| Author |
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don groves
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:47 pm
Post subject: Re: Why is it that only the spanish culture can't learn the |
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In article <Xns95858E25EF129cctxt2002@130.133.1.4>, CyberCypher
at cybercypher@19-16-25-13-01-03.com poured forth...
| Quote: | don groves wrote on 17 Oct 2004:
In article <Xns95851C6373F22cctxt2002@130.133.1.4>, CyberCypher
at cybercypher@19-16-25-13-01-03.com poured forth...
don groves wrote on 17 Oct 2004:
[...]
By "system" I meant the local education system. If certain
classes are not offered, like ESL in a district with a moderate
to high Hispanic population, then that is a systemic failure,
imho, the school district is failing to provide what the
community needs.
I'm not sure that's true. My #1 son used to be a bilingual
Spanish- English teacher at a south-central LA elementary school.
The K-1-2 kids he taught spoke almost no English, and their
parents spoke almost no English. The neighborhoods the kids came
from were pretty much Hispanophone. The parents of the kids my
son taught were not the kind of people who would encourage their
kids to speak English or to do well in school, according to my
son, who met many of them --- at least those who were not in
prison at the moment.
I don't believe that the government or the schools can raise
kids, and I don't think that schools are very motivating places
for kids, especially recently for American kids, and probably not
at all for American kids whose parents are relatively uneducated,
not anglophone themselves, involved in gangs, drugs, and
organized crime, and often in jail. When those kids my son taught
went home, they had no one to speak English with, only Spanish.
And in LA, there is sufficient Spanish media programming that
Hispanophones never have to learn English.
I don't think that's the schools' fault, but I'd agree that it's
the larger system's fault. My Italian peasant grandparents
arrived in the USA as monolinguals, but the 9 of their 13
children that I knew all spoke fluent English and Italian and
lived Italian-American lives, except for my mother, who for some
reason wanted to be German, so she never spoke Italian though she
understood it perfectly, and she lived an unhyphenated-American
life. Her family did not live in a segregated monolingual
community and neither she nor her brothers and sisters went to
bilingual schools. They had no choice but to learn English.
While I agree fully that a bilingual education is better than a
monolingual education --- and my #2 son's education has been tri-
lingual from birth (Taiwanese, Mandarin, English) --- I know he
wouldn't be speaking English if I spoke to him and his mother in
Chinese or Taiwanese only. To some extent, the American federal
and state governments and the public schools that publish
everything in languages other than English provide a disservice
to immigrant children who don't have the benefits of
multilingual, multicultural families and neighbors. By endorsing
the idea that the governments and the schools should do
everything possible to help students maintain their cultural
heritage at the taxpayers' expense, they subsidize and otherwise
contribute to the perpetuation linguistic and cultural ghettos
all over America.
These ghettos do exist but I don't think government endorsement
of maintaining cultural heritage is the main culprit. People tend
to gather with their own, particularly when they are newly
arrived in a foreign land, for many reasons: family; friendships;
business opportunities...
Also, we need to be careful of moving too far in the opposite
direction and destroying culural heritages in a misguided effort
to blend everyone into uniformity.
I don't advocate that English become the official language of the
USA, but after 33 years of teaching ESL, EFL, and English
literature to people between the ages of 13 and 72 in the USA,
Japan, and Taiwan, and having studied 8 or 9 languages (I didn't
learn all of them well enough to speak or understand them at
survival levels, only English, French, German, and Japanese) I
think I have enough experience in language classrooms, with
language students, and with language learning to know that
motivation is the key factor. People are motivated to learn
foreign languages for only a few reasons: they have to (the way I
had to learn Japanese because almost nobody at the high school I
taught at in Tokyo spoke English) or they want to for any number
of reasons, but mostly because they have been motivated to learn
by the example of their parents and other family members.
I don't know what the schools could provide those K-1-2 kids my
#1 taught to make them want to learn English. It's hard enough to
motivate many native anglophones to learn educated English,
especially if they're convinced they will never need it or that
they can make more money selling drugs or boosting fancy cars
than working in a bank or an insurance company.
