Language Investigation #3 - 9/19/08

The kinds of reading and writing that I was asked to do in my primary schooling have to do with books such as Bridge to Terabithia and Om-Kas-Toe. They were fictional books that always embraced a meaning of unity, friendship, loyalty, family and other nauseatingly sappy themes. There was an emphasis on the happy, perfect life as society dictates it. Other readings were simplified history and science books that skipped over the gory and hard facts of death, destruction and disease. Everything was happily laid out in perfect-world criteria. The writing followed suit. We were asked to write short stories involving times when our parents helped us, who our hero was, what our favorite books and movies were. Light subjects that ten-year-old and unders should only have to face. You were to have these writings in a five paragraph format, where the first paragraph was an introduction and the last, a conclusion. The sentence structures were all very similar until about fourth and fifth grade. A boring monotony of he did/she did. Nearly every sentence began with “I” except for maybe every fifth sentence, because we were told that not every sentence should begin with”I.” I feel bad for the teachers forced to read and teach the same structure over and over with no variation. We were to focus on spelling, with one or two new vocabulary words a week. Everything simple, everything hinted with a taste of challenge.

Then secondary school hit. I’m not saying that I was unprepared for what secondary school might present me. I was extremely well prepared considering the people around me from other backgrounds. I could speak English. I could read it. I could write it. I could think it. The textbook levels jumped in difficulty, leaving many of my fellow students behind. I was fortunate enough to have a brain willing to adapt to the challenge and defeat it. The reading was not challenging for me, but it was for many of my friends who couldn’t fathom the explanation of a multitude of scientific process or exactly what was going on when it came to passing bills or just how the different mathematical formulas were supposed to work. The books turned from contemporary to classic. We needed to know the basics and our heritage in literature. I did as I was told in class. We learned how to mix up the sentence structure and every writing was expected to have a mix of structure. Essays began to inhabit the English curriculum and the idea of keeping “I” out of your papers. Writing turned from personal and fun to impersonal and monotonous. It seemed that every level of schooling had its own way of imposing academic boredom into every assignment. Vocabulary words were expected to be an own-initiative pastime and you were graded on the whether or not you could read your teachers’ mind and figure out these criteria. I used words I found in my reading to advance my vocabulary. I’m not sure how I managed to read my teachers’ mind, but it seemed to have worked rather well.

The teaching ways that I found useful, were the discussion based classes for English. It helped me to expand my one perspective to a multitude and create a proper thesis (yet another new skill learned) and figure out what the meaning was behind the text. The reason why the teacher used this technique was to expand our thought and our critical thinking by debating if another person’s view was valid or thoughtful. Through discussion, we could support or refute arguments and figure out why we did that. It helped our intrinsic motivation when we did well and helped us figure out how to think about texts when we were wrong. When it came to historical, scientific and mathematical texts, I found that almost all of the teachers focused on a lecture type classroom with a question and answer allowance. That worked the best because there are just so many facts to memorize. To put these skills into place requires a little less discussion (except maybe in talking about historical events and how and why they happened). It was a lot of memorizing facts and in the case of math, repeat, repeat, repeat.

These gave influenced my way of thinking. How do I look at a text? What is important from it? What should I respond to and how do I form my own opinion utilizing the text assigned. How do I personalize everything I read? Then, how do I purposefully portray it in a paper so that my teacher can see what I have learned and what I thought was important or even critical. It has made me skeptical of English teachers who do not do discussion-based classes and even more skeptical when they automatically assume that my opinion is wrong, because it is different. I have learned to find the importance in classes in which I thought they were originally useless. Every class has a meaning and purpose and can add to my thinking. My reading and writing history has not only influenced my reading and writing, but also my way of life. I think through theories and themes. My writing reflects this life philosophy.

Warm-up #2. Rose, Ch. 5 & 6 - 9/17/08

3. What did you notice about the language schools used to refer to the students Rose featured in this chapter? How did this language mark students as “insiders” or “outsiders” to school? How do you think these labels might have influenced students’ literacy development later on?

Labels are a good way to categorize students. Labels are also good ways of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy syndrome. A student labeled correctly or even incorrectly feels an association to the label and may just fall into the category and define themselves by it. Some students may even use their label as an excuse of why certain negative behaviors may exist. Labels are a dysfunctional necessity in schooling. We need to categorize and place students on similar levels in order to reach them as fully as we can, but sometimes those labels are the same reason of why a teacher may not reach out or why a student may not try. I think that a label of being in a remedial track ahs a negative influence on literacy (Harold’s file being a prime example of the negative influence of a label), while an advanced track probably has a positive influence on literacy, using the same principle as above. A student may try to fit the label and a student that was once regular, may now try harder, because he or she is in the advanced class. Rose touches on this on page 128 when he is talking about how children internalize the labels that they are handed by the schooling system. It becomes a part of who they are and how they identify themselves.

Language Investigation #2

One of the communities that I’ve been a part of for the past two years is that of my Japanese class. There are so few of us that everyone knows everyone. You can frequently find the entire class sitting outside of the Education or eddy buildings before we head into class as a group. Through the two years, we have created a “hybrid language” melding both English and Japanese into what we call “Engrish” to be rather politically incorrect. If we are feeling like being more appropriate, we call our melding or horrible mess-up “Janglish.”

