- A friend of mine introduced me to charity: water this morning (thanks, P.!) and as she put it, "I want to give them all my money!" This is the second charity whose website has made me cry this year (yes, literally - the first being The Girl Effect) and served as a reminder of why I wanted to go into non-profit/NGO work in the first place.
- I'm still loving my TIME Magazine subscription, and read three good articles on this morning's commute: "Moon Walkers," the cover story about the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission and a look back at the history of the space program's Apollo missions (the print edition also has nice photos and mini-bios of the Apollo astronauts); "What Price Journalism? What Would You Pay?" that talks about how nothing in journalism is free, including the freebies, and is a different take on the "print journalism is struggling/dying" issue; and "The CIA Is Keeping Secrets. Hello?" written by Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer. The last one is particularly interesting (and the title made me laugh), since it gives a former insider's perspective on CIA secrecy, and makes some great points about hypocrisy in government for appearances' sake, as well as the impracticality of too many checks and balances.
- Have you seen Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince or (500) Days of Summer yet? I want to see both despite the fact that I know the latter will make me cry, and have heard mostly-great reviews so far. And just finished a re-read of Harry Potter VI in preparation for the film! I only have that one in French though, so I may (as usual) be a bit confused...
- New on my list of favorite places in Washington!: Mind-BodyFitness, a Pilates studio near the Convention Center. They offer both mat and reformer workouts, and both seem to be more affordably priced than most yoga and Pilates studios in the area. Mat workout classes start at $18 for a walk-in and drop down to a little more than $12 each with a 15-class card for $185 - or a $300 pass for unlimited classes for three months. It's been awhile since I've done Pilates seriously (plus, I don't want to be so sore that it affects my running), so I'm sticking with the intro class for now, and after two classes - third one tonight! - I love it. Chris is the intro instructor and is great: I could easily do the entire class with my eyes closed, his descriptions of what you should be doing and how are so good. And the switch from the Pilates Method I learned in college to the BASI Pilates the studio uses has been easy.
Showing posts with label Harry Potter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harry Potter. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Food for Thought
Since I don't always have time to write a full blog post, a sad fact that results in far fewer posts than I'd like, I'm beginning a new type of post today called "Food for Thought." Basically, it'll be a few quick blips about things that are on my mind and might be on yours, usually written while I grab a bite to eat between items on my schedule (hence the title). So, here goes!
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Why not bilingualism?
This is a bit beyond the current scope of There Is No Spoon, but I'm so excited about it, we're going to pretend that's not an issue: Blogging on Bilingualism is a fantastic resource, and one of my new favorite blogs. A resource for who? Strictly speaking, for anyone raising, trying to raise or thinking about raising a bilingual child...but really, it's an excellent resource for anyone interested in bilingualism - and multilingualism - on any level, at any age.
I would love to raise my future children bilingual, because the array of extra doors a second (or third, or fourth, or...) language can open is both fascinating and useful. But the idea is a little daunting, since although I have some friends who were essentially raised bilingual - and in some cases trilingual - it was more accidental or environmental than intentional, at least as far as I know. Blogging on Bilingualism offers a forum for discussion and the sharing of an infinite variety of practical information for parents of children growing up bilingual - and an additional source of fascination and information for language geeks like me.
In some of the ways the blog's author, Eve Bodeux, describes how she teaches her children or watches them learn, and some of the comments from other readers about their children, I recognize some of the same tricks I used when I was living in France, although I was 20 at the time. I wanted to read more than newspapers in French without having to reach for a dictionary every five seconds, so I picked up the French translation of Harry Potter. I knew the basic idea of the story since I'd seen the films, so I could follow along even if I wasn't catching every word, and knowing the general context helped me learn new vocabulary. (Of course, when I read the seventh book in English, because I couldn't wait until the French translation was released, I was completely confused. What in the world is Disapparating? It's en transplanant that you get from one place to another, not by using this Disapparition nonsense!) Eve talks about having her children watch familiar films, like Disney's, dubbed in the target language - the second language you want them to learn - and it's the same idea: kids know the story and can follow along, but they're learning new vocabulary while they do.
One of the most interesting points made by Eve and some of her readers is that it doesn't really matter if one parent's use of the target language is less than perfect. As long as children hear a variety of native speakers - whether on TV, in films, or in real life - the slight mispronunciations and small grammatical errors a non-native speaker might make won't affect them. It's hearing the target language consistently, its vocabulary, its syntax and some of the cultural background that go with them, that matters. And I think that applies to anyone learning a second language, no matter their age. There were some grammatical errors that made the rounds of my study abroad program, since we were all American students speaking French and tended to parrot each others' phrases - and inevitably, mistakes - but they gradually worked their way out of our collective system as we interacted more and more with native French-speaking professors, merchants and host families.
You probably know that the U.S. system for teaching foreign language is far from ideal. We introduce a foreign language in middle school or high school, while kids in most other countries are introduced to English or another foreign language at about the same time they start formal schooling. The science behind this is that your jaw solidifies when you're fairly young - I've heard anything from six to twelve on that one - and after it does, it's much more difficult to learn the correct pronunciation of languages that use different parts of the face and throat than your own. (French, for example, uses the mouth a lot more than English does - the sounds are fuller - and of course, there's the hacking, gagging 'r' sound. I tell my students to pretend they're gargling with water.)
