Words and letters may not be all they're cracked up to be

Today I want to tell a story. This story had an impact on the way that I organize my lessons, the way that I view my role as a teacher, and the importance of remembering or memorizing dialogs for language learning.

This story comes to us from Plato's Phaedrus. In the story Socrates tells the story of Theuth, an Egyptian god who  discovered numbers, calculation, geometry, and writing. One day Theuth was talking to the king of Egypt, Thamus, and said that he had a special gift. There is a thing that if the people learn it, they will improve their memories and become wiser. The king replied that Theuth's perception of writing was skewed, and that he did not understand it properly. Instead of remembering and understanding things, students would rely on writing as a way of being reminded. Students will be exposed to many ideas, but will not think about them properly, and while appearing to be wise, will know nothing.

I came to two conclusions after reading this story.

1. In a general sense, presenting material in a written form and not expecting students to remember it detracts from their ability to improve their intelligence. It has been shown that simple memory ability can predict intelligence, and that ability can be improved through practice.

 2. Written words interfere with my students' acquisition of English. This may sound like a rediscovery of the audio lingual method, and it may be, but without most of the behaviorist theory. In classes that I teach, I use my own teaching materials. I have been handing out the materials before an activity, and when it involves the use of a dialog, the students have it before they listen to me and/or my partner teacher repeat the dialog.

As a result of reading this story, I started to think about what was happening with my students. This, I guess, is the sequence they experience.

1. Materials received. Begin to read content.
2. Follow teacher's direction to look at the dialog (which they have read, if only silently, already).
3. Listen to the teacher(s) read the dialog while looking at the words on paper.
4. Follow the teacher's direction to read and repeat
5. Move on to related activities

They have read the dialog and heard what was said then by the teachers through their own filers first, and move on before having time to incorporate what is said.

To test this presumption about students' perceptions, I altered my presentation method. Since my students are at a beginner level, I chose a dialog that was applicable to the content we were going to cover anyway, so as to remain within the bounds of the syllabus, but shorter than the one originally planned.

This was the progression I used for both classes.
1. Instructed students not to write anything.
2. Introduced pre-listening questions
3. Reviewed answers to pre-listening questions
4. Asked students to repeat the dialog section by section after me, imitating my speech whether they "understood" it or not.
5. I then split the class into groups to recite parts of the dialog, which they were now beginning to memorize.
6. Finally, I asked them to use a pencil and do a dictation of the dialog, after which I gave each of them a paper version of the dialog to check their written dialog against.
7 I explained the content in Japanese (their L1) and then read it again with the paper.
8. We then practiced the dialog with the paper.

Judging by their reactions, the students experienced a heightened awareness of pronunciation and meaning in the dialog without having a print version available at the beginning. Since they were only listening to me and then repeating the dialog, they were less likely to read it in a Japanese pronunciation as they are encouraged to do in some of their high school classes.

They were more realized and playful than times when they were given a written version of the dialog first.

After reading the tale of Theuth and Thamus, I became convinced that letters can be counterproductive, especially if the one goal of the class is to remember and make language part of the learners' intellectual too kit. Simply reading aloud promotes the reuse and reinforcement of fossilized language habits.
(Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.svg)

Using Newspaper Inserts to Teach Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

I teach a seminar class where we are learning debate, and last week we staged a debate about whether nurses from other countries should be admitted into the country. It went well, except that the students had a difficult time of attacking their opponents' arguments directly, so I was trying to think of how to give them experience in attacking an opinion or set of opinions.

I decided to give them something less emotionally charged than arguments from their classmates. My original plan was to buy some Japanese magazines so that the students could choose the ads that they were interested in. I abandoned that idea after I found it very difficult to choose suitable magazine content. 

Instead, I chose some inserts from the newspaper, all in Japanese, all touting easily identifiable products or services. 

I gave them a brief lesson on Aristotle's Ethos, Logos, and Pathos, and then let each group of 3 students choose one of the inserts to descent.  

