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The
Exploratory Learning and Teaching Newsletter of Dokkyo University
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Languaging!
Reader's Forum
Thanks for visiting these pages. Please sign our guestbook using the form at the bottom of this page. We welcome your reactions to anything you've read in Languaging!, your thoughts on learning and teaching languages, as well as comments or suggestions for this website.
19 August 2007
| Name: |
Ana Barcelos |
| Subject: |
Comments on "Language teacher, language learner" |
| Comment: |
I
really enjoyed Carpenter's article (Languaging! No. 8)
on the identities of a
language teacher. It resonated with the experience of trying to learn
Spanish here in Brazil. Although the language is not spoken here and I
don't have to use it in my daily life, I've always wanted to learn it.
The
opportunity appeared when we had a lecturer from Spain last year. I
started the class and was a participant student, though the grammar
(despite the similarity with Portuguese) was a bit complicated. But,
like John (in the article), I had little time to recycle and study the
language outside class. In addition, my beliefs about what a language
class should be were very different from the teacher's, who adopted a
grammar-contrastive-analysis approach which put me off. I kept asking
myself in my head , "Where is the use? How can I say this or that? I
need to speak!" Besides this, my participation in conferences
around
the world and country made me miss some classes. I found myself getting
behind
and also lacking in motivation due to the conflicts of pedagogical
beliefs. Thus, I unfortunately stopped studying Spanish (though I still
want to learn). But another similarity to John was how we teachers, when learning another language other than the one we teach, start to demand we "walk our talk" (as Tim Murphey says) ! I'm acting like my students! I tell them they should be dedicated and study, and I yet myself don't do it. This is also similar to what I feel sometimes as a teacher trainer. I am always checking myself to see if what I do in class is the same as what I am telling my students to do (of course, I don't always tell them what to do, but try to make them decide for themselves what would be the best option). It's tough sometimes. Anyhow, I just wanted to share my opinions with you. I'm a great fan of Languaging! and I'll take this opportunity to congratulate you all on putting this wonderful virtual forum for us teachers and students. I feel inspired by its articles, ideas (which I have used) and by the idea of the journal itself that reminds us participation and collaboration are key to pathways thinking. It feels good to be part of this community of practice. It has inspired me to DO more things, instead of just thinking and preparing for it. Cheers, Ana Maria Ferreira Barcelos Professora de Língua Inglesa e Prática de Ensino de Língua Inglesa Departamento de Letras e Artes Universidade Federal de Viçosa Viçosa, Brasilia |
15 June 2007
| Name: |
Akiko Kiuchi |
| Subject: | On Education |
| Comment: | I'm a
4th-year student of politics in Dokkyo University … I saw your poster
on the door and felt like taking part in your thought-provoking
challenge. I'm writing some ideas to your question "Education, whatcha
think?" Education is … enlightment, energy and a process to reach freedom; not to accept what there is without any skepticism, but to imagine the alternative; to be able to think critically; to build your own personality and improve it through idea-exchanges with others; to protest against the consumerist society and against the world in which money governs; to find a way out of the forever competition which breaks culture—money can never build culture—; to protest against all authority, opportunism and absurdity; to find a way out of immaturity and make diversity together; to live as you are! Living in a big city like in Tokyo, I have to come to realize that society is becoming increasingly anonymous. Almost everyone has a computer and a cell phone. That means that you can reach any person anytime. Nevertheless people send short messages to each other but they don't talk face to face very often anymore. I think education entails conversation with others. However I see evidence that schools inin Japan are not a place for conversation, but the opposite. Maybe you know one of the books of Erich Fromm, "To Have or To Be". In many schools in Japan their content is only "to have" and not "to be." Cram schools are the extreme examples. Even the cram schools encourage students to make their colleagues "enemies", to "win" to attend the top schools. Such education never makes culture, but it works the opposite way. You see that education is already a big part of business in Japan. Two further citations for you: One of my favourite poets, Joseph Brodsky from former USSR, made a great speech when he received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1987. Under this address you can read his whole speech in English, which I recommend: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/ laureates/1987/brodsky-lecture-e.html Finally, have you ever heard of the book "Desschooling Society" by Ivan Illich? There you'll read his revolutionary ideas about education. Akiko Kiuchi "If you lack courage, philosophy is always there for you." -Albert Camus |
25 September 2006
| Name: | Toda
Taemi |
| Subject: | On
Asian Englishes |
| Comment: | I
[was a student in] the Language and Culture department at Dokkyo
University from March 2001 to March 2005. I mainly studied English,
Chinese, and Japanese language teaching (JSL/JFL). I am the person who
wrote the article "Why do we learn English?" in Languaging!