My experience nowhere near matches yours, obviously. As I said
before, the ESL students I have worked with have all been highly
motivated to learn English. As for reasons, on-the-job
communication and classroom comprehension are probably the most
frequent.
When I taught ESL at the College of Marin, Kentfield, CA, USA, my
experience was also that immigrants to the US wanted very much to
become proficient in English because they wanted to have better work
experiences and better jobs, better communication with the
anglophone-only communities they came into contact with, and better
communication with their ESL classmates and teachers. I'm not
faulting the immigrants who bother to come to ESL classes on their
own volition. They are great students and hard workers.
One poster here --- might be a Korean-American --- has claimed that
based on his experience in LA, a great many of the children of Asian
immigrants don't bother to learn English because they live in
ethnically and linguistically homogenous ghettos and seem to expect
to work in the family business in that neighborhood for the rest of
their lives.
|
An interesting point. Possibly the great majority of people in
countries that have a large immigrant presence in the US don't
share our sense of mobility. It may be ingrained that they *will*
spend most of their lives in one spot. Also, they are very likely
to be more family-oriented than we are and their children may
never aspire to leave the nest completely, just move next door.
| Quote: | I think it's difficult, if not impossible, to make meaningful
generalizations about any particular immigrant group nation-wide in
the US. It might be possible to do so about a particular population
in a specific neighborhood, though. But I've been away from the US
for so many years that I can't say anything about its immigrants or
citizens other than what I read in the papers or hear on the news or
pick up in my visits to my friends and family every other year or so,
but then it's only the West Coast, very brief, and obviously
superficial.
What should the school districts provide besides the opportunity
to get a free and useful education?
Nothing, but what does a "useful" education mean if not access to
subjects that are socially and vocationally important?
Aye. There's the rub. Things change so radically so quickly these
days that it's difficult to convince young people, in particular,
that something is socially and vocationally important. Some school
teachers still think that languages and literature and art and music
are important for the growing mind, but administrators believe
otherwise: basic skills and teaching to those basic-skills tests seem
to be taking all the honors and the cash these days. Here in Taiwan,
for instance, kids don't understand why they have to learn Chinese
history and the constitution of the Republic of China, or why, if
they are not going to be engineers, they have to learn anything about
science or math or economics, especially if they want to become
English teachers or open a clothing boutique or a coffee shop. And
they don't see their parents reading books, only watching TV after a
hard and boring day at work. And employers hardly seem interested in
anyone's outside-the-job-description skills, because everything is so
technical these days.
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TV is a *major* problem, not only for the time it destroys but
for its mostly trivial content. Today's leading recreational
drug.
A friend of mine was refused a job at Microsoft in the late '80s
because they said he had "too many outside interests". In other
words, they were afraid he wouldn't work 60+ hours a week. It's
become difficult to have a life and also be successful in the
business world.
| Quote: | Basic computer literacy has become very important. Any school
district that does not offer this instruction is failing their
community, imho. The same goes for language and other social
areas.
I agree with both points, and it is being offered here in Taiwan, but
it doesn't make learning fun or interesting for Taiwan's students.
In America, when I was a high school student 50 years ago, we had to
study two foreign languages in high school to be accepted by a good
college. After I graduated and the '60s and '70s happened, though,
language education was phased out in favor of godknowswhat.
|
I think the two biggest mistakes made in education the last 30
years in the US have been the elimination of the foreign language
requirement and the elimination of mandatory physical education.
Both have done a great disservice to our youth.
| Quote: | I don't think the schools are the right vector for socially and
vocationally useful education as long as parents don't give a damn,
teachers get no respect for what they might be capable of doing for
their charges, and government uses the carrot of federal and state
funding to ensure high scores on standardized tests only.
I also don't think a single institution will solve the problem. It's
societal and cultural. The differences in values between today's
youngsters and their well-educated teachers is too great, it seems to
me, to bridge for most. And there's too much emphasis on equality of
academic (versus vocational) outcome for everyone in the system, a
focus that leads only to intellectual mediocrity and quashes
excellence in fields that aren't measured by the SATs and GREs.
|
Our teachers are distraught over that very fact. One problem with
"No Child Left Behind" is that it can easily lead to "No Child
Gets Ahead".
