text:
Lionel Messi scored his first goal for his new club with a sensational strike as Paris Saint-Germain gained Champions League revenge on Man City – then predicted that his partnership with Kylian Mbappe and Neymar will grow. Read Full Article at RT.com
Lionel Messi scored his first goal for his new club with a sensational strike as Paris Saint-Germain gained Champions League revenge on Man City – then predicted that his partnership with Kylian Mbappe and Neymar will grow.
It took 74 minutes for Messi to weave his magic and seal the 2-0 victory. Driving forward from inside the City half on the right, he exchanged passes with Kylian Mbappe, who cleverly heeled the ball back into his path outside the penalty area, before curling a magnificent effort beyond Ederson's dive and into the far corner of the net.
City arguably deserve credit for bossing much of the game. PSG avenged their lackluster showing against these opponents that sent them out at the quarterfinals stage last season. Those talking points are reduced to subplots: Messi's enduring brilliance, again, is the story of the night.
"I hadn't been able to play recently and this was only my second game in this stadium," Messi told Canal+.
JUST LISTEN TO THE ROAR THAT COULD BE HEARD ALL OVER PARIS
Notice how Messi instantly points to Mbappé who provided the brilliant assist pic.twitter.com/aa5n6FAtaq
— mx (@MessiMX30i) September 28, 2021
Another view of Messi's goal against Man City. pic.twitter.com/OgSPS0cRRF
— Ishan (@Ishanculer) September 29, 2021
"I'm adapting to my new team. The more we forwards play together, the better our relationship will be. We all need to grow together and improve and keep giving our best."
Billed beforehand as a clash of the two most expensive teams in world football, the identity of the man who opened the scoring with only eight minutes gone would not have been among the pre-match predictions of many inside the Parc des Princes.
Mbappe and Neymar were involved, though: the France forward burst to the byline inside the penalty area on the right, firing a low cross back into the path of Neymar, who could not apply a touch.
Riyad Mahrez was also unable to apply any force to his clearance, gifting Idrissa Gueye a chance in front of goal that he crashed beyond Ederson and into the far top corner of the beaten goalkeeper's net.
That was the midfielder's first goal on his 24th appearance in the competition, and it was largely as good as it got for PSG with the exception of a fine Ederson stop to tip a fierce Messi effort over the crossbar.
Mahrez menaced PSG down the right in a whirlwind of stepovers and crosses, and Kevin de Bruyne must have thought he had supplied the equalizer when his classy cross from the left with the outside of his foot found Raheem Sterling's leap inside the penalty area.
The England striker's header beat Gianluigi Donnarumma but not the crossbar, bouncing kindly for Bernardo Silva in front of goal, who suffered the same fate as his half-volley rebounded off the same inch of the woodwork.
There was a sense that PSG coach Mauricio Pochettino would need to make changes or risk the regret of acting after one of the attacks on his defense found its mark.
Sterling rolled a shot wide at the start of the second half and Donnarumma needed a second attempt at gathering a cross as the momentum continued to be with Pep Guardiola's players, who looked more like the home side.
Not for the first time, Mahrez slipped Kevin de Bruyne in on the penalty area on the right, racing beyond Nuno Mendes with a diagonal run before Donnarumma stopped his low angled shot with an outstretched foot in another heroic intervention by the new signing.
Neymar raced onto a short Messi pass beyond the halfway line on the right, rampaging into the penalty area without convincingly appearing to have full control of the ball. Fleet-footed Walker was able to catch up and distract him, sending his shot into the side netting.
Messi had produced a surprisingly quiet performance until then by his standards, although Pochettino will undoubtedly have thought twice about any inclinations to save his star signing for another game after the controversy switching him out caused on his previous appearance.
"They were great opponents," Messi acknowledged. "It was very important for us to win the match after our [1-1 opening Champions League] draw against Brugge. I'm very happy to have scored."
Jack Grealish, the most expensive Premier League signing of the summer, had a muted impact, and Phil Foden, making only his second appearance of the season, replaced him midway through the second period.
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text:
Q: Import multiple files with TK inter module I have developed an algorithm to export an vcf file to excel.
Now I want to make a user interface with an option to import multiple vcf files into 1 entry with a browse button.
class MyFrame(Frame):
    def __init__(self):
        Frame.__init__(self)
        self.master.title("Vcf to excel converter")
        self.geometry("300x200")
        self.master.rowconfigure(5, weight=1)
        self.master.columnconfigure(5, weight=1)
        self.grid(sticky=W+E+N+S)

        self.entry=Entry(self)
        self.entry.grid(row=2, column=1)

        self.button = Button(self, text="Browse", command=self.load_file, width=10)
        self.button.grid(row=2, column=6, sticky=E)

        self.button1= Button(self, text="Convert", width=10)
        self.button1.grid(row=100, column=3, sticky=E)
    def load_file(self):
        fname = askopenfilename(filetypes=(("Vcards", "*.vcf"),
                                            ))
        if fname:
            try:
                print("""here it comes: self.settings["template"].set(fname)""")
            except:                     # <- naked except is a bad idea
                showerror("Open Source File", "Failed to read file\n'%s'" % fname)
            return

MyFrame().mainloop()

Above you see the algorithm for 1 vcf file.
The idea is to select in this brwoser multiple files in the same directory into one entry and export it this entry to a list like:
[["D:\Documents\1.vcf"],[["D:\Documents\2.vcf"],["D:\Documents\3.vcf"]...]
So i want the full directory in this list to use it for my function.
Does someone now how I can do this with Tkinter?
Kind regards,
Glenn

A: Add an s to askopenfilename if you want to select multiple files:
fnames = askopenfilenames()

print(fnames.split())

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Although that's rather tongue in cheek, it's true: slowly and carefully is the key approach. The quicker you try to move, the rougher the shape you produce. You also significantly increase the chance of breakage.
Make an initial rough hole at the center point of your eventual window area, and then cut out to finish the edges. A serrated knife used with a slow, steady sawing motion should work.
Serrated knife is the best choice and was what I was taught to use in my baking class. What @Erica said is right, slow and steady.
Try not to use anything other than a serrated knife if possible. But if you are trying for a small window then you may have to create room for the serrated knife with a pairing knife before hand just try not to use it too much if at all. Pairing knifes often will put lots of pressure on and make it easy to crack the brittle cookie. If it does crack, fill it with thick-ish consistency royal icing (watch out if you steam it after adding royal icing it may and probably will fall apart) and let it set before trying to deal with it more (unless you wanna try to cut out the window first then glue it together with icing).
If money (and complexity) is no object, laser cutting creates the best finish. A friend of mine created a fantastic gingerbread 'mansion', all of the pieces for which were cut from large slabs of gingerbread she baked.
The difficulty in your case would be calibrating the laser to cut in the right place on your pieces.
Carve a thin layer of gingerbread away from the inside of the window to the line you made.
The reason for this approach is that sticking a knife through the gingerbread to cut out any shape first adds material to the gingerbread that is not flexible enough to accomodate the knife without breaking. By pre-cutting shallow lines and then carving the inside out you only remove material, lowering the chances of breaking your gingerbread.
I would start not with a knife, but with a cookie cutter. If you dont't have a square cookie cutter, choose something which has at least one straight side, but is smaller than the full window, maybe some kind of triangle. Cut that out, then use the tip of a knife to cut out the other straight sides.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged cutting gingerbread or ask your own question.