No. 2, and I am also the person who gave a speech about my ideal
university as was mentioned in "The Petition Process Works!" Languaging!
No.
7. [In that speech I said] we should learn more about the
Asian Englishes since the people that we are most likely to interact
with in English later are other Asians. I was so surprised at reading
Languaging! No. 7 to learn that now freshmen in the English Department
are learning Asian
Englishes in classes. That news made me write today. Now I have been working at a Japanese language school in Tokyo, as a student support staff member. My main working place is the school office. I often answer phone calls. We get calls from overseas a lot also. I need English communication with visitors and new students who have not learned Japanese, too. I communicated with various people as follows in English during the last one year: Chinese, Korean, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Mongolian, Philippino, Uzbekistan, Malaysian, Indonesian, Singaporean, Indian, Sri Lankans, Egyptian, Italian, Americans, Canadians, Thai, Vietnamese, Nepalis, Cambodians, and so on. Many of them are Asians, and in many cases, both of us are non-native speakers. I could not understand what they talked well at first, but time helped me solve the problems. I am a Japanese native, not an English native speaker. They are also non-native English speakers. I am not sure about my English, but many of us must be influenced by our native languages. We do make mistakes and have unique accents based on our native languages. It would be great (best) if non-native speakers could speak with perfect grammar and universal pronunciation, however, in daily communication, the most important thing (at least for me) is to do my best to try to tell what I want to, and to catch (listen to) what they want. Actually we can communicate even making mistakes in many cases (having limitation though). I have not been to abroad for English study. I have learned English for 10 years in total, mostly in school education. That means, my teachers were Japanese or typical native speakers, and students (classmates) were almost all Japanese. I had only a few non-native classmates who were not Japanese in classes in university. I am surprised at knowing that freshmen in English department are learning Asian Englishes. I could not believe it because I have not heard [of students] who want to learn it before. But if I was still in university, I would be eager to learn it now. Communication with non-native English speakers who have different native languages might be a good chance to think about what we learn English for, and what the important things are. I believe their various Englishes help us learn to be more flexible, adaptable and more positive! |
22 June 2006
| Name: | Alice
Svendson |
| Subject: | What a wonderful newsletter! |
| Comment: | As the
'06 spring semester wanes and teachers' fatigue waxes, your little
magazine continues to impress and energize in a quiet way! In fact, the
last issue, which is in hard copy, has been one of the brightest spots
of my semester! I've read and incorporated ideas from several of the
articles in No.
7, and have had such an easy time using the activities,
with good results, that I just wanted to thank you and say how much I
appreciated the time and trouble you took to share those ideas with
other teachers. In particular, Tim Murphey's article, "Random Acts of Kindness Activity" led me to check out the foundation's website and from there I read several "kindness stories" which I then used as jigsaw reading and sharing activities, in conversation classes. As a follow-up,the students wrote their own true "kindness stories." Tim has caused quite a few ripples of kind thoughts and gestures around Tokyo, due to that great article, and Maria Gabriella Schmidt, who wrote "The Talk and Move Exercise" helped to get my students talking more in class. I have adopted her simple procedure to warm-up topics like 'what did you do on the weekend?', and discussion questions, as well as to students' sharing of their kindness stories. It has provided a well-structured way for lower level students to get that needed practice by repeating, and it's a nice alternative to the tiresome group arrangement. And last but not least, Duncan Baker's "Pyramid Number Magic" had my students (and me) cheering over the fact that they could finally read large numbers confidently. I haven't begun to exhaust the latest issue of Languaging. I will continue to read and incorporate more of its wonderful ideas. Thanks again, this time from my students! |
25 July 2004
| Name: | Brian Schanding |
| School: | Delgado Community College, New Orleans |
| Subject: | Fantastic! |
| Comment: | I was
perusing the old websites from our graduate course in web &
materials design and was amazed and pleased to see so much activity on
the Chris Carpenter pages! Really great work! |
4 July 2004
| Name: | Languaging! |
| Email: | languaging@yahoo.com |
| School: | Dokkyo
University |
| Subject: | Welcome
to Languaging! |
| Comment: | Thanks
for visiting these pages.
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