Author: gustavorernesto

Language is a reflection of culture

There’s a certain wilderness to innate thought that we will never be able to capture. This is because our own thought has been tamed and civilized by language. Our thought has become structured, formed by the sounds and shapes of words.

Language seems so intimate to us and visceral to our life experiences. Indeed, it is hard to differentiate language from thought. They seem so interchangeable, but they are not. There’s a difference between what is innate to us and what is not, between what is universal and what is learned.

Language is learned. It gives voice to our thoughts. It is a liberator, allowing our thoughts and feelings to escape the vicinities where they were concocted, felt and communicated to the world. We take language to be our own but we forget that it never was, and even as it releases our minds from inner silence, it constricts our thoughts to the molds of a particular language’s grammar logic and sentence structure. Learned rules that are not your own.

Language is a building block. It might seem the most infantile building block, but it is one nonetheless. The untrained brain, that is, the mind without language, is but the map of a virgin rainforest, untouched by humans and living by its own rhythm. A language of its own, we might like to say, except it has none. It is the absence of language; nothing about it is learned.

What do these blocks build up to? Culture. Language is the collective brain of an entire people, and as a young infant learns a language, she becomes one more link in that particular network of human ingenuity.

French is subtle. Its tones and accentuations are soft and smooth, like the creamy pastries and soups its cuisine is celebrated for. Its flow is legato, like simmering melodies or the brushstrokes of a lily pad pond on an impressionist canvas.

Learn more about this topic by reading this article on Daily Trojan.

After reading “Language is a reflection of culture” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs.

Don’t Register For IELTS Until You Read This 

IELTS is an acronym for International English Language Testing System and is an international standardized test of English language proficiency for non-native English language speakers. The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is the world’s most popular English language proficiency test for higher education and global migration. IELTS is jointly managed by the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia and Cambridge.

There are four distinct parts of the IELTS exam. The total test time is 2 hours and 45 minutes.

Three of the sections (Listening, Reading, and Writing) are completed in one sitting. The final section, Speaking, may be completed on the same day or up to seven days before or after the other sections.

All test takers take the same Listening and Speaking tests. The Reading and Writing sections differ depending on whether the test taker is taking the Academic or General IELTS exam.

Let’s look at the four modules in more detail.
Listening
The Listening module has four sections with ten questions in each.

Sections 1 and 2 are typical social situations. Sections 3 and 4 are education and training situations (such as a discussion between two university students).

During this section, test takers listen to a recording and then must answer questions based on what they’ve heard.

Reading
The Reading module has three sections. Test takers will read three texts, which may come from books, journals, magazines, newspapers, or other forms of media. After reading the text, test takers must answer multiple-choice and short answer questions.

Writing
The Writing module is comprised of two tasks. For the first task, test takers must write at least 150 words in 20 minutes. For the second task, test takers must write at least 250 words in 40 minutes. The tasks and topics vary depending on whether the test taker is taking the Academic or General Training Exam.

Speaking
The Speaking module is a face-to-face interview during which the test taker sits with an examiner and has a conversation. The module has three different sections:

Introduction: The test taker answers about his or her home, family, work, studies, hobbies, interests, reasons for taking IELTS exam as well as other general topics.

Long Turn: The test taker is given a task card about a particular topic. The test taker has one minute to prepare to talk about the topic, then they must give a two-minute speech about the topic.

Discussions: The examiner and test taker engage in a more in-depth discussion about the topics covered during the long turn section.

Learn more about this topic by reading this article on Modern Ghana.

After reading “Don’t Register For IELTS Until You Read This” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs.

Dual Immersion Language Program

Muncie, IN – Muncie Community Schools is excited to announce our upcoming Dual Immersion program set to begin fall of 2017. Students in this program will learn to speak, read, and write in English and Spanish. Using a research-based immersion approach, teachers will conduct class in Spanish part of the day, and English the other part.

With this program, MCS will join more than 400 existing immersion programs in the United States.