text:
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost
EVCP Alivisatos
Reporting Units
Past EVCPs
Council of Deans
Chair's Toolkit
Common Solutions
Executive Searches
Faculty Leadership Academy
Welcome to the web site for the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost (EVCP) at UC Berkeley. The EVCP position is currently held by Paul Alivisatos, who began serving in the role on July 5, 2017.
Responsibilities of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost encompass two domains:
As Executive Vice Chancellor, Alivisatos serves as Chancellor Carol Christ's leading senior executive responsible for UC Berkeley's day-to-day operations, working closely with the Chancellor to develop and implement her vision and priorities for the campus.
As Provost, Alivisatos is UC Berkeley's chief academic officer, responsible for the planning, development, implementation, assessment and enhancement of all academic programs, policies, and supporting infrastructure. He is responsible for ensuring Berkeley's academic preeminence by overseeing faculty recruitment, retention, and renewal as well as through review of appointments, tenure, and promotion for Berkeley's 1,500 full-time faculty. Alivisatos is also responsible for the planning, quality, and delivery of education provided to Berkeley's 27,000 undergraduate students and 10,000 graduate students. These activities are carried out in partnership with the Academic Senate under Berkeley's principles of shared governance.
Supporting EVCP Alivisatos in these efforts is a team of Vice Chancellors, Vice Provosts, Deans, and professional staff, all devoted to sustaining Berkeley's public mission and commitment to both access and excellence.
Campus Conversations with EVCP Alivisatos
A new dean for Haas: Ann Harrison
Faculty elected to National Academy of Engineering
Announcement: Dean of the College of Environmental Design
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Berkeley, CA 9472 0-1500
E-mail: EVCP@berkeley.edu
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text:
This is a music [electronic resource] : reclaiming an untouchable drum / a documentary by Zoe Sherinian.
[Place of publication not identified] : Sherinian Productions, 2011.
1 online resource (73 minutes)
Dalits -- India -- Tamil Nadu -- Music.
Caste -- India.
Social mobility -- India.
Folk music -- India -- Tamil Nadu.
Funeral music -- India -- Tamil Nadu.
This ethnomusicological documentary is about the psychological and economic transformation of a group of Dalit [formerly called outcaste or untouchable] parai frame drummers from a village near Paramagudi, Tamil Nadu, South India. The internal shift in the self-perception that these drummers undergo includes three interwoven threads of musical identity: the identity of the drum, of the music they play, and of the status of the drummers. Through the lens of rarely filmed folk performances and the experience of an American female ethnomusicologist who comes to study with the group Kurinji Malar, we see a group of nine drummers trying to eke out a living while negotiating ongoing caste discrimination in their village. The Hindu caste system constructs parai drummers and their drum as polluted because they play for funerals. As they have professionalized, however, they reconstruct their performance as 'music' and their identity as worldly. The film also explores the economic options of these musicians as laborers. Two of the best drummers are tempted to limit their drumset performances to auspicious festival occasions because they are able to make enough money and gain social status as construction workers. Other members who work as field laborers or shepherd goats are completely dependent on drumming to supplement their income. The narrative of this film focuses on the cultural debate among these drummers over whether they should reclaim the term parai (associated by many with the drummer's degraded caste name Paraiyar) or they should continue to use the English term drumset, which carries middleclass status. When the drummers get an opportunity to go to the large cosmopolitan city of Chennai to participate in the Chennai Sangamam folk festival, they experience very different treatment at the hands of both the festival organizers and the multi-caste, multi-class urban audience. On their way to the festival they are shocked to find the extensive use of the term parai-attam or parai dance in all of the festival advertisement. One of the drummers asks, Why do they still associate us with the Paraiyan caste? Why won't they let us walk freely in society? When we interview them soon after they arrive and then at the end of their festival week in Chennai, we see, however, that their overwhelmingly positive reception has greatly shifted their self-perception and value of village based folk artists. Further, they decide to (re)embrace of the term parai. It becomes clear that experiencing this appreciation helps the Kurinji Malar drummers reinforce a sense of pride in their drumming as valued music where as previously it was easy for them to internalize these practices as degraded. The question then becomes; can they sustain these changes back in the village? This film shows that changing how parai drummers identify their art reflects the process of changing self-identity through musical performance possible for those still considered by many as untouchables. However, this case ultimately shows that complete change in presentation of self in the village context is difficult because of the economic dependence of outcaste drummers on the village middle castes who continue to practice casteism. Woven throughout the film are dynamic and rare examples of village folk dances like karagattam, kummi and oiylattam, oppari funeral lament, stick fighting, and drumming as well as the voices of the drummers and local activists, who tell the story of the process of working for the economic and social liberation of the oppressed Dalits of India through the folk arts.
Title from resource description page (viewed May 25, 2017).
Sherinian, Zoe C., screenwriter, producer, director.
Original version:


Guardian :: Most political campaign trails come with a press pack of journalists. Campbell Newman's bid to be re-elected as Queensland premier is no exception. But do these trips – reporting press conferences, snapping photo opportunities, enjoying campaign hospitality and generally reading from a heavily controlled script – make for good journalism and contribute to a more informed public?