I think we're on the same page on most things we've talked about
here. Excellent discussion, imho.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster)
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Mxsmanic
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:48 pm
Post subject: Re: Why is it that only the spanish culture can't learn the |
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don groves writes:
| Quote: | I think the two biggest mistakes made in education the last 30
years in the US have been the elimination of the foreign language
requirement and the elimination of mandatory physical education.
|
I've always considered P.E. very much like military service, and I'm
glad it's gone. Perhaps if it had been conducted differently it would
have been more tolerable, but the boot-camp atmosphere cultivated by
many P.E. teachers (mainly for boys' P.E., although I saw girls' P.E.
teachers who were just as bad) was unnecessary and counterproductive.
Indeed, I might be more interested in sports today if I had not learn to
associate sports with boorish stupidity in P.E. classes.
--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly. |
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Tony Cooper
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:04 pm
Post subject: Re: Why is it that only the spanish culture can't learn the |
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On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 11:48:50 +0200, Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@hotmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: | don groves writes:
I think the two biggest mistakes made in education the last 30
years in the US have been the elimination of the foreign language
requirement and the elimination of mandatory physical education.
I've always considered P.E. very much like military service, and I'm
glad it's gone. Perhaps if it had been conducted differently it would
have been more tolerable, but the boot-camp atmosphere cultivated by
many P.E. teachers (mainly for boys' P.E., although I saw girls' P.E.
teachers who were just as bad) was unnecessary and counterproductive.
|
At last we share an opinion. PE classes were sheer hell for me. The
teachers weren't the problem, though. Going to PE class meant
towel-snapping and bullying from the larger and more aggressive
classmates. For some reason, guys that wouldn't bother anyone else in
the school halls turned into sadists in PE class. Then, there was the
discrimination of being among the last-chosen in any game because I
wasn't particularly athletic myself. I ran track, but that wasn't a
team sport.
| Quote: |
Indeed, I might be more interested in sports today if I had not learn to
associate sports with boorish stupidity in P.E. classes.
|
There we differ. I follow sports today, and enjoy watching sports.
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Mxsmanic
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2004 11:47 pm
Post subject: Re: Why is it that only the spanish culture can't learn the |
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Tony Cooper writes:
| Quote: | Going to PE class meant towel-snapping and bullying from
the larger and more aggressive classmates.
|
Ah yes, the ones who are changing tires today.
| Quote: | For some reason, guys that wouldn't bother anyone else in
the school halls turned into sadists in PE class.
|
Most P.E. classes are testosterone-driven, even in girls' P.E. classes.
The same is true of sports in general, of course, and this is no
coincidence. Testosterone produces the type of behavior you describe,
particularly in people who don't have the cognitive capacity to
consciously compensate for its effects.
| Quote: | There we differ. I follow sports today, and enjoy watching sports.
|
Watching sports won't protect your health.
--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly. |
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Tony Cooper
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 1:08 am
Post subject: Re: Why is it that only the spanish culture can't learn the |
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On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 19:47:58 +0200, Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@hotmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: | Tony Cooper writes:
Going to PE class meant towel-snapping and bullying from
the larger and more aggressive classmates.
Ah yes, the ones who are changing tires today.
That's what we'd like to think, but it usually turns out to be quite |
untrue. Often, that aggressiveness changes into drive and ambition
and results in success. |
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don groves
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:28 am
Post subject: Re: Why is it that only the spanish culture can't learn the |
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In article <1sf4n056l0nl3jel76fair3qjd74ojh1cp@4ax.com>, Mxsmanic
at mxsmanic@hotmail.com poured forth...
| Quote: | don groves writes:
I think the two biggest mistakes made in education the last 30
years in the US have been the elimination of the foreign language
requirement and the elimination of mandatory physical education.