The goal is for MCS Dual Immersion students to become completely bilingual in Spanish and English. Bilingualism is proven to benefit students cognitively, socially, and emotionally. According to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website, “Bilingual children benefit academically in many ways. Because they are able to switch between languages, they develop more flexible approaches to thinking through problems. Their ability to read and think in two different languages promotes higher levels of abstract thought, which is critically important in learning.”

In addition, bilingualism can give students a strong advantage when they enter the workforce. Globally, bilingual adults have more job opportunities and earn an average of $7,000 more than their monolingual peers.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 4.3% of Muncie, IN, residents at least five years old spoke a language other than English at home, based on data from 2011 through 2015.3 Over the past decade, MCS’ English Language Learner (ELL) population has grown from 0.2% in 2005-2006 to a steady 1.0%.

Currently, MCS students learn to read in English only, meaning ELL students are not formally taught to read in their home language. However, research shows that learning to read in one’s home language can make it easier to learn a second language because the reading skills easily transfer from the first language to the second. The MCS Dual Immersion students will benefit by learning to read in their home language and a second language.

Learn more about this topic by reading this article on Muncie Journal.

After reading “Dual Immersion Language Program” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs.

Researchers from the University of Washington (UW) recently expanded on a previous study (Bilingual teaching benefits explored by researchers), experimenting with a new method of teacher training, and creating software that would train language tutors online to support dual language learning from infancy.

The previous study conducted by the team in 2017 sought to learn whether and how infants can learn a second language in the context of an early education center, if they don’t get that exposure at home. That study showed the effects of an interactive, play-based English-language program, compared to the standard bilingual program already available in Madrid schools, on 280 children at four infant education centers in Madrid, Spain.

In the new study, conducted by UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS) as part of researchers’ ongoing work with infant education centers in Spain, not only found that bilingual teaching led to sustained English-language comprehension and vocabulary-building, but also that the method could be scaled up to serve more children, and children from a greater variety of backgrounds.

Naja Ferjan Ramírez, the lead author of both studies, said that researchers knew their research-based method worked to boost second language skills rapidly in infants, without negatively affecting their first language, but needed to explore how to train people worldwide to use it.

The most recent study used the same curriculum from 2017 but trained tutors differently, using an online program called SparkLing. By testing a remote form of teacher training and providing lessons to larger groups of children, researchers explored how to spread the benefits of bilingual education across a wider population.

Learn more about this topic by reading this article on The Sector.

After reading “Bilingual teaching benefits explored by researchers” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs.

My Mother Tongue, My Identity

What is Mother Tongue?

Merriam Webster defines Mother Tongue as one’s native language. Also, the Cambridge dictionary defines as the first language a person learns to speak. Contemporary linguist and educators use L1 for Mother Tongue and L2 for the second language.

What is Identity?

Cambridge defines Identity as the fact of being who a person is or the qualities of a person or group that makes them different from others. Nelson Mandela says “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes in his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. also clearly stated that “language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and our of which they grow.”

The definition itself tells us how important and unique our mother tongue is. It is not only the first language but a speaker’s ability to master its linguistic and communicative aspects. Languages, with their complex implications for identity, communication, social interaction, education and development are of strategic importance for people and the planet. Yet due to globalization processes, they are increasingly under threat, or disappearing altogether. When languages fade, so does the world’s rich tapestry of cultural diversity. Opportunities, traditions, memory, unique modes of thinking and expression – valuable resources for ensuring a better future are also lost. Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible or intangible heritage.

Learn more about this topic by reading this article on Eastern Mirror.

After reading “My Mother Tongue, My Identity” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs.

Tackle Linguistic Bias in Classrooms – A couple of years ago, I worked in the writing center with a student on a paper about her identity development. She received high marks for content but lost points for writing. As I read her paper, two things struck me. She had grown up in Boston, but her parents were from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

At home, she spoke Lingala, which she hid from her friends after she was mocked. Second, many of her sentences were indecipherable. She wrote, for example, “I didn’t have an indistinguishable surface hair from different females in my class and they wouldn’t converse with me or simply give me disposition since I didn’t seem as though them.”