text:
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Shakespeare asked through Juliet's voice, "What's in a name? that which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet." We take names somewhat lightly in our culture. Sometimes we apply names because they are in the family. Sometimes our names are chosen because we like the sound. My parents chose to give us five names from the Old Testament. Thus I am Joel.
I became especially interested in my name when a senior in high school. I knew that my name, Joel, meant "Yahweh is God," a contraction of God's Hebrew name and the generic "Elohim," the Hebrew word for "God." I used my first name until the end of my last high school year. It was during that year that I took an art class. I signed my first painting "Joel C. Andrews" and didn't like how it looked. In a search for a more aesthetically pleasing signature, I played with my name and came up with J. Christian Andrews, Christian being my middle name. I liked it and decided that I would from then on use my middle name as my called name. I don't know that it has been the best decision I've ever made, but it is how I've come to be called "Christian" instead of "Joel."
The Hebrew culture has always been much more tuned in to the power of names. God changed Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, and Jacob to Israel because of the meaning of the names. God told Isaiah to name his children particular names that were in themselves messages from God to His people. God gave His own name to His people, confirming that Name to Moses at the burning bush when he told Moses to say, "I AM sent me." So it was that God confirmed His name Yahweh, a derivative of the subject I and the verb am.
The man who led the Israelites into the Promised Land was named Joshua. He was a foreshadowing of another who would have the same name. It is how God tells stories. He created an historical event that would have deeper meaning as it foreshadowed a deeper reality. The crossing of the Jordan river to posses the Promised Land and the conquest of that land were real events, but they were also foreshadowing an event that would begin with a humble birth, a child born of a virgin, a child named by God both in the angel's words to His mother Mary and in a dream to Mary's betrothed Joseph. Were we to read His name in the Hebrew language, it would be the name we know as Joshua. As it has come to us in our tongue is it the name Jesus.
It is not an ordinary name. The angel told Joseph to call his name Jesus "for He will save His people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21 NASB). It is a name chosen specifically and deliberately because of its meaning. "Jesus" is a contraction of God's Hebrew name and the Hebrew word for "saves." So God, Yahweh, came to save His people from their sins.
Some thirty years after His birth, Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, the same one across which Joshua led God's people into the promised land. Three years after His Jordan River water baptism, Jesus went to the cross, an event He himself called a baptism. It is the cross that then became that place where God meets us and we meet God. It is in baptism, not merely the washing in water but the washing of regeneration and the purification of the conscience, that we cross from death to life, that our old sinful nature is put to death even as Jesus died and a new nature rises to life even as Jesus was raised to life. It is our crossing the Jordan River into the promised land.
This week we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Nativity of our Lord. May we remember that is it not an ordinary birth but that it is a celebration of God becoming human flesh, a Babe born to die that we might have life, Jesus given to save His people from their sins.
Someone has suggested that there are only six degrees of separation between any of us, that we are just six introductions away from meeting anybody on earth. We are often amazed at how small our world really is. I met my wife through match.com. Yes, I'm a .com er. As we got to know each other, however, the connections were uncanny. Her mom and my parents know the same missionaries who were in Bolivia the same time we were. They were not with the same mission organizations, but they new each other. Even more surprising to us was that my mom attended a young adults event at the church in Duluth where her dad had just become the pastor. That was many years ago and completely unrelated to any other part of our meeting and our lives.
We are often amazed at the connecting discoveries we find in Scripture, though we probably shouldn't be. The Bible is, after all, the Word of God; but when we find those amazing connections, for some reason we continue to be astounded. Such were the discoveries I recently made with a peek into the narrative of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem as told by Matthew. It is the text we use to begin our Church year and to start us on that journey that begins with a look back to Christ's first coming and forward to His second.
on a colt, the foal of a donkey."
was being fulfilled. These words were first spoken to reassure the Jewish people who had returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity that their mission was indeed righteous and pleasing to the Lord. The word to them was to remain faithful and true because God would indeed fulfill the promises He made. God would return a descendant of David's to the throne. There would be again a king in Israel. As Jesus spoke the words, they were indeed coming true. He, a king coming in peace on the back of a donkey, was the fulfillment of that Messianic promise.
Unlike a conquering king, though He did come to conquer sin and death, Jesus came humbly to bring righteousness and salvation. So Zechariah had foretold. And there is here another amazing connection, a connection in how the people received Him. Palm branches were cut down, and a chant went up: "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!"
The words on the lips of those who welcomed Jesus into the city of Jerusalem were taken from Psalm 118. With Psalms 113 to 117, Psalm 118 was used responsively in the worship during the Feast of Tabernacles. It a was feast during which there was a palm branch procession led by the High Priest. The psalms and the procession were both called "the hosanna."
As Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowds called out "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" Whether they realized it or not, they made the connection between the fulfillment of Zechariah's prophecy and one line from Psalm 118: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" As they waved palm branches and shouted their praise with "hosanna," they linked the coming of the king with the Hosanna Psalms and declared the salvation that comes from God.
We have blessed you from the house of the Lord."
The day the Lord has made is so much more than a reminder of God's daily presence. It is indeed a prophetic declaration that the day in which the stone the builders rejected became the chief cornerstone is the day the Lord has made. This is the day of our salvation. This is the day we bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
As we begin a new Church year and the cycle of our lives continues, we once again see Christ Jesus who came to bring salvation and Christ Jesus who will come again to fulfill His promise of eternal life. "This is day the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it."
My daily readings this last week took me to the opening events in the Book of Daniel. Daniel was an older boy or young man taken into the Babylonian Captivity around 586 B. C. He was a G-d fearing young man and asked King Nebuchadnezzar's stewards to be exempted from eating the king's food since he believed doing so would violate his faith. He proposed a ten day test of a vegetable and water diet at the end of which he and his three friends were found to be healthier that the rest of the captive boys. The four of them thus found favor in the eyes of the king and were rewarded for their faithfulness.
Toward the beginning of Daniel's account is found the narrative of a complex problem presented by Nebuchadnezzar. He had had a dream, and he required his wise men to not only interpret the dream but to tell him what the dream was first. His rationale was that only the wise who could tell the dream would truly know its interpretation. Nebuchadnezzar was not pleased that none of his sages could do as he asked, so he threatened to put them all to death. When the guards came to Daniel and his friend to take them to death, Daniel, seemingly having not heard of the problem, asked for another day in which he might consult with his own G-d to find an answer and prevent his own death and those of his friends and the rest of the magi.
Daniel was given that time during which G-d revealed to him both the dream and its interpretation. Nebuchadnezzar had seen in his dream a frightening statue with a head of gold, a chest of silver, a middle and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet in an imperfect mixture of iron and clay. At the end of the dream a great stone carved not by human hands struck the image and broke it to pieces which were scattered to the wind so that none of it could be found. In place of the image, the stone became a mountain that filled the entire earth.
It was revealed to Nebuchadnezzar that the head of the image was his own great kingdom, the kingdom of Babylon. Daniel told him that after him would follow another kingdom represented by the silver chest, another by the bronze midsection, another by the iron legs until the feet, a kingdom divided since iron and clay do not mix, was left. The great crushing stone, Daniel told him, represented a kingdom that the G-d of heaven would set up, a kingdom that would crush all others and would be established forever.
The question that came to me as I read this passage, and as I have read it in the past, is "What does it mean? Who are these great kingdoms? Can we use this dream today to speak to us about God's activity in the world?" Admittedly, I have not done any outside research into the answers to these questions, but I wold propose two possibilities, both of which should cause us to take note. I'll pose these two as another question. Is the prophecy Messianic or of the End of Days?
A Messianic interpretation might be like this. The golden head is Babylon; the silver chest the Persians and Medes, the bronze midsection the Creeks, the iron legs the Roman Empire, and the iron and clay feet the partially restored but very divided nation of Israel. The stone not cut from human hand would parallel the stone the builders rejected, the one about Jesus speaking of Himself said, "And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust." The final kingdom established would be the kingdom of G-d to which Jesus referred in His conversation with Pontius Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm."
In an End of Days interpretation the following might be true. The bronze head we know is Babylon. That part Daniel make clear to Nebuchadnezzar. If we look at all of history from then until now the following world kingdoms might be represented by the rest of the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream: the silver chest is the Greek Empire under Alexander the Great, the Bronze midsection the Roman Empire which ruled from the British Isles to north Africa, the British Empire which held lands around the world, and finally the United States of America once a world power but today deeply divided in both politics and moral standards. In this possible interpretation, the divided United States of America stands as the final "kingdom" into which a great stone will roll shattering it and all the kingdoms of humanity and establishing in its the final Kingdom of God. It would seem fully possible that Nebuchadnezzar's dream may be fulfilled in our time; and if so, the end may soon be here.
One of the accepted tenets of the Faith is that prophecies, both of the Old Testament and of the New, have a double meaning. Many prophecies have a double fulfillment: one Messianic and the other End Times. For example, the Old Testament prophet Joel was given a vision of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost which happened fifty days after the death and resurrection of Jesus. But a close reading of the words given to him by the Holy Spirit reveals that part of that prophecy is yet to come true. Luke recorded Peter's sermon which connected the Pentecost flames of fire with the words of outpouring that Joel wrote. But Joel's words also speak of "wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapors of smoke." Quoting Joel he also said, "The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come." This second part of the prophecy is clearly unfulfilled and speaks of a day yet to come.
Nebuchadnezzar's dream, then, might also be understood in like manner. The question originally asked would not be only "Messianic or End of Days?" The dream could very possibly have a Messianic interpretation in which case the dream has been fulfilled, and we are living in the age during which the stone is becoming the mountain that will end in the final establishment of the Kindom of G-d. It is also possible to find an interpretation in which the dream is not yet fully fulfilled. In either case, we may indeed be living in the end times, times that should cause us to re-awaken to G-d's work among us, to His call to repentance, to His invitation to faith, to His commission that we be about making disciples. The answer to our question could certainly be Messianic, End of Days, or both.
From as early as I can remember, we had chores. In my junior high years, I learned how to sew Barbie doll clothes; and I would trade doll clothes for chores with my sisters. The chore event I remember the most, however, happened when I was in second grade (as close as I can remember). I had been assigned dinner dishes. Dinner dishes back then was not lining up the dishes in an electric washer that would do all the hard work for us. It wasn't event turning a faucet to get hot water into a kitchen sink. For us, out in the Andean foothills in the airplane only accessible town of Apolo, Bolivia, doing the dishes meant heating water over a kerosene burner and washing in a galvanized steel wash tub under the light of a kerosene lamp hung on the wall above the table on which the wash tub sat.
I dilly-dallied around way to much on that particular evening, and the water in the wash tub got cold. The grease from the dishes started floating in the top of the water. My mood went from bad to worse until in second grade selfish frustration I decided the solution to my predicament was to run away from home. I don't remember how I left the house or property, but I do recall running along the dirt street and round the block as the evening light fled with me. I found myself along the outside wall at the far end our property next to a stream, scared. The run-away solution having failed, I returned with my tail tucked between my legs, as it were, and was put to work finishing my assigned job.
I suppose there were a number of Biblical principles at work that night, but one of the most pointed is found in 2 Thessalonians 3: �If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat� (v. 10 ESV). It's a truth Mom and Dad instilled in us from our very beginnings, and I think it is a message that needs to be heard again today especially in a world where passing responsibility seems to be in vogue.
We who are the Church, we who are the redeemed body of Christ, we who are citizens in the Kingdom of God are not only so for eternity; we are also so to make a positive impact on our world. There is something different about a believer, something that makes him or her stand apart in the world and something that makes him or her especially attractive to the world. One of those attractions is our call to personal responsibility. When the Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians encouraging them to stand fast in the face of mounting persecution, he also commanded them to personal responsibility. He told them they should not even associate with another believer is that believer did not also practice personal responsibility. The believer is not to be idle. The believer is to be productive.
Sometimes our work is pleasant. Other times our work is wearing. So it is that in the end, the Holy Spirit's word to us through Paul is to not grow weary in doing good. It is good to believe. It is good to trust in God's promises. It is good to work, even to do the dishes in cold, greasy water under the kerosene lamp.


