Destinations

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Cross Cultural Solutions

Cross Cultural Solutions, Well-polished tourist destinations are great but if you have ever thought about a new kind of vacation experience, it may be time for you to try volunteering abroad. Unlike a typical vacation, an organized volunteer travel program allows you to donate a portion of your day to a local community while you vacation. Volunteer organizations tend to operate in local communities with greater need for services – communities off the beaten path. Spending time in a local community with a group of fellow volunteers is a far cry from a typical tourist vacation and can be a real eye-opener. Working closely with local people gives you a much richer and unique insight into a culture that you would not have otherwise experienced. Many people who volunteer abroad are amazed at the depth of their cultural exchange experience. For some, it is life-changing. “I spent 4 weeks working in a classroom of five-year-olds within an orphanage. It was the most amazing experience of my entire life. Because of that trip I came to realize how big the world is — how enriching it is to live among different cultures. Today, over a month after I returned, I think of my experiences, and especially the people I met there, constantly. I am a more aware, open person, and I have found not only things within myself, but my life calling and aspiration.” Sarah, Cross-Cultural Solutions volunteer Headquartered in New Rochelle, NY, Cross-Cultural Solutions is a leading organization in the field of international volunteering. CCS has an infrastructure that supports approximately 4,000 international volunteers each year and over 250 sustainable community initiatives. More than 250 CCS in-country staff work year-round, ensuring that volunteers are involved in projects that contribute directly to the goals of each community. The CCS experience includes cultural and learning activities giving volunteers the opportunity to learn about the local culture. There is an in-depth orientation, language training, guest speakers and more. It’s not all work and no play. After volunteer work in the mornings and over the weekend, there is plenty of free time to relax, reflect, or explore the community. To contact CCS, visit their website at www.crossculturalsolutions.org, email info@crossculturalsolutions.org

Tools for Teaching English

Language Magazine’s selection of products
that incorporate technology into the ESL classroom

Alloy Multimedia
ESL ReadingSmart is a web-based English language learning environment
founded on a unique instructional design. It is easily implemented
as a student-centered, stand-alone application or a blended learning
environment, integrating online student work and classroom instruction.
The program offers individualized, content-based instruction to
develop English language proficiency with emphasis on literacy and
cross-curricular vocabulary development for newcomers, beginners,
intermediate, early advanced, and advanced English learners.
It monitors student progress, and tracks students’ readability and
grade gains based on The Lexile Framework for Reading, providing
daily, weekly, and on-demand student reports. Tracking is at individual,
class, school and district level.
Several independent studies have shown that ESL ReadingSmart is
an effective intervention program that raises students’ reading and language
scores. This year’s independent study was presented in the
National Forum of Teacher Education Journal in April. The authors stated,
“by working with culturally appropriate text at their functional reading
level, students were able to demonstrate gains while experiencing
literature that may not otherwise have been available to them.”
The program’s user friendly interface is backed by a team of professionals
always available to answer questions and provide support.
New content is regularly added so students and teachers are never
saddled with static software.

Califone
Podcasts provide new ways for students to interact with the content
matter as well as to demonstrate their learning. By creating podcasts,
students can display and extend their creativity using audio as a
means of self-expression. In addition, teachers can use podcasts to
communicate regularly with parents by posting school updates on their
web site. They can also publish lesson guides in a podcast format to
help students who many have missed sections, or who simply need
reinforcement when completing homework assignments.
MP3 players are especially useful in language learning and ELL
classrooms, where students may need additional reinforcement or
teacher guidance outside the classroom. Recording a podcast in a
language learning environment can illustrate to the teacher how well a
student’s pronunciation, diction and understanding have progressed
over time. Plus, it allows teachers to keep a digital file of each student’s
progress, which is helpful for long-term assessment.
The easy-to-use MP3 player includes a built-in microphone and
dual headphone jacks — both industry firsts — making it ideal for
learning centers, language labs and libraries. The playback volume is
also capped at 85dB for hearing safety.

