a science fiction tale, even if they know all along that the author is not a real robot and it's not the year 2112, or whatever.

Ecstasy of influence

Every once in awhile you read something that makes you think "yeah. Exactly....Why didn't I write that?" This is one of those essays for me. Lethem has so many great points. No human creates in a vacume...I forget who said that, but I heard it somewhere before. I'm afraid it won't appear at the end of this blog on a "works cited" page fitting the enigmatic MLA format to ensure no laws are broken. I'm just saying within the body of this text that I know I didn't make it up.
So what is an original thought? How far back into the history of mankind do we need to go to ensure that the author actually came to the thought from his own musings; that he didn't steal it from some obscure-out-of-print book he has in his secret collection? Will there be DNA testing for art someday? If so, it will certainly be developed in America where we fear the pinching of intellectual "property" with the same vehemence that we used to fear the "Red Menace". I think Lethem gets at the heart of issue by pointing out what we are really afraid of is someone else capitalizing from our work at our expense. It's a valid argument and a legitimate complaint. The problem is where to draw the line. In the early 1970's, George Harrison was successfully sued by.....The Shirels...(?) or some other Motown group for copy write infringement. The argument was that the song "My Sweet Lord" was a copy of "He's so Fine". Harrison tried to argue that in listening to the 2 songs back-to-back, the melodies did sound similar, but he didn't consciously write "My Sweet Lord" with "He's So Fine" drumming through his head. I think that is an important distinction. It didn't, however, win him the case and it probably wouldn't save an OU student's hide from the plagiarism court.
So what is an artist, author, or student to do to protect himself in in the litigious world of modern America? I suspect by making a conscious effort to develop his own style. Even though we all have our influences, they are not all the same influences; so the chances are that if given enough effort, a personal style can come to form out of the soup of influences we have acquired throughout our lifetimes. I'm influenced by George Harrison, but my words don't sound like his, and I'm not a really good musician so I don't think I'll be writing any songs any time soon that would stand accused of ripping off Harrison or The Beatles. For that matter, nothing I ever write will likely be accused of being a rip-off of Jimi Hendrix, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, or J.S. Bach, Gaspar Sanz, or Girolamo Kapsberger for that matter. From the world of literature, I am heavily influenced by Ambrose Bierce and Edgar Allen Poe, among many others, but I don't ever hope to be confused with them. As popular (or not) as some of these artists are and have been throughout history, not everyone who creates art is equally influenced by each one of them. A lot of people liked The Beatles, but how many of those same people also really like Sanz? I suspect most people don't even know who the hell I'm talking about. That's the point. Not everyone likes the same things equally well. So, as long as the thoughts you scribble are the thoughts from your own head, influenced as they may be by the work of others, and not blatantly lifted, you should be alright....I hope.

A question of grammar

The study of grammar is interesting for me as I teach English as a second language. When I did my OU practicum at Hispanic Outreach in Pontiac, I was taken aback by the interest my students displayed in learning grammar. They wanted the rules. What they really wanted was a matrix or chart; "when you are in this situation, write it like this." They approached learning English as if it were a science. I told them that unfortunately it is not as easy as that with English. Fortunately, I was teaching a group of students who were trying to pass the GED and I was furnished with an exam prep textbook to draw my lessons from. This was indeed handy as I had not had an English grammar lesson in more years than some of my students were alive. Like the author of the article, I also remember "conjunction junction" and all the rest. I also remember grammar lessons ending sometime in my early teens. 9th grade, I think. From them on, I've been on my own. As a teacher, I had to re-learn many of the rules for things I have done unconsciously for years. I don't pretend to know much about Spanish grammar, but I have been led to believe it is more straightforward than English. I wouldn't be surprised if that is so. Spelling in Spanish, I am told, is also straightforward. There are no Spanish "spelling B's". Each vowel, I am told, is pronounced in only two ways, the short or relative sound, and the long or “alphabet” sound. No mysterious “ough” nonsense to deal with.

Yes, as we grow and learn we innately discover how to communicate with our fellow English-speaking humans reasonably well. The problem is writing. If most people, even educated "professionals" wrote the way they spoke, it would be laughable. Over the years I would become really offended when I read something at work written by one of my "superiors" that had glaring grammatical and spelling errors. I would wonder how they got to where they were, why they made so much more money than I when they sounded like idiots, and why was I still schlepping...whatever it was I was schlepping at the time earning a peasant’s wage. It wasn't until I went back to school to finish a bachelor degree that I realized you can very easily muddle your way through school, even perhaps achieve an advanced degree in the sciences or business, and still not know how to write an email without sounding like a moron.
I can accept that strict lessons in grammar are probably unpalatable to most American students. Now we have "Grammar in Context" textbooks and the like, which are supposed to teach grammar in "useful" scenarios instead of boring drills. The problem is, they still teach by giving example sentences with fill-in-the-blank exercises. They don't answer the fundamental question of why. As a teacher, I hate not being able to answer that and I refuse to say "it's just they way we say it". I'm not a linguist, nor do I want to be. I don't think breaking language down into its atomic particles is necessary to be able to teach someone how to write. I think the reason we don’t teach grammar anymore is because we don’t know how to. What I mean is that we don’t know what really works to make the ideas stick in the student’s heads. Over the years more and more studies are done, more PhDs are granted, and we seem none the wiser. In the short time I have been teaching ESL, I have learned that how you teach depends on who you are teaching. Mexican speakers of Spanish seem to want the rules and the “dry, boring” grammar. Speakers of Chinese and Korean don’t. They already learned English grammar ad nauseam in primary school. What they need is practical experience creating English, both written and spoken. I haven’t yet taught English to native speakers, but that is my goal. I hope that by taking classes like this, I will be better prepared to teach others how to construct English sentences effectively. Whether I teach grammar directly or try the osmosis approach, remains to be seen.

Write till you drop

There were a few things I could relate to in Dillard's essay "Write till you drop". There was also a lot of meandering that I had to hit the "fast-forward" button over. I love the line about why you never find anything written about that one thing that really gets you, being that it is because it is up to you to write it. Writing as if your life depended on it is a little melodramatic for me-as is the bit about the sensation of writing being like doing barrel rolls and spinning and blind love. etc etc. I also disagree with the assertion that if you are going to write, you should write a big book (novel or non-fiction narrative). I'm a fan of the short story; for many reasons, not the least of which is a short attention span. It is difficult to chew through a long novel, especially when not compelled to for a class, just for the enjoyment of it. Unfortunately, I'm not a fast reader and something always intervenes before I can finish. I also have the not-to-uncommon habit of reading several books at once (this even when not reading for classes). That short attention span problem again. And last, as my favorite author, Ambrose Bierce put it, a novel is just "a short story with padding."
This is partially tongue-in-cheek. There is absolutely nothing wrong with novels or non-fiction narratives. I enjoy them both. I just had to chime-in in defense of the short story. I do, however, think that everyone should write. I'm not saying everyone should attempt at making a profession out of it. I just think when we write, we think harder than when we speak. A Lot harder. We all could use this form of exercise a little more.