With the work we're having done on our front entrance, we weren't sure if we'd even have steps for Halloween this year. As many of you know, Halloween is my favourite holiday (yes, I consider it a holiday) and I was disappointed at the thought of missing it. I'm actually a little crazy for Halloween and Corey often compares me to Claire Dunphy from Modern Family. Figuring we had nothing to lose, we asked our contractors to make a big push so we could greet kids at the door.
We really didn't know if they'd be able to finish and we were totally unprepared. We hadn't even bought a pumpkin this year and had planned to just leave a bowl of treats on the driveway with some glow sticks around it and a little sign! We arrived home from visiting friends at 6:00 and were pleasantly surprised to find steps leading up to our new door! We're still waiting in the railings but this was enough to give us a proper Halloween.
We hastily threw up some spiderwebs (Which we got from friends last minute) and dug out our strobe light, some scary music, a black light and our fog machine. I almost teared up when Corey even found Maurice (our skeleton) in the basement. It's not Halloween without Maurice!
It wasn't bad for a quick last-minute job. Next year, we're turning the mudroom into a haunted house!
I really enjoyed seeing all the kids in costumes and even the teens in regular clothes who collected treats in backpacks. I always remind Corey that if I can love Halloween this much at 33, it is perfectly reasonable for a teen to want some free treats! What a fun night! What did you do?


text:
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams é um telejornal estadunidense por apresentado por Brian Williams na MSNBC, que estreou em 6 de setembro de 2016 como o principal noticiário noturno da rede.

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Sítio oficial

Telejornais dos Estados Unidos
Programas de televisão dos Estados Unidos que estrearam em 2016
Programas de televisão em língua inglesa
Programas de entrevistas dos Estados Unidos

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Yen's creative issue returns tightly hugging and squeezing a bunch of makers and shakers. Meet boat sculptor Elise Cameron-Smith, tattoo artist Caitlin Thomas, The Ladies Network's curator Lara Vrkic and musos Ladyhawke and The Kills' Alison Mosshart. Plus, the beauty of sushi, paper plants and big, bright and bold artists.