I've always considered P.E. very much like military service, and I'm
glad it's gone. Perhaps if it had been conducted differently it would
have been more tolerable, but the boot-camp atmosphere cultivated by
many P.E. teachers (mainly for boys' P.E., although I saw girls' P.E.
teachers who were just as bad) was unnecessary and counterproductive.
Indeed, I might be more interested in sports today if I had not learn to
associate sports with boorish stupidity in P.E. classes.
|
So you prefer the fat asses we have waddling around today to
having a general population in decent physical shape. It's been
shown in medical studies that when kids become overweight, they
tend to stay that way as adults.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster) |
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Mxsmanic
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:39 am
Post subject: Re: Why is it that only the spanish culture can't learn the |
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Tony Cooper writes:
| Quote: | That's what we'd like to think, but it usually turns out to be quite
untrue. Often, that aggressiveness changes into drive and ambition
and results in success.
|
Often the aggressiveness is testosterone unrestrained by normal or
above-normal intelligence; that is, the persons in question are somewhat
stupid. Stupid people tend not to succeed, overall.
--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly. |
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Mxsmanic
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:40 am
Post subject: Re: Why is it that only the spanish culture can't learn the |
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don groves writes:
| Quote: | So you prefer the fat asses we have waddling around today to
having a general population in decent physical shape.
|
I prefer people who don't live in a stereotypically-male, military-style
fantasy world.
| Quote: | It's been shown in medical studies that when kids become
overweight, they tend to stay that way as adults.
|
They don't get overweight just from not having P.E. classes.
--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly. |
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don groves
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 3:45 am
Post subject: Re: Why is it that only the spanish culture can't learn the |
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In article <g4m5n0donrsrginrfgijhl32t0rek7e2n1@4ax.com>, Mxsmanic
at mxsmanic@hotmail.com poured forth...
| Quote: | don groves writes:
So you prefer the fat asses we have waddling around today to
having a general population in decent physical shape.
I prefer people who don't live in a stereotypically-male, military-style
fantasy world.
It's been shown in medical studies that when kids become
overweight, they tend to stay that way as adults.
They don't get overweight just from not having P.E. classes.
|
They get overweight from not getting enough exercise to offset
their daily caloric intake. Mandatory P.E. classes would insure
them getting a lot more exercise than they do now. Plus, it helps
establish healthy habits for later in life.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster) |
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Robin Bignall
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 3:55 am
Post subject: Re: Why is it that only the spanish culture can't learn the |
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On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 22:39:36 +0200, Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@hotmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: | Tony Cooper writes:
That's what we'd like to think, but it usually turns out to be quite
untrue. Often, that aggressiveness changes into drive and ambition
and results in success.
Often the aggressiveness is testosterone unrestrained by normal or
above-normal intelligence; that is, the persons in question are somewhat
stupid. Stupid people tend not to succeed, overall.
|
It would be nice, even just, if that was true. Unfortunately, cunning
seems to lead to success more often than intelligence does.
But it does depend on your definition of' success'.
--
wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall
Hertfordshire
England |
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Mxsmanic
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 9:17 am
Post subject: Re: Why is it that only the spanish culture can't learn the |
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don groves writes:
| Quote: | They get overweight from not getting enough exercise to offset
their daily caloric intake.
|
Maintaining weight is not a matter of increasing exercise to match
calorie intake, it's a matter of reducing calorie intake to match energy
requirements.
Burning calories through exercise is easily an order of magnitude more
difficult than reducing calories by eating less. Anyone who is fat
should eat less. Exercising more is a fine idea but in most cases there
just aren't enough hours in the day to exercise enough to burn the
entire excess of calories being consumed.
| Quote: | Mandatory P.E. classes would insure them getting a lot more
exercise than they do now.
|
Not a lot more; a little more. Not enough to compensate for significant
excesses in calorie intake, and people who become obese are
significantly overeating.
| Quote: | Plus, it helps establish healthy habits for later in life.
|
I don't see any correlation. P.E. never had any effect on my life
outside of P.E. class, and if anything, it encouraged me to swear off
sports forever (even though physical activity itself can sometimes be
fun).