English Computerized Learning
Pronunciation Power
Pronunciation Power products are user- friendly, interactive programs
for beginner to advanced English learners of all ages. They are excellent
tools for students to learn correct English pronunciation. The easy,
effective design has numerous lessons and exercises for practice using
visual and auditory feedback.
Pronunciation Power 1 and 2 include lessons for individual sound
work and speech recognition. The lessons include animated, graphic
side views to teach how each sound is made. There are extensive
practice exercises in: listening, comparative words, and in word and
sentence pronunciation including intonation for syllable or word stress.
The 8 in 1 Interactive English Dictionary teaches the meaning and
pronunciation of words using pictures and sentences and has several
unique searches, such as “search by word ending.”
All instructions and lessons for both programs are available in 12
different languages.
Pronunciation Power also offers: Introductory English Grammar and
Vocabulary with Color Key. This program uses a unique Color Key to
help you learn and remember the English grammar and vocabulary
that need for basic communication in English. After completing the
Lesson, you can test yourself by trying the exercises for the lesson.
Their score is automatically given when you complete the exercise.
The Idiom program uses memorable and unique pictures and exercises
to aid the student in remembering idioms.
All products are available by CD, download or online membership.

ETA/Cuisenaire
SunSprouts Interactive
Delightful characters, funny stories, and fascinating leveled nonfiction
give K-3 students compelling reasons to read, write and explore text
with SunSprouts Interactive, the literacy software system from
ETA/Cuisenaire. Whether the child is new to English or fluent in the language,
this interactive CD-ROM offers targeted activities that require little
preparation by the teacher, and make it easy to tailor instruction to
proficiency levels. The flexible and engaging program creates a complete
interactive literacy learning station with activities for building comprehension,
fluency, vocabulary skills, and writing. SunSprouts
Interactive focuses on aspects of the English language that are often
difficult for children reading in a second language, including development
of vocabulary awareness, grammatical forms, and idiomatic
expressions. The lessons are filled with alliteration, rhymes, and other
repetitive structures that familiarize ESL students with English.
The program immerses students in developing sight-word recognition
and vocabulary as they follow along while text is read aloud, then
record their own oral reading and play it back to hear their voices.
SunSprouts Interactive also allows students to create and illustrate
original texts that can be “published” and shared. The software
records students’ scores for teacher review, and assessments track
development of literal, inferential, and visual comprehension skills.
Reports can be generated by student or for the entire class. The flexibility
of this program allows teachers to assign specific individual lessons,
or group students with similar skills and needs. SunSprouts
Interactive can be used as a supplemental resource with any reading
program to reinforce skills and track progress.

Franklin Electronic Publishers
12 Language Speaking Global Translator
The Speaking Global Translator contains over 450,000 words (including
335,000 inflections) and 12,000 phrases, and speaks 115,000
words in recorded human voice. Students can translate to and from
English into Chinese (Mandarin), Dutch, French, German, Italian,
Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Students just enter a word in their native language and the device will
speak and show the translation in their language and English. A voice
recording feature allows users to record custom words and phrases.
The spell correction feature finds even misspelled words, and the
seven line screen aids visibility.
Features Include:
■ An MP3 Player to download and play MP3 files to enjoy music and
more while looking up words and phrases
■ Chinese, Japanese and Korean are displayed phonetically using the
Roman alphabet and in Asian characters
■ Organizer, local/world clock, calculator, currency and metric converter
■ Five games
■ USB connection

Global Language Education Services
Online Mini-Courses for Language Teachers
Global Language Education Services (GLES) offers a suite of online
mini-courses that introduce language teachers to innovative instructional
techniques. Each technique is designed to employ authentic materials
in ways that are both engaging and effective. Currently available
mini-courses cover “Movie Talk,” a technique for employing featurelength
movies in beginning and low-intermediate language classrooms;
“Co-Author,” a cyclic pattern of interaction in which a language teacher
guides intermediate students toward more proficient writing in their second
language; and “Reading Club,” a multi-faceted technique for using
authentic materials to boost the reading proficiency of intermediate language
students. All of the techniques covered in GLES mini-courses
are research-based and have been extensively field-tested.
The GLES online mini-courses include discussion boards and optional
hands-on activities that develop mastery of the techniques. Participants
can choose to take these courses in audit mode, which provides access
to materials and discussion boards but no instructor feedback, or graded
mode, which (for an additional fee) offers feedback, evaluation, and certificates
for Continuing Education Units. The mini-courses are offered every
month, and there are special group rates for cohorts.
The GLES online mini-courses were created by Dr. Ashley Hastings,
Professor Emeritus of TESOL (Shenandoah University). Dr. Hastings is
known internationally as the originator of the FOCAL SKILLS approach
to language teaching, and has been a pioneer in the development of
online language teacher training.