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connieay | Can the scientific method work in the EFL world? From mating flies to helping minds. The experiment never stops. Scientist turned English teacher.
Last week I had the pleasure to attend the book launch for Raising Multilingual Children by Julia Festman, Gregory J. Poarch and Jean-Marc Dewaele published by Multilingual Matters, introduced by Professor Jean-Marc Dewaele at Birkberk College. Here are some of my thoughts on the talk and the book.
Jean-Marc is an entertainer. He started by giving us a run down on how the book came about, over coffee breaks and drinks at conferences among several academics who are multilinguals raising multilingual children. He then launched into exploring why bilingualism might have had a bad press: parental fears of children growing up 'semi-lingual' with identity and cultural crisis as well as the continual societal skepticism of bilinguals/multilinguals from a political-ideological stance.
Reassurance came in the form of ten reasons for raising multilingual children in light of new and growing evidence of its advantages. My personal favourite has got to be multilinguals are found to have 'fewer essentialist beliefs', meaning that when you asked a group of bilingual children if ducklings raised by dogs would bark instead of quack, they were more likely to believe it possible as compared to monolinguals. In other words, multilinguals tend to be more open-minded and flexible thinkers. Also on top of my list are raising multilingual children being potentially a massive cost-saver (think of all the language lessons you might have to pay for!) and 'why-not-if-you-can'!
Multilinguals tend to be more open-minded and flexible thinkers.
We were shown videos of language moments of Jean-Marc's daughter (Livia, a budding linguist studying at Oxford) when she was displaying all sorts of linguistic sensitivity as a toddler, such as protesting the French pronunciation of 'cowboy' knowing that it's an 'English' word. (You can read Livia's own account 'still trilingual at sixteen, almost quadralingual' here.) Without spoiling any more amusing anecdotes Professor Dewaele also shared on his journey of raising her daughter trilingually (French, Dutch and English in London) using OPOL (one-parent-one-language), most of which can be found in the book, I'll just write about what stuck out for me in his talk. I'm raising my two-year-old in Cantonese and English and potentially a bit of Spanish, French, Japanese and I've read the book before the talk.
Multilingual children are born and raised linguists.
Even Professor Dewaele had his initial doubts on whether multiple languages such as introducing a fourth language (Urdu spoken by the child minder) would overwhelm the young mind. But he went ahead and discovered that, at least in his case, there's no adverse effect whatsoever. In fact, we now know from research that babies have the amazing innate capacity to distinguish among languages from the start (even before they can babble). Basically there is no danger of brain overloading because of exposure to too many languages. The issue has always been how to encourage production (speaking and writing) and maintenance of those languages as a child grows up.
There is no danger of brain overloading because of exposure to too many languages.
Another point raised by the audience is whether 'bad grammar' will be learnt if the parent speaking the language is not a 'native' speaker. The current evidence says it shouldn't be a worry. Children exposed to a language early on are able to filter out grammatical mistakes given sufficient exposure to the language. It is also worth remembering that multilingual children would make similar errors as monolingual children as their languages are developing.
Children can filter out bad grammar given sufficient exposure.
On encouraging children to speak the minority language (language not spoken in the community), Jean-Marc describes it as 'a psychological manipulation to use your language'. For young children, it's all about making it fun and cool to use the language through play, songs and games to set the language foundation and sow the emotional seed. As they grow older, it's about continually nurturing and consolidating that emotional attachment associated with the language while recognising that there might be phases when teenagers are simply being teenagers and just want to fit in and rebel.
A psychological manipulation to use your language: Is it fun? Is it cool? Is it a secret language? Is it emotionally engaging?
Having built a strong foundation to the minority languages and being consistent with their language policy from the start, Professor Dewaele spoke about becoming gradually more 'relaxed' in their household language policy as Livia started school, allowing the community language to creep in on occasions when there is a clear vocabulary gap and for emotional expression.
The take-home-message is that rejection of a language or the refusal to speak it might be temporary. A trip to the country where the language is spoken can often motivate and renew interest. Parents might want to take a flexible approach as well as involving the child in the decision making process of what language is to be spoken when as they grow older.
Once the foundation is laid, rejection of a language or the refusal to speak it might be temporary.
An activity that Jean-Marc mentioned was his practice of asking Livia to write her own thoughts on being raised multilingually from time to time. I love this idea of self introspection on the child's part. It's a positive practice to encourage the child to think about the way in which a multilingual upbringing might have impacted on his/her identity formation. It is a window through which the family can reflect together on the child's own perception of the actual pluses and/or minuses or even indifference about being raised multilingually. I believe this can enhance a child's self-confidence and contributes towards the building of a positive self-image because there is a dialogue (both self and with others) on the subject.
Get the child to regularly write about his/her own thoughts on being raised multilingually.
A name that popped up in the talk is Dr Xiao-lei Wang, who documented in three books her own journey of raising her two sons trilingually in Mandarin Chinese, French and English in the US. In her latest book Maintaining Three Languages: The Teenage Years, she discussed some difficulties she encountered during these rebellious years (You can read about this book here). Incidentally, I also found her first book, Growing Up with Three Languages: Birth to Eleven, useful with practical strategies for laying that initial foundation.
Returning to Professor Dewaele, another message is raising multilingual children is certainly no easy ride (surprise!). It requires 'constant unrelenting effort'. He agrees with Dr Wang that our goals as parents have to be raising happy children, prioritising communication and taking care of ourselves as parents.
So what might be missing from the book? When looking at any multilingual families and their experiences, we must not forget the contexts. One aspect less discussed in the book is how the particular language dynamics of the household can affect the emotional bonding of the family as a unit. In Jean-Marc's case, his family happens to be all trilingual in the three languages of their household. So there is not really the feeling of isolation or exclusion a parent can sometimes experience over family conversation if one of the parents does not understand or speak the other's language well enough. It also happens that the three languages involved are considered 'prestige' languages, so it is less likely for the family, especially the child, to feel 'embarrassed' to be using any one of those languages in public. Another point is that Livia being the only daughter, there is no sibling effect, where the community language can become even more dominant as it is usually the language of communication among siblings. Although in the book, you will also read about Julia, the other contributor of the book, describing her experience of raising her two children.
Overall, I find the book does a fantastic job of fulfilling being 'rigorous but not academic in tone'. The last three chapters are particularly useful if you are looking for hands-on practical tips. You can read a more comprehensive review of the book itself on Chontelle Bonfiglio's blog bilingualkidspot.
Good luck on your multilingual parenting journey!
Here is an interview with Professor Dewaele in 2015 on early multilingualism which reinforces some of the messages above.
Professor Dewaele is an entertainer. He started by giving us a run down on how the book came about, over coffee breaks and drinks at conferences among several linguists who are multilinguals raising multilingual children. He then launched into exploring why bilingualism might have had a bad press: parental fears of children growing up 'semi-lingual' with identity and cultural crisis as well as the continual societal skepticism of bilinguals/multilinguals from a political-ideological stance. He then reassured us with ten reasons for raising multilingual children in light of new and growing evidence of its advantages. My personal favourite has got to be multilinguals are found to have 'fewer essentialist beliefs', meaning that when you asked a group of bilingual children if ducklings raised by dogs would bark instead of quack, they were more likely to believe it possible as compared to monolinguals. In other words, multilinguals tend to be more open-minded and flexible thinkers. Also on top of my list are raising multilingual children being potentially a massive cost-saver (think of all the language lessons you might have to pay for!) and 'why-not-if-you-can'!
We were shown videos of language moments of Jean-Marc's daughter (Livia, a budding linguist studying at Oxford) when she was displaying all sorts of linguistic sensitivity as a toddler, such as protesting the French pronunciation of 'cowboy' knowing that it's an 'English' word. (You can read Livia's own account 'still trilingual at sixteen, almost quadralingual' here.) Without spoiling any more amusing anecdotes Professor Jean-Marc also shared on his journey of raising her daughter trilingually (French, Dutch and English in London) using OPOL (one-parent-one-language), most of which can be found in the book, I'll just write about what stuck out for me in his talk. I'm raising my two-year-old in Cantonese and English and potentially a bit of Spanish, French, Japanese and I've read the book before the talk.
Even Professor Dewaele had his initial doubts on whether multiple languages such as introducing a fourth language (spoken by the daughter's child minder) would overwhelm the young mind. But he went ahead and discovered that, at least in his case, there's no adverse effect whatsoever. In fact, we now know from research that babies have the amazing innate capacity to distinguish among languages from the start (even before they can babble). Basically there is no danger of brain overloading because of exposure to too many languages. The issue has always been how to encourage production (speaking and writing) and maintenance of those languages as a child grows up.