After a decade of working in writing centers, I knew to ask, “Did you use the thesaurus to write this?” And she told me that, in an effort to sound academic. She had used the thesaurus for every single sentence in this essay about her own identity development. Teachers had told her not to write like she speaks but to translate her Black vernacular English (BVE) into standard academic English (SAE). I suspect that most of us would feel a flash of rage if we heard the insults slung at her for speaking Lingala. But many of us would also mark her down for writing in BVE. Why?

Learn more about this topic by reading on INSIDE Higher Ed.

After reading “Tackle Linguistic Bias in Classrooms” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs.

Education and English-speaking Quebecers – A strong English-language education system, from kindergarten to university, is essential to the vitality of Quebec’s English-speaking community. It allows anglophones to be schooled in their mother tongue. It reinforces their ability not only to speak, but also write the language properly. And increases the chances of students’ success. 

Not all students have the capacity to flourish academically in a second language. English educational institutions, many of which have deep roots in Quebec, also preserve a sense of community identity; serve as incubators for future community leaders (not only students, but also parents who participate in school governance); provide opportunities for anglophones to work in English. As well, schools serve as important community gathering places, especially outside of Montreal.

Each level in the education system has its own realities and challenges.

The biggest problem faced by English primary and secondary schools is declining enrolment. According to Canadian Heritage ministry figures, Kindergarten to Grade 11 enrolment in English in Quebec has plummeted from 248,855 students in 1970-72 (or 15.7 per cent of the Quebec total) to 83,649 in 2017-18 (or nine per cent). Those numbers translate into school closures and transfers of school buildings to an overcrowded French sector. Reasons for the decline are no mystery. The biggest is the Charter of the French Language (Bill 101), enacted in 1977, which, generally speaking, excludes francophones and the children of immigrants from English schools. The English-speaking community has been calling for years for immigrants from English-speaking countries like the United States and Britain to be allowed to attend, which would mitigate the decline at least somewhat, to no avail. We should keep asking.

To read more about visit Montreal Gazette.

After reading “Education and English-speaking Quebecers” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs.

Language in some universities- As Algeria moves to replace French with English in universities, in neighboring Morocco lawmakers have passed a draft education law that will pave the way for strengthening French in pre-university education, overturning decades of Arabization and raising concerns about threats to cultural identity. Quoted as saying that “the French language does not get us anywhere”, Algerian Higher Education and Scientific Research Minister Tayeb Bouzid has ordered the country’s 77 universities and higher education institutions to use English rather than French.

Learn more about this topic by reading this article on University World News. 

After reading “6 Strategies for Teaching English “, you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs. And visit my channel by YouTube.

Translation Market Growth, Trends and Forecast – The speech to speech translation market is expected to record a growth at a CAGR of 9.4%, over the forecast period (2020 – 2025). The speech-to-speech (S2S) translation breaks down communication barriers among people that typically don’t speak a common language. The basic purpose that such technology used to serve at its inception stages was to enable an instant oral cross-lingual communication. Learn more about this topic by reading this article on Reportlinker.

After reading “Translation Market Growth, Trends and Forecast”, you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs. And visit my channel by YouTube.

Some Poetry for a change

Akhil Katyal’s poetry speaks in many voices: sly turns of phrase, urban proverbs spun out of bleak realities, smutty jokes, erotic longing, slowly unpeeling layers of thoughts. His new collection, Like Blood On The Bitten Tongue, borrows its title from a line by the poet Agha Shahid Ali. But unlike Ali’s gentle laments and flowery sentiments, Katyal is crisp and quick. With his ear to the ground, he listens to the rumblings around him, while remaining alert to the desires of the heart.

Learn more about this topic by reading this article on LiveMint.

After reading “Some Poetry for a change “, you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs. And visit my channel by YouTube.