MindPlay
FLRT — a Fluent Reading Trainer
MindPlay offers educators working with English Language Learners a
solution that will help students enjoy reading by dramatically improving
their reading fluency rate as they become confident in speaking
and reading English. FLRT — a fluent reading trainer works to
increase reading speed while ensuring comprehension in any student
who can decode. Students conduct a number of technology-driven
activities to train their eyes to read more efficiently. One FLRT activity
trains the eyes to move from left to right and to sweep in one movement
enhancing visual memory, silent reading skills, speed and reading
comprehension.
As students move into reading passages, the stories in the program
are either delivered randomly or they can be selected by teachers. Each
passage is designed to be read in six minutes or less, allowing most
students to complete three stories or more in a class period.
Accompanying questions test 18 different reading comprehension skills.
The program aims to keep students challenged while reading at
their own pace by providing assignments that are individualized to
match each student’s unique abilities. It can be used for classroom
instruction or as remedial help.
FLRT also provides teachers and administrators with easy management
and tracking. Reports can gauge a student or an entire class
performance. Success can be broken down by question type,
improvement statistics from initial testing date to current date, effective
words-per-minute rate, and sight/high-frequency words for students
who are struggling. Reports are available in PDF format so they can be
emailed to parents or they can be printed out in color or grayscale for
improved data visualization.

PhonicsTutor
PhonicsTutor is a research proven, multi-sensory reading method for
all ages and reading settings. Its independent instruction in orthography
enables ESL students to learn to read reflexively and spell accurately
at a rate that keeps pace with the vocabulary and comprehension
they are gaining in English. This performance of a reading program
is amazing considering the ambiguous and extensive orthography
of English. Students who complete the program can pronounce,
read, and spell 93 percent of all words in print, e.g., machinery, prodigious,
picturesque, azure. It covers all patterns of English orthography
that occur at least once in a million words in print.
At TESL ’97 in Toronto, PhonicsTutor was one of only four products
(out of 189 products) that received the designation of “Excellent.” This
computerized Orton-Gillingham program is a synthetic-analytic reading
method that is recognized around the world for its efficacy in the remediation
of dyslexia and for its ability to assist both native and nonnative
speakers of English in learning how to read and spell. The
expanded curriculum includes software, coordinated books, and flashcards,
and provides self-teaching instruction so that ESL/EFL learners
are prepared for the vocabulary and reading expectations of college
and professional careers.

Protea Textware
Issues in English 2
Issues in English 2 is an effective, innovative, and comprehensive software
program for English language and literacy learners. With four levels
from beginning to advanced, students learn a wide range of
English language skills within meaningful contexts. The issues —
Sport, Media, Technology, Fame, Education, Immigration, Wilderness,
and Languages — are relevant and engaging.
The program is content-rich, with over 700 interactive exercises
based on the stimulus videos. These include reading and listening
comprehension, grammar and vocabulary, pronunciation, and writing.