On encouraging children to speak the minority language (language not spoken in the community), Jean-Marc describes it as 'a psychological manipulation to use your language'. For young children, it's all about making it fun and cool to use the language through play, songs and games to set the language foundation and sow the emotional seed. As they grow older, it's about continually nurturing and consolidating that emotional attachment associated with the language while recognising that there might be phases when teenagers are simply being teenagers and just want to fit in and rebel. Having built a strong foundation to the minority languages and being consistent with their language policy from the start, Professor Jean-Marc spoke about becoming gradually more 'relaxed' in their household language policy as Livia started school, allowing the community language to creep in on occasions when there is a clear vocabulary gap and for emotional expression.
The take-home-message is that rejection of a language or the refusal to speak it might be temporary. Parents might want to take a flexible approach as well as involving the child in the decision making process of what language is to be spoken when as they grow older.
If the foundation is laid, rejection of a language or the refusal to speak it might be temporary.
Returning to Professor Jean-Marc, another key message is that raising multilingual children is certainly no easy ride. It requires 'constant unrelenting effort'. He agrees with Dr Wang that our goals as parents have to be raising happy children, prioritising communication and taking care of ourselves as parents.
So what might be missing from the book? When looking at any multilingual families and their experiences, we must not forget the contexts. One aspect less discussed in the book is how the particular language dynamics of the household can affect the emotional bonding of the family as a unit. In Professor Dewaele's case, his family happens to be all trilingual in the three languages of their household. So there is not really the feeling of isolation or exclusion a parent can sometimes experience over family conversation if one of the parents does not understand or speak the other's language well enough. It also happens that the three languages involved are considered 'prestige' languages, meaning that it is less likely for the family, especially the child, to feel 'embarrassed' to be using any one of those languages in public. Another point to remember is Jean-Marc has an only daughter so there is no sibling effect, where the community language is likely to become even more dominant as it usually becomes the language of communication among siblings. Although in the book, you will also read about Julia, the other contributor of the book, describing her experience of raising her two children.
Overall, I find the book does a fantastic job of fulfilling being 'rigorous but not academic in tone'. The last three chapters are particularly useful if you are looking for hands-on practical tips.
Nine out of ten times, this is what I heard when people described their Delta experience. Undeterred, I remain skeptical but open to this 'take' of the 'next big step' in an EFL teacher's life.
As I negotiated my way through my Modules 1 and 3, I struggled to understand exactly why it is so challenging?
Could it be its backwash and impact on our own beliefs as a teacher? I wonder if the process of doing the Delta is like adding a catalyst to a teacher's evolution – that our evolutionary wheel has suddenly been put into focus and shifted to an unfamiliar gear.
During my own 'evolution', I was bombarded by a constant stream of thoughts that emerged and challenged my role and actions in the classroom before, during and after each lesson. Perhaps too frequently, I would feel overwhelmed, crippled and paralyzed when imagining, thinking and reflecting what should (and perhaps shouldn't) be happening in a class. It forced me to confront the question of what kind of teacher I am (not) and still to be.
So far, what the Delta process has taught me is how to articulate, question and reflect on my actions and beliefs as a teacher based on principles, having examined, assessed and evaluated my current stance. Before the Delta, I might have been doing an exercise because I have an inkling that it was the right thing to do but now it is there AND I can justify and articulate its purpose based on theories and principles. In other words, it has catalysed my transformation from a 'teaching doing' to a 'teaching being' as I became aware of being aware* – becoming 'human'.
Is it a journey worth taking? If you believe its purpose to be Socratic, that is, with the intention 'to encourage thinking, guide discovery, challenge assumptions or uncover new learning' (Scrivener 2012:142), then yes!
Can I pass the Module 2?
Am I ready to do a Master's in TESOL?
Scrivener, J (2012:142). Classroom Management Techniques. Cambridge University Press.
* 'Being aware of being aware – It's what distinguishes us from other animals. We are, after all, human beings, not human doings' Jon Kabat-Zinn on mindfulness.
After the initial needs analysis, how do you make sure you have been doing what the learners really want in the way they want?
Apart from informal chats and observations, I made a progress check document to discuss with my learners. The purpose was to ask my learners to reflect on their own learning and produce some useful information for me to plan ahead.
1. Learners reflect the conversations they had with their classmates, recall the one they enjoyed the most and gave a reason.
2. Learners recall a few facts they have learn about their classmates.
3. Learners read through the lesson commentaries and write down some new language they have learnt or found useful.
4. Learners were given a list of activities they have done in the lesson and tick the ones they enjoyed.
5. Learners were asked to give opinions on how these activities could help them with their English skills.
6. Learners were also asked if there were any activities they did not like.
7. Learners were asked to write down what they liked and didn't like about the lessons. This could be on the content, activities, teacher involvement and input.
8. Learners were asked to tick from a list on what they find difficult in learning English.
9. Learners were asked to suggest topics for future lessons.
10. Learners were asked what kind of activities they would like to do more in the lessons.
I asked my group to read the questions before the following lesson and write down some answers. We spent the first half of the lesson discussing them in the following lesson.
On the whole, the students were positive about the lessons. Everyone really likes the fact that they have been able to learn so much about their classmates from the conversations they had in the class. They were also able to recall some new things they have learnt in terms of language and personal facts about their classmates.
Talking about how each activity helps them develop their English skills was important as it validates what we do in the class. It is empowering for both the teacher and the students to verbalise this. The students find the lesson commentaries useful, as these were resources that they had contributed to build. These were their own conversations with the language touched up. I kept wondering if I should ask them to act out some of these dialogues again.
It also helps boost my own confidence as their teacher to know my learners really do enjoy their classes with me. The knowledge of that motivates me. I also have a lot of fun whenever I write up these conversations, I relive the laughters we had in the class.
Recently, I have noticed that it is true that we are always laughing a lot in the class, both my students and I. I didn't think much of that until a colleague pointed out to me that it was remarkable that after teaching a whole day of teaching kids, I still managed to keep my adults cheerful.
After that comment, I started to think about how it might affect my students in their learning. The students who used to be really quiet have now opened up and often proactively contribute to the conversations. I feel proud of that. The kinds of conversation we have are growing, but always linked to positive and real emotions. This is almost my ideal class in terms of classroom conditions conducive to learning. What I wish to work on now is to boost learning and to improve the quality of my input. Learning takes time, but now the conditions are right, I really hope to help speed things up. Am I just being impatient?
7. In pairs, ask each other about someone on the partner's page starting with something like: "Can you tell me about your best friend?" Ask as many follow up questions as one can.
10. Class feedback of the most interesting person they talked or heard about. Language feedback.
What kind of conversations would be generated with your classes?
Recently, I tend to start my adult classes with a review using 'back to the board'. My reason is that we all get tired of the usual greeting 'How was you day?" type questions sometimes. Let's face it, most of the time, our days are pretty uninteresting. I also see it as a good way to help my learners be more creative with their language and hope that it can encourage them to use more communication strategies. This seems to work well to get them warmed up and even a bit psyched up. After the 'match', everyone tends to get more relaxed and open. I also find that revision and recycling is very important for this group.
What I have been wanting to achieve in my class is to have lots of Dogme moments while generating conversations in which the themes and the language focus from the book should naturally emerge. I have one worry with this, have I worked on the language enough for intake? How much of the meaningful conversations become useful input that my learners take up to modify their interlanguage?
To reconcile this insecurity, I started writing a lesson commentary, with a page for useful language and a page for lexis (to be recorded like a lexical notebook). For the last few lessons, I gradually modify it so that now the students are responsible to fill in the lexis part after having chosen items from the lesson commentary themselves. Before and after the lesson commentary, there are a few tasks to help the learners focus on language. As it's a nine-week course of 18 sessions, I thought we could do a roundup at the sixth sessions, so learners can measure, reflect and monitor their own progress by going through the conversations we have had. Let's see how it goes.
Today I had my third Japanese lesson. Just before we started, I had a brief chat with my other two classmates. Not surprisingly, none of us had had the chance to go over the materials we did in the previous week. That's the reality of the classroom. Most teachers are faced with lazy students or those who claim to have other things "further up" on their Must-Do list. Guilty as charged. This is why dealing with emergent language properly is perhaps the single most important thing a teacher can do in the classroom no matter how insignificant it may seem to the teacher.
Having just commented on a learner and a teacher's perspective on class feedback following an activity, I thought it would be the perfect time to talk about my two Japanese teachers and how they deal with feedback. Here I want to focus on their attitude and their feedback on emergent language. What makes a "preferable" or a "better" teacher from my point of view as the learner?
