Comments on: Is this the way you think? http://eastweststation.com/blog/2007/06/18/is-this-the-way-you-think/ Musings and Bladderment from One Fat Englishman Out East Wed, 07 Jan 2009 09:47:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: Aussieocean http://eastweststation.com/blog/2007/06/18/is-this-the-way-you-think/#comment-4821 Aussieocean Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:42:05 +0000 http://eastweststation.com/blog/2007/06/18/is-this-the-way-you-think/#comment-4821 Thanks for the Kaplan doodles, Kim. I was looking for them on the net, which is where I came across your blog. You write very well...really amusing. Anyway I used the doodles in a session with university staff, explaining the reductionist nature of them but pointing out that they are a useful starting point in understanding WHY we get such odd-looking assignments. Not that we don't get them from Aussie students, but we attribute different reasons to them, as you said, like a drunken bender the night before, et al. Anyway there were about 15 staff at the session and I think they all "got" it...there were a lot of genuine questions. So that was great! I take care of the academic needs of our international students in the School of Education (we do teacher-training) here - we have a few Chinese students - I do like the Chinese students because I find them open to new ideas, and prepared to work hard to learn new things. Of course my sample is really small, we only have about 5 students from China in any one year (and about 20-30 internationals) but I am realy impressed with the students. One big problem we have is with the students' accents...they go out to primary schools for teaching practice, and young Anglo Australian students (who are 5-6 years old) can't understand them. Very small children are still grappling with receptive language in their mother tongue...they often can't yet understand all native speakers of their own language - so a very strong accent can completely elude them. This is a problem for our students. Although it is somewhat balanced by the fact that many Australians (and thus many parents) these days are Asian, and so teachers from Asian countries are very much welcomed for their diverse backgrounds and their committment to education. Nevertheless, the problem remains with the very little kids trying to understand out trainee teachers ...and I am at a loss as to how to try to change students' accents without sounding racist. Should I be direct...would students lose face? If so, how can I tactfully solve this problem? Some of our students fail their teaching diplomas because of this, which I think is avoidable. Can anyone help? Jude Thanks for the Kaplan doodles, Kim. I was looking for them on the net, which is where I came across your blog. You write very well…really amusing. Anyway I used the doodles in a session with university staff, explaining the reductionist nature of them but pointing out that they are a useful starting point in understanding WHY we get such odd-looking assignments. Not that we don’t get them from Aussie students, but we attribute different reasons to them, as you said, like a drunken bender the night before, et al. Anyway there were about 15 staff at the session and I think they all “got” it…there were a lot of genuine questions. So that was great!

I take care of the academic needs of our international students in the School of Education (we do teacher-training) here - we have a few Chinese students - I do like the Chinese students because I find them open to new ideas, and prepared to work hard to learn new things. Of course my sample is really small, we only have about 5 students from China in any one year (and about 20-30 internationals) but I am realy impressed with the students.

One big problem we have is with the students’ accents…they go out to primary schools for teaching practice, and young Anglo Australian students (who are 5-6 years old) can’t understand them. Very small children are still grappling with receptive language in their mother tongue…they often can’t yet understand all native speakers of their own language - so a very strong accent can completely elude them. This is a problem for our students. Although it is somewhat balanced by the fact that many Australians (and thus many parents) these days are Asian, and so teachers from Asian countries are very much welcomed for their diverse backgrounds and their committment to education. Nevertheless, the problem remains with the very little kids trying to understand out trainee teachers …and I am at a loss as to how to try to change students’ accents without sounding racist. Should I be direct…would students lose face? If so, how can I tactfully solve this problem? Some of our students fail their teaching diplomas because of this, which I think is avoidable. Can anyone help?
Jude

]]> By: MyLaowai http://eastweststation.com/blog/2007/06/18/is-this-the-way-you-think/#comment-379 MyLaowai Wed, 04 Jul 2007 00:38:53 +0000 http://eastweststation.com/blog/2007/06/18/is-this-the-way-you-think/#comment-379 From time to time I'm a book editor - English language, written by Chinese, usually university professor. The books have a lot of the content written by English major students. On average, more than half the work come from having to rewrite the text so that it actually relates to the point(another 2/3rds is getting rid of the political ideology, an additional 40% is punctuaton and spelling, and the rest is general corrections - it ain't easy being an editor when you are mathematically living in L-space!). From time to time I’m a book editor - English language, written by Chinese, usually university professor. The books have a lot of the content written by English major students. On average, more than half the work come from having to rewrite the text so that it actually relates to the point(another 2/3rds is getting rid of the political ideology, an additional 40% is punctuaton and spelling, and the rest is general corrections - it ain’t easy being an editor when you are mathematically living in L-space!).

]]> By: Josh http://eastweststation.com/blog/2007/06/18/is-this-the-way-you-think/#comment-311 Josh Sat, 23 Jun 2007 15:45:40 +0000 http://eastweststation.com/blog/2007/06/18/is-this-the-way-you-think/#comment-311 Thanks! Yet another educational post. I had wondered about the origin of the doodles. One of my students made the same claim as Kaplan (as an excuse for his inability/unwillingness to write a five-paragraph essay). I wrote about it in a post entitled <a href="http://peer-see.com/blog/the-god-effusion/2006/12/04/" rel="nofollow"> The God Effusion</a>. The post isn't really about "zis bollshit," but you might enjoy it. When I write posts, I try to use three major elements. It's usually quite a stretch to string those three together. I can't imagine how hard eight would be. Thanks! Yet another educational post. I had wondered about the origin of the doodles. One of my students made the same claim as Kaplan (as an excuse for his inability/unwillingness to write a five-paragraph essay). I wrote about it in a post entitled The God Effusion. The post isn’t really about “zis bollshit,” but you might enjoy it.
When I write posts, I try to use three major elements. It’s usually quite a stretch to string those three together. I can’t imagine how hard eight would be.

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