There were several different advertisements to choose from. The easiest ones to use seemed to be those selling nutritional supplements, pachinko, restaurants, and electric appliances. My students were not interested in the pachinko advertisements. 

After finishing with the Japanese advertisements, I gave them magazines written in English so that they could search for an ad about which they could discern the Ethos, Logos, and Pathos, based mostly on the images rather than having to rely on the meaning of words. 

This activity worked well, and the students got some practice taking apart arguments using language, and those using predominantly images. Next we will have to try to examine verbal arguments from others in the same way. 

Another seal gets a certificate of residence (住民票）

A town in Saitama, Japan issued a Certificate of Residence (COR) to a seal that has found its way into a river and is living there.

I find this offensive, because as a tax-paying, volunteering, child-raising upstanding resident of my town, I will not be issued a COR because I am a foreigner.

That just about makes me more angry than I have been in a very long time. This cretinous government can't be trusted to make ethical decisions about any human rights issue. Remember that next time you consider doing business with any Japanese entity.

http://www.fnn-news.com/news/headlines/articles/CONN00209724.html

FNNニュース: 埼玉・志木市の荒川に...

埼玉・志木市の荒川に現れたアザラシの「あらちゃん」に市が特別住民票交付:埼玉・志木市の荒川に現れ、話題となっているアザラシの「あらちゃん」

This isn't the first time someone has done this, and for any variety of animals. And this isn't the most egregious offense of late. The documents they issued to the UN about human rights in Japan is worthless, and doesn't even cover the issues that most interest the UN, like child abductions or discrimination laws.

This link is to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Human Rights Commitments and Pledges

Open Letter to the Reptilian Overlords RE: Education

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Dear Reptilian Overlords,

This letter is in reference to how education is supposed to work. It has come to my attention that you have abrogated our agreement. You have broken our contract. You may have done this willfully or without awareness, but you have failed to keep your end of the bargain as regards education. Allow me to remind you about how this is supposed to work.

People, young and old, but mostly young, spend great portions of their lives in learning sufficient amounts of information to be accredited graduates from the educational system. They may exit the system at various levels, but usually at the high school, college, or graduate levels.

This education is funded through taxes, individual earnings, family contributions, and private and public organizations. The cost increases as the level of education proceeds. The cost also varies according the content of the education and the institution that offers the graduate accreditation.

The following is where the most egregious abrogation of our agreements occurs, so please pay special attention. When a person has been conferred with the essential documents of graduation, that person will then seek gainful employment based on that education. At present they are not able to find this employment. Please see this graphic.

This graphic shows that 44.4% of graduates from undergraduate colleges under the age of 25 are not working or working in jobs that do not require a college education.

Immediate redress of this situation is in your best interests as well as ours. If this situation is not addressed, education will be seen for the general farce that most of it is. The situation is this, and I will use my own personal experience in American public education as an example. I was subject to far too many hours of tedium, expected to learn irrelevant minutiae while being prevented from exploring valuable real learning, and graduated with a graduate degree in foreign languages that I grudgingly admit has been of hardly any use to me at all in my profession as a foreign language teacher. The only value I believe I received from this experience are the human connections I made while in the school.

If this situation continues, you will be the ones who lose, because the flimsy veil of legitimacy will have been removed, and the low quality waste of time will be revealed for what it is.

Dolphins in Taiji

In Taiji, Japan at this time of year, there is a harvest of the dolphin population. A few are collected and sent of to aquariums around the world. More are slaughtered for their meat. At other times during the year, Japanese ships head out to hunt whales, whose meat finds its way to grocery shelves around Japan in both fresh and canned form. This harvest is said to be for scientific purposes.

This post is not an argument for or against the controversial killing of living things, but rather a proposal for action that removes the necessity for struggle and the squandering of life in pursuit of personal gain. 