Let's call them Teacher A (A) and Teacher B (B) with students (ss C, ss N and ss T).
Last Saturday, we had Teacher A. We did the usual greetings. Two lines. By the book. We went through stacks of flashcards. Fragmented links between activities. When I tried to shout out what I knew about certain adjectives, what did Teacher A do? She signalled me to keep quiet. I thought that was fair enough, perhaps she was worried I would confuse the others. I was fine with that. Later, I tried a few more times to ask her questions about something that came up within the context, she would quickly go through them but wouldn't bother to involve the other students. It was as if what I asked was totally irrelevant. I thought, well, she sort of responded. I was tired last week, so with my repeated attempts being half-ignored and half-dealt with, she had lost me. I wasn't particularly happy.
Throughout the whole lesson, I felt that she was trying too hard to go through everything in her plan, she was clearly just teaching the plan, not the students. I could see her freaking out when the flashcards she had expected to be there weren't actually there. She was rushing. The way she introduced the lexis and how she modelled and drilled the pronunciation were shaky.
To be fair, towards the later part of the lesson, she finally calmed down a bit and started responding to some of our questions as the other two were also trying to get something out from her. She caved in and from that point onwards, she instantly became a better teacher (well, at least to my mind), the teacher I had signed up for. At that moment I figured out why I did sign up. I thought she had the potential and willingness to deal with emergent language. But after the class, I wondered if she was only able to do that during the demo lesson because it had happened to be something that coincided exactly with what she had on her plan.
I guess her lesson could be a reflection on her lack of experience. Watching her makes me feel very alarmed, I could tell that I could easily be making the same kinds of mistakes in my lessons due to my relative inexperience. I really hope that it doesn't happen often to me or to her. I am praying that it was just one of her bad days.
Another round of practice. She tried to elicit what the others might say to me after hearing that I got a cold. She helped us extend the dialogue.
They were Dogme moments! Two of the three students got something immediately relevant to them, something they wanted to know then and there. It is very likely that the third student would have benefited too. This wasn't in the book but it's a situation we face every day, something one could use straightaway.
At one point of the lesson, we were supposed to practise using the cues from a page on the book. It was about shopping. The dialogue goes something like "Oh, these shoes are too big. Do you have smaller ones?". Teacher B asked ss N to try but he didn't want to say it the way it was cued. For him, the problem is often reversed. After figuring out that was his intention, Teacher B was happy going along with that.
Throughout the lesson, Teacher B did not let these language moments past but gave us what we needed and turned them into Dogme moments. For a beginner's class, that was just enough.
Apart from the ability to deal with emergent language, Teacher B elicits language, demonstrates meaning with mimes, asks us to give examples relevant to us, models and drills pronunciation properly, presents a logical progression to link different activities together, gives clear instructions and grades her language to match the student's level of readiness when she is the interlocutor. What a great teacher! I want to get Teacher B every week.
So what makes a "better" teacher? From a learner's perspective, it's always more meaningful to learn a little something that she can relate to properly than trying to half-learn a bag of "stuff" picked out by the teacher.
I was reading Ken Wilson's post on his second German lesson on a crowded Tokyo train on my way home, like most of his readers, I found it difficult to contain my chuckles. I cannot emphasise how useful it is for a language teacher to be learning a language in a classroom. One can gain so much practical insight about teaching by being a proper learner.
What really caught my attention was his comment about feedback. He was not so happy that he did not get any whole class feedback after the pair work. I immediately think of my own classrooms. When I first started with my twice-weekly adult class (7 learners, pre-intermediate), I clearly remember how nervous I felt whenever I did a round of feedback after any pair or group work. I would often worry that it would go on for too long as I tried to give all the learners an equal chance to report. Some of my learner's feedback has confirmed my suspicion that it could indeed be too time-consuming and make them feel they are being deprived of practice time as they listen to their peer's reports. On the other hand, some of my learners have said that they found this reporting and feedback slot to be extremely useful. For one thing, summarising is not an easy skill to master.
This really made me think and I finally realised that what I needed to do is to change the way the feedback was done and to make sure my learners understand why this reporting and feedback slot is important and how it can help with their learning. I need to be better at starting the aim of the exercise, something I've always struggled with, i.e., how explicit and on the plate does it have to be? My conclusion is one can never be too explicit.
What I started to do was to make sure I spread my time equally among the different groups/pairs to give timely feedback as they are doing the task, so when they change partners, the learners would get a chance to use the new lexis they just got from me. At the end of the task, I would ask only a few students to do a class report, usually those who have come up with some interesting lexis. After the report, I would deal with the language most people were struggling with during the task. This is particularly important with large classes. Often it would be more advantageous that such whole class feedback is given in the middle of the task if there were some very common errors. To raise the learner's awareness of the importance of the activity, I had a chat with them about the purpose of the reporting and feedback stage. Now I feel much more comfortable including this stage in my lessons.
I was doing a level check the other day, the potential student strongly hoped to get into a small class so he could get enough attention and personal feedback from his teacher. He also emphasised the importance of having real conversations with his teacher but showed a clear dislike of chatting with his peers. He seemed to think that it's rather pointless. It's very dangerous for a learner to think that chatting with other learners are not beneficial to their own learning. For my own Japanese studies, I found that being able to help my fellow classmate during a task gives me an insight on the source of common errors as well as making myself more aware of what I know and don't know. Like Ken, I'm learning while I'm helping.
From this, it shows that it is possible for both the teacher and the learners to underestimate or not fully understand the importance of a feedback stage, especially for those learners who didn't get that far with the task (as in Ken's case) and were not able to get any of the teacher's time during the task. So of course, feedback should always be there. Just don't forget to make sure your learners know why.
In my last post a talk by Professor Richard Johnstone got me all worked up about the whole identity issue. What do we know about current modern language teaching around the world? How does that knowledge help us plan for the future?
Professor Johnstone started with a clarification of his title, 'Modern Languages in Education: Moving forward with purpose in an era of uncertainty". His idea of 'moving forward' does not imply a definite or even any particular single direction. In his words, he likened it to when one was lost in the wood, the best chance one could have was to go forward in one direction. That way, things kept moving. I like that idea, the way I interpret it is that it allows progress to be continuously measured, evaluated and reflected against what we currently know so things could improve, much like what happens in science.
We began our journey with the Professor's own experience as a language learner of Latin and French. With the prominence of grammar translation in Scotland at that time, they were thought rules, including those of pronunciation. The twelve year-old found it pretty amusing that he was able to make all those funny sounds and to read relatively complicated poems just after one year. But the reality check came when he was asked to go and chat to a sports player on the field at an international match a couple of years later, he was lost for words, function was completely ignored. I am sure many of us has experienced that, in fact, I am having this problem every day with my Japanese. How could we break away from this?
Professor Johnstone went on to take us through a series of studies he and others had carried out on the evaluation of the language teaching projects around the world. There were all kind of models, local contexts and varied outcomes.
Some of you might say teaching key grammatical concepts and metalanguage is a waste of time for very young children. In Croatia, they found that the knowledge of key grammatical concepts in L1 introduced as early as aged 6 (Year 1), could be progressively transferred to the learning of the additional language (AL). By Year 3, the students on this project were confident, accurate and creative users of their AL while the teachers felt satisfied and motivated. So it appears that children can certainly deal with metalanguage and do benefit from knowing about it especially when it was introduced through L1 allowing transfer and contrast.
The other thing that really stands out is the 'power' of CLIL. In Finland, the CLIL students showed much quicker language development than non-CLIL students. In a matter of two years of 1-word phrase, the CLIL students were suddenly able to produce full-blown sentences by Grade 3 while their mainstream classmates were still stuck at the prefabricated expressions stage unable to produce full-blown sentences by the end of Grade 5. It seems to suggest that CLIL provides that extra opportunity for the fiddling with the AL and after three years of that, fine tuning activities could follow. The implication is that CLIL can trigger L2 acquisition.
For lower graders, the sound and sight of the AL alone might just keep the students' motivated or curious enough to study the AL. For teenagers, without an immediate relevance to their lives or some kind of cool factors, there are few reasons to study a language or more importantly, to play with it, not including those who are born linguists. He showed us a project in Scotland and how one could try to sustain the motivation for continuous learning for a group particularly prone to drop-out. This involved creating real as well as virtual communities of 29 schools, with film making weekends, annual gala dinners, blogs, podcasting, a language surgery…. The success of this project was reflected in the higher levels of performance in national examinations, of uptake of the ALs in sixth forms and of motivations for further study. Language can indeed be cool, fun and relevant. How often do we forget about this while going through the system?