--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly. |
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meirman
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:57 pm
Post subject: Re: Why is it that only the spanish culture can't learn the |
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In alt.english.usage on Thu, 14 Oct 2004 09:33:05 GMT Christina
DeMello <cdemello@us.oracle.com> posted:
| Quote: | On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 22:43:39 -0400, meirman <meirman@invalid.com
wrote:
By now I noticed, and it continues to the end, that you capitalize
other nations and languages, but not Spanish.
I don't agree that all Spanish speaking peoples are lazy; but, you,
Mr. Mierman, are easily proven wrong simply by reading the record.
|
No I'm not. And you misspelled my name.
| Quote: | In alt.english.usage on 9 Oct 2004 12:50:01 -0700 oraklistal@yahoo.com
(Orak Listalavostok) posted:
Huh? Spanish?
Here is a capitalized "Spanish".
|
But it's the start of a sentence. I believe that's why he capitalized
it.
| Quote: |
The number of asians, for example, in my community
And, here is a lower case "asian".
|
But Asian is not a nation or a language. This sentence does not prove
me wrong.
| Quote: | they dwarf the european community.
Is not "european" lower cased indeed?
|
And European is not a nation or a language.
| Quote: | The spanish are somehow different than the asians, the blacks,
the caucasians, the natives, the polynesians, etc.
Oh Mr. Mierman, they seem to be treated similarly here too.
|
None of the ones above are nations or languages.
| Quote: | What *was* your point, Mr. Mierman?
|
What was your point again?
s/ meirman If you are emailing me please
say if you are posting the same response.
Born west of Pittsburgh Pa. 10 years
Indianapolis, 7 years
Chicago, 6 years
Brooklyn NY 12 years
now in Baltimore 20 years |
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anyonghaseo
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 2:40 pm
Post subject: Re: Learning a second language boosts the brain power |
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mlidof@yahoo.com (anyonghaseo) wrote in message news:<3023cfa4.0410160918.2a0c327f@posting.google.com>...
The british finally got it!. |
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Alan Jones
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 4:52 pm
Post subject: Re: Learning a second language boosts the brain power |
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"anyonghaseo" <mlidof@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3023cfa4.0410190040.28b116f5@posting.google.com...
| Quote: | mlidof@yahoo.com (anyonghaseo) wrote in message
news:<3023cfa4.0410160918.2a0c327f@posting.google.com>...
Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<0cs1n095cn9kcesasqen79sd3kuu74oees@4ax.com>...
anyonghaseo writes:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3739690.stm
The british finally got it!.
|
I'd like to know how many brainy Brits (or indeed Americans) speak a
language other than their native English - speak it fluently. I mean. Can
someone carry out a survey of, say, the winners of Nobel prizes for the
sciences and members of the Royal Academy or its US counterpart? That might,
or might not, prove the theory that learning a second language when very
young makes someone generally more intelligent.
Alan Jones |
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Peter Duncanson
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 6:11 pm
Post subject: Re: Learning a second language boosts the brain power |
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On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 10:52:10 GMT, "Alan Jones" <atj@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
| Quote: |
"anyonghaseo" <mlidof@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3023cfa4.0410190040.28b116f5@posting.google.com...
mlidof@yahoo.com (anyonghaseo) wrote in message
news:<3023cfa4.0410160918.2a0c327f@posting.google.com>...
Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<0cs1n095cn9kcesasqen79sd3kuu74oees@4ax.com>...
anyonghaseo writes:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3739690.stm
The british finally got it!.
I'd like to know how many brainy Brits (or indeed Americans) speak a
language other than their native English - speak it fluently. I mean. Can
someone carry out a survey of, say, the winners of Nobel prizes for the
sciences and members of the Royal Academy or its US counterpart? That might,
or might not, prove the theory that learning a second language when very
young makes someone generally more intelligent.
sticks head above the parapet just long enough to say: |
Science *is* a second language.
--
Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from a.e.u) |
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