People who oppose these slaughters are many and vocal. Protesters stand outside Japanese embassies and around the area where the dolphins are killed in Taiji. Some post appeals in various places against the killing.

This post is not an argument for or against the controversial killing of living things, but an examination of the irrational arguments on both sides. Those who would prevent harm coming to dolphins and whales argue that the animals posses significant intelligence and emotional faculties. Those who support the killing, actively or passively, posses a variety of beliefs, completely unexamined and irrational.

The opposition makes appeals to the general public to stop the killing, hoping that, 1.) they will put some kind of pressure on politicians, 2.) will send financial support to groups who may be able to exert political pressure or monkey wrench hunts, 3.) will influence buying habits of sympathetic people, becoming an economic force that can sway businesses to exert some kind of political pressure to stop the practices.

Each of these options rely, in the end, on some kind of political action. 1.) and 3.) directly imply some kind of political action, and 3.) necessitates political action in that government will be asked to reimburse losses to businesses as a result of direct action, increasing the tax burden on the population.

These actions will be totally ineffectual without significant comprehensive change, as governments care not a whit about their populations in general (I offer the example of the Fukushima nuclear power plants as an example) much less sea creatures. Their task is to protect their existence by maintaining the status quo through violence if necessary.

I see a parallel between this issue and the annual slaughter of baby harp seals in Canada. The struggle to end this harvest, largest slaughter of marine mammals in the world, has continued since I became aware of environmental issues in the 1970's.

Governments and those who support whaling and dolphin harvests argue that Japanese people have always eaten whale/dolphin meat and that since it is a traditional food source, then it is appropriate for them to continue the hunts.

This argument is a red herring. There is no relationship to animals traditionally eaten or banned. In A.D. 675, Emperor Temmu prohibited people from eating the meat of horses, monkeys, dogs, chickens and cows. I assume that since the ruler prohibited people from eating them that it must have been a practice at the time to consume these animals for food.

I have never heard a Japanese person say that they have eaten dog, nor have I seen a place where dog meat was on sale, though people who travel abroad may consume dog meat in other countries where eating do is not taboo. The hunting of monkeys in Japan is strictly forbidden, even though they do serious damage to crops and periodically attack humans. I do not believe they eat them. However, Japanese people regularly eat all of the other animals, both raw and cooked. Eating habits can change instantly or slowly over time. "Tradition" excuses nothing.

I would prefer to see this needless suffering end, and so I propose two solutions, but this will require some difficult changes. First, I propose that the struggle to stop/ban/prohibit the hunting and killing of dolphins should end. It is not metaphysically useful to continue expending energy that reinforces an undesirable situation.

It was Neville Goddard, a New Thought lecturer of the mid 20th century, who recommended that we “assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled” if we want our dreams to become real. Feeling good is feeling God—our good feelings align us with Spirit.

— Dr. Wayne Dyer

"To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease."

— Eckhart Tolle

My second proposal is to stop consuming. Stop consuming as much as possible. This grotesque squandering of life is all connected with the desire to posses things at the expense of others and our earth. If you are reading this, you have access to the Internet, which makes you one of the 3-5% of the world's population who does. You can do with less. I can do with less.


dolphin photo provided by http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/148624

Eat Right, Learn Right

You want to learn better? Then eat right!

The verdict is in. What we put into our bodies affects all of our physical and intellectual selves.

Eat
1. Whole foods: Whole grains lead to better memory power.
2. Fruit and vegetables: Fruit and vegetables can improve your memory.
3. With others: Eating with others has a raft of physical and emotional benefits.

Don't eat
1. Refined sugar: Talk about something that will harm your ability to remember stuff...
2. Too much: Obesity impairs people's ability to think.

Posted via email from Daniel's posterous

Startled Awake: tanka

Startled wide awake
Chickens crowing their praise to morning
Each day waking thus
Though each time is different
Birth into a brand new world