Our Janglish was few and far between in the first year. None of the language created was intentional. I can’t remember many of the words that we came up with out of our attempt to speak such a foreign language with no similar basis. These words are much like in my childhood when I was first learning to speak and I messed up words that my family still uses today. Zerebra instead of zebra sticks just as well as “gomenisau” instead of “gomenasai.” These little mistakes endearingly stick. We came up with ways of remembering phrases that have been adopted outside of the classroom to mean the same thing. The phrase “don’t touch my mustache” is used to remember “douitashimashite,” which means “you’re welcome.” Now “don’t touch my mustache” is a way of saying “you’re welcome.” It’s not quite Janglish, but it only came about because of a mixing of languages.

In the second year, we grew bolder and you could even hear the fine line between appropriate Japanese in class and the Janglish outside of class slipping. Words such as “shimasing” were heard every once in a while to the ire of Becken-sensei, our professor. “Shimasing” is the combination of the Japanese verb, shimasu (pronounced as if the “u” isn’t there) and the English suffix, “-ing.” Nowhere in either language, will you ever find “shimasing.” It means to do. “Have you shimased that yet?” “What are you shimasing?” Another word that we have come up with is “monologimashita.” This was created out of the English word, monologue, and the Japanese word, shimasu. This means to do a monologue in our language. However, it is yet another hybrid and another term that neither English-speaking nor Japanese-speaking people would get. It was born out of a mistake in hearing what we were supposed to do and it stuck. Since we have to practice our speaking a lot, we just call it “monologimashita” whenever we are practicing speaking. A constant question that we use is “doushy” (no, it is not pronounced du-shee, but with a long o sound). This is the shortened version of the word “doushite,” which means why. Whenever we ask “why are you doing that?” or “why did I need to know about what you did when you were drunk,” we insert a “doushy” where the word “why” is. Speaking about times of when you’re drunk, we’ve even come up with a word for that. “Yakesake.” This is the blend between the Japanese word for alcohol, sake and an English mispronunciation. When I was little, I used to pronounce “lots” as in a lot as “yots.” With a little extension of the imagination, it turned into “yakesake.” This means to drink too much alcohol or to get rather ****faced.

Some of us who have grown a little fonder over the two years together have translated the phrase “I heart you” into “Watashi wa kokoro shimasu,” which is the rough translation. It is totally incorrect form and no Japanese speaker would truly understand it. When we say it, they might just roll their eyes with a condescending “Gaijin,” which means outsider. For those of us who aren’t as affectionate use terms such as “hojin.” This is the mixing of the English word “whore” or more so the slang word “ho” and the Japanese counter for person, “jin.” A negative term for somebody we don’t like. “That girl is such a hojin.”

9/3/08 Warm-Up

The patterns that I saw normally began with a family customs. While some were traditional, some exotic and some nontraditional, they all had a basis around what that group did together. The actions created the language. I thought that it was interesting to see how things were created and progressed for some of them. Also, I liked being able to identify with some of the words, once I knew what it meant to that person. All of the family languages, whether traditional or non traditional, focused around activities that the family would do. In order to develop a language, there must be a need for communication. I feel that all of these blogs showed the similar need for communication.

An "insider" of language comprehends the meanings and implications of the words and phrases used. While I may not have known what to "foose" meant before reading one of the blogs, I became an insider once I was able to understand the meaning and implications to such a level of accuracy that I would also be able to use and adapt it to my own language. Should that person ask me if I would like to "foose," I would be able to respond appropriately. I am now an insider of that language. Without the comprehension and fluency in the language, one is an "outsider." Another piece of useful information is the etymology of the word. It is useful to understand the origin and development of the word, to know the nuances. With all of that, a read or listener can become a successful communicator in "insider" language.

A question that this broaches is "how do I become an insider to how my students communicate?"

Language Investigation #1

There aren’t too many words or phrases that carry meaning in my family, that wouldn’t carry meaning in another. In fact, the only one that really comes to mind is yabbit. This is a word that my Grandpa will use to make fun of his grandchildren. He uses it to correct use in our use of language. Yabbit is a combination of words – “yeah” and “but.” My cousins, siblings and I will frequently respond to a comment with “yeah, but…” and my Grandpa has turned it into one word to mean that we are putting conditions on what we say. If we are saying “yeah” to something, then there should be no “but.”

We also use the word scandles. No, not like scandals, we aren’t on Jerry Springer. My family will frequently use words that we formed as a child when we had mispronunciation issues. They then become so much apart of our language that we sometimes neglect to use the actual word with company. Scandles is another word that my family uses from sandals. I believe that it was my older brother, Jim, who can lay claim to being the founder of this word. There are a whole collection of words that my family uses that originate from my two brothers or me in our childhoods. We use anything from zerebra for zebra to buffadoes for buffaloes. While these may not seem like language special only to use, because they are merely the same words with a speech impediment, they have transformed into words through the frequent usage by my family. Their presence is an affectionate tie to our past, when the children are moving out and starting their own lives.

Another word that has been adapted into our family language is the use of Sto Lat, which is actually a Polish toast frequently used at weddings to say “may you have a 100 years of blessings.” My family has adapted it to be a kind of good-bye. If someone is leaving the house or going on a trip, we say “good-bye, sto lat.” It isn’t the traditional use of the phrase, but it still works as a phrase that has a special meaning to only my family, because as far as I know, we are the only ones to use it in that manner.Through frequent usage, a new language is formed and these are really the only things that I can think of that are special to my family alone and no one else’s.