Another remarkable project was the early partial immersion model in Spain, commissioned by the Ministry of Education there over 16 years ago and carried out in collaboration with the British Council. It started with students as young as three in state schools. The proficiency of the children are remarkable in terms of their range and complexity of language use. The key to success seems to lie in the consistency of the project implementation despite regime changes and the involvement and support from parents and school administrators. It is also instrumental that the project runs through from the age of 3 to high school. The criteria were strictly no secondary school participation, no entry into the project for the primary school. Everyone is onboard! The other seems to be the high level of training the teachers received, especially during the early phases of the school participation. The learners' proficiency, not only evaluated by classroom observations, is also validated by an international examination (the IGCSEs). What's more is the high attainment of the students' mother tongue, Spanish. At an annual dinner where participants of the projects gathered, including the learners, the Professor was approached by a young man. He was a learner from the project. When asked if he felt more or less Spanish, he laughed at the suggestion, "More Spanish of course! I could go anywhere in the world and tell someone about my country in English!" The proof is in the pudding.
Before closing, we briefly touched on the idea of identity. The success of the Scottish and Spanish projects has something to do with the exploration and the establishment of sometimes new or additional identities in the learners. I found it assuring that evidence is mounting for the benefit of bilingual education and the importance of CLIL as a way to enhance language development with clearly demonstrable and tangible results.
To look ahead, he calls for evaluation framework based on what the learners can do rather than what the teacher does. Take notes on the learners and then try to find the associated teacher behaviour. Also don't just go in once. Make multiple visits.
When I asked the Professor what ultimately determined the success or the failure of a project given all the varied contexts he has observed, he replied, "The quality of the teachers." It is still down to us.
What is the future of language teaching? How do you feel about bilingual education? What is your own experience of learning a language?
A couple of weeks ago, I went to a talk by Professor Richard Johnstone on modern language teaching. Incidentally I had a discussion with someone on some scholars' concern on English becoming the lingua franca and how as teachers, we could be acting as agents of some kind of language colonisation by the English speaking organisations we represent on the premises that a large proportion of learners aspire to acquiring a 'native accent'. For argument's sake, I'd say that is a pretty narrow and somewhat western centric view. Given the intimate link between language and culture, it is definitely conceivable that it might be on some policymakers' hidden agenda to 'spread one's value' on learners of their languages. But how can one claim that would necessarily be the result? As language teachers, we should know that what is taught almost never ever corresponds exactly to what is learnt. I would say that the current tide, as it stands, is a win-win situation for both parties in terms of the teaching of English or other languages in a national curriculum. It is precisely in times like this, worsening domestic economic situations and increasing globalisation, that a complex identity and wider worldview can only benefit the individuals who are given the chance to develop and explore it. The further we look outside, the further we can probe into our inner identity, the more we can get to know ourselves. Definition invariably involves some kind of comparison and contrast. Through that process, we become more aware of who we really are.
My own position is that while I acknowledge the danger on the learners' desire on acquiring a native-like pronunciation, English's role remains that of a tool between speakers of different languages. It reinforces the identity of the speaker, enabling the same person to confidently express themselves as a person or as a representative of their own origins in an arbitrary language, much like we do in mathematics.
There is also another reason why many learners might want to acquire a native like pronunciation. Let's take a tonal language like Cantonese as an example, 'native' pronunciation is almost the only way to be understood. It would make a very lazy learner to know enough Cantonese and yet speak like a foreigner unless that is intentional. One becomes almost completely incomprehensible if the tone is slightly off. For speakers of languages like this, accuracy directly correlates with intelligibility. On that basis, it is not too much for a language learner to wish sounding 'native'. Of course, the complexity for English lies on what counts for 'native'?
As a product of a bilingual education in my early years, I certainly feel that my identity is reinforced and has become more complex than otherwise. I had experienced both bilingual education and total immersion. I cannot speak for others but personally, it has opened up my world exponentially. It has fuelled my desires to see the world in completely different lights. I still remember the day when I was walking alone on a street in North Wales and someone in the car passing by called out some racial comment. I was hurt that day. But then, I thought to myself, hang on a minute, I came thousands of miles away, able to understand what you said, living there, studying alongside students who were born and bred there, that was a pretty remarkable achievement. Why should I get angry? I should be feeling sorry for how ignorant that person was. He knew nothing about me or my culture, yet I was living and breathing the life under their sky, which I have since made my own, I felt powerful. I knew that from that day, everything I did will make me a person more worthwhile than if I had just stayed in the country I was born. I was grateful for the opportunity my parents had given me. I was sent to see the world much earlier than they could have ever done themselves. All I needed to do was to be a sponge, take up and absorb as much as I could and be a better person.
I certainly feel that learning a new language as an adult is quite a different matter but as a child growing up, another language means another avenue to explore one's, still malleable, identity. Of course, to many, it can empower as much as it can confuse us. Borrowing a metaphor from a Buddhist idea, this 'key' opens the door to both heaven and to hell. How we use the 'key' is up to us. As educators, this is our responsibility to guide our learners to use it wisely and to let them appreciate the power it has.
The other day I suddenly realised I was finally ready to study Japanese properly. So I went along to a demo lesson. I am so excited to be a learner again.
It was a 20-minute demo lesson. There were only three of us. With flashcards, we did some choral drilling and then some pairwork.
It was so insightful to be on the other side of the table. The thing I really liked about our teacher was that she did not use the textbook at all. The only time she did was to show us the chapter from the book and to handout a copy of the printout at the beginning. She told us what we would learn before we began. It worked really well as we didn't waste anytime getting bogged down looking at extraneous information. We just focused on the listening, the drilling and the role play. But the fact that we didn't concern ourselves with reading could be a manifestation of how we were as learners. The others were from Israel and the Philippines. We wanted to speak, not to read. We wanted to stay focused on the moment, the real-time interaction, on people's faces!
What was really interesting was that I had found myself making the same mistake that got corrected a moment ago. Throughout the lesson, I did that several times. The second time I could hear my mistake. I had become aware of it. On the third time, I was just a fraction too late – it was one of those when you knew you were about to make a mistake but was just too late to fix it before your words came out of your mouth. It was such a clear demonstration of the disconnect between the input and the output under the pressure of real-time communication. It is clear that it takes time for one's interlanguage to be readjusted and realigned. For my own practice, I tend not to correct my learner's error on the spot so much unless it was the first time it was being introduced or if it had been made repeatedly in quick successions. I tend to wait and see if any self- or peer-correction happens. Judging from my own experience, I would definitely appreciate the chance of self discovery, the time to process, internalise and produce. Of course, signalling that something wasn't quite right from the teacher's side would have been a great help.
Looking back at the lesson, I felt I would have liked some more choral practice before diving straight into the pairwork. I felt unprepared and under-practised. My teacher seemed to be rushing through the pronunciation work. I would have preferred her to say it clearly and slowly at least once, repeat, signal and then ask us to try. She appeared too desperate to 'teach' us something. She must have been nervous as well. What stroke me was how much I wanted things to be slowed down and to be given more time to prepare and practise.
I paid particular attention on the classroom language she used. I really wanted to learn it so I could use it in my own classroom. An example of the disparity between what the teacher intends to teach and what the learner actually wants to learn.
It is true that most learners have the highest motivation when they start a course, I feel the same. I am nervous but excited. But at the back of my mind, I wonder if I could keep this motivation up. I guess seeing this as a self experiment and a professional development opportunity might help my spirit from sinking too low too soon. But what a difference the teacher and her teaching can make!
As any other teachers might do, I couldn't help but to dissect my sensei's teaching techniques and strategies. The way she gave or had sometimes failed to give clear instructions on the tasks made a significant impression on me. The other thing was how unclear the drilling procedure was and the lack of repetition. That's why we were advised to do things in threes. I wonder how my students would have felt when I was being unclear as a teacher. There was not even a second chance? You missed it once and that's it? What came to mind was frustration and the temptation to give up if such things persist in class.
So why did I sign up? I hope that by committing to being a proper classroom learner, I can be more aware of the needs of a learner as a teacher.
What I want to get out of it is how to become better at teaching taking the perspective of a classroom learner myself. I can already feel that this journey is going to be extremely fruitful.