We also just don't put the same kind of importance on learning a foreign language as other societies do, and I think it's our loss. Young people from other countries often come to study or work in the U.S. for a time and feel comfortable doing so, because they've studied English since elementary school. In comparison, very few Americans venture beyond our borders for any appreciable period of time, I think in large part because it's so completely outside our comfort zone. We're raised with the implicit (and sometimes explicit) idea that American is the best thing in the world to be and America is the best place to be it - everyone and everywhere else are second best. It's great for our collective patriotism, but as a result, our worldview is severely limited and we miss out on some of the best parts of our global society: the people.
It's a fascination with people as much as with the technical aspects of language that keeps me studying and teaching it. After all, the more languages you're able to express yourself in, the more people you can talk to, even if it's only in a rudimentary fashion. Language - and bilingualism (hopefully multilingualism, eventually) - is something of a hobby for me. Other people scrapbook; I speak, read, translate, teach French. Other people talk about taking pottery classes in their spare time; when I have some spare time, I'll take classes in a third language.
The more languages we can understand, the more people and ideas we can access where they live, so to speak. (I'd love to read The Alchemist in the original Portuguese - as incredibly beautiful as it is in English, I can only imagine how gorgeous it is as Paulo Coelho wrote it.) Because it's people and their ideas that make the world go round. They're constantly reaching out to one another, working together to push the world - and us with it - forward, and the more people any of us can connect with, the more of an impact any single idea can have. So why not bilingualism, as a hobby, or a way of life?
I would love to raise my future children bilingual, because the array of extra doors a second (or third, or fourth, or...) language can open is both fascinating and useful. But the idea is a little daunting, since although I have some friends who were essentially raised bilingual - and in some cases trilingual - it was more accidental or environmental than intentional, at least as far as I know. Blogging on Bilingualism offers a forum for discussion and the sharing of an infinite variety of practical information for parents of children growing up bilingual - and an additional source of fascination and information for language geeks like me.
In some of the ways the blog's author, Eve Bodeux, describes how she teaches her children or watches them learn, and some of the comments from other readers about their children, I recognize some of the same tricks I used when I was living in France, although I was 20 at the time. I wanted to read more than newspapers in French without having to reach for a dictionary every five seconds, so I picked up the French translation of Harry Potter. I knew the basic idea of the story since I'd seen the films, so I could follow along even if I wasn't catching every word, and knowing the general context helped me learn new vocabulary. (Of course, when I read the seventh book in English, because I couldn't wait until the French translation was released, I was completely confused. What in the world is Disapparating? It's en transplanant that you get from one place to another, not by using this Disapparition nonsense!) Eve talks about having her children watch familiar films, like Disney's, dubbed in the target language - the second language you want them to learn - and it's the same idea: kids know the story and can follow along, but they're learning new vocabulary while they do.
One of the most interesting points made by Eve and some of her readers is that it doesn't really matter if one parent's use of the target language is less than perfect. As long as children hear a variety of native speakers - whether on TV, in films, or in real life - the slight mispronunciations and small grammatical errors a non-native speaker might make won't affect them. It's hearing the target language consistently, its vocabulary, its syntax and some of the cultural background that go with them, that matters. And I think that applies to anyone learning a second language, no matter their age. There were some grammatical errors that made the rounds of my study abroad program, since we were all American students speaking French and tended to parrot each others' phrases - and inevitably, mistakes - but they gradually worked their way out of our collective system as we interacted more and more with native French-speaking professors, merchants and host families.
You probably know that the U.S. system for teaching foreign language is far from ideal. We introduce a foreign language in middle school or high school, while kids in most other countries are introduced to English or another foreign language at about the same time they start formal schooling. The science behind this is that your jaw solidifies when you're fairly young - I've heard anything from six to twelve on that one - and after it does, it's much more difficult to learn the correct pronunciation of languages that use different parts of the face and throat than your own. (French, for example, uses the mouth a lot more than English does - the sounds are fuller - and of course, there's the hacking, gagging 'r' sound. I tell my students to pretend they're gargling with water.)
We also just don't put the same kind of importance on learning a foreign language as other societies do, and I think it's our loss. Young people from other countries often come to study or work in the U.S. for a time and feel comfortable doing so, because they've studied English since elementary school. In comparison, very few Americans venture beyond our borders for any appreciable period of time, I think in large part because it's so completely outside our comfort zone. We're raised with the implicit (and sometimes explicit) idea that American is the best thing in the world to be and America is the best place to be it - everyone and everywhere else are second best. It's great for our collective patriotism, but as a result, our worldview is severely limited and we miss out on some of the best parts of our global society: the people.
It's a fascination with people as much as with the technical aspects of language that keeps me studying and teaching it. After all, the more languages you're able to express yourself in, the more people you can talk to, even if it's only in a rudimentary fashion. Language - and bilingualism (hopefully multilingualism, eventually) - is something of a hobby for me. Other people scrapbook; I speak, read, translate, teach French. Other people talk about taking pottery classes in their spare time; when I have some spare time, I'll take classes in a third language.
The more languages we can understand, the more people and ideas we can access where they live, so to speak. (I'd love to read The Alchemist in the original Portuguese - as incredibly beautiful as it is in English, I can only imagine how gorgeous it is as Paulo Coelho wrote it.) Because it's people and their ideas that make the world go round. They're constantly reaching out to one another, working together to push the world - and us with it - forward, and the more people any of us can connect with, the more of an impact any single idea can have. So why not bilingualism, as a hobby, or a way of life?
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