Scientific Learning
Scientific Learning develops software products that increase brain
power—exercising areas of the brain to help it process more efficiently,
the way physical workouts train the body to be more fit and strong.
The products are used in thousands of schools nationwide, helping
ELL, struggling readers and at-risk learners in grades PreK-12. The
Fast ForWord program has proven results in schools throughout the
country, where students have made dramatic and enduring gains in
eight to twelve weeks. The products build on cumulative breakthroughs
in neuroscience research revealing that the human brain can
continue to develop and improve the efficiency of its processing
throughout life. Processing efficiency is how the brain functions to support
learning and intellectual activity, including memory, attention, processing
rate, and sequencing. Scientific Learning Reading Assistant
provides guided oral reading using advanced speech recognition technology
with scientifically-based courseware to help students strengthen
fluency, vocabulary and comprehension to become proficient, lifelong
readers. It provides each student with an active one-on-one reading
tutor that acts as a patient, non-judgmental listener and provides
the much needed reading practice that benefits them. Progress
Tracker is an online accountability tool that allows educators to monitor
student progress and results, and Reading Progress Indicator is an
easy-to-use computerized assessment for quick evaluations of student
performance. When students can process more effectively, all other
learning activities get accomplished more efficiently. It is then the dedication
of teachers and the investment in other learning programs yield
better results. Importantly, students are more motivated to learn and
have better self-esteem.

$100,000 Grant to Help Improve Chinese Language Instruction in America

Last year, Claudia Ross, immediate past president of the Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA), began designing a program to help expand the resources available to Chinese language teachers across America. This summer, after more than a year of planning, Ross and Baozhang He, associate professor of Chinese, in conjunction with CLTA, are ready to launch this initiative.

The 10-day residential workshop, titled “Read On: Training Modules for Literacy in Chinese,” will be held between July 24 and August 4 on the Holy Cross campus. Backed by a $100,000 grant from the federally funded STARTALK 2012 initiative, the program will bring together 16 master teachers of the Chinese language from around the nation.

Over the course of the program, experts in child development and instructors representing grades K-5, 6-8, 9-12, and 13-16 will develop web-based material to be used in Chinese language teacher training programs nationwide.

The workshop’s primary focus will be enhancing literacy among Chinese language students, and the materials developed during the 10-day session will target character recognition and production, and reading comprehension.

“Chinese literacy issues are very complicated because Chinese literacy requires both reading skills and character recognition, says Ross. “Alphabetic languages, including English, and also Russian and Greek, are written using twenty or so letters. But Chinese is written in characters, and there are thousands of characters. You have to learn several thousand characters in order to be able to read basic stories in the newspaper.”

The ability to recognize characters is only part of literacy, however, as students of Chinese then must learn how to read and interpret the characters in a text. The traditional curriculum for teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language focuses on character recognition, typically without providing strategies for efficient memorization, and spends little time on reading strategies. The Read On project aims to address both of these problems.

“There has been little attention to developing and identifying the best practices in teaching people how to read and master characters,” Ross says of the current Chinese language educational landscape. “We are the only STARTALK site that’s doing this kind of work.”

Created by the National Security Language Initiative, STARTALK aims to expand and improve the teaching and learning of strategically important world languages that are not now widely taught in the United States.

The Read On workshop will include lectures and discussion about literacy acquisition and child development, as well as instruction and support in the use of computer-based learning technologies.

Instructors from all four age groups will work as one team for discussion and training sessions to tackle topics like literacy, character storage in the human brain, and software development and usage. The team will also divide into smaller groups to focus on age-specific materials.

Pour toujours, le Canadien!

French Heritage Conference, New York, Nov. 5

The French Heritage Language Program is proud to host its first conference to date, co-organized in partnership with The Cultural Services of The French Embassy, The National Heritage Language Resource Center, Le Lycée Français de New York and The Center for Applied Linguistics.

Gathering renowned research specialists in the fields of bilingual education and Heritage Languages, lending a voice to important actors on the ground from diverse francophone communities, and presenting various educational initiatives currently in place in France and the United States, this conference will examine the richness and diversity of heritage language education and the role of languages and cultures in promoting social cohesion, at school and beyond.

This event is very much about advocacy, demonstrating how multiple disciplines can collaborate, notably through local educational initiatives. Live streaming, recordings, and transcripts of the conference will be available on our website.

Admission is free, please register online

Demand for Portuguese on the Rise

Influx of Portuguese Learners Reveals Hole in Market

As language departments are downsized, or cut altogether in U.S. universities, the demand for Portuguese is growing. Although Portuguese has always been an important world language, it has only recently been recognized as an important language for business and international relations.

The profile of today’s Portuguese student is quite different from the humanities majors, lovers of Brazilian music, or heritage learners of before. Today’s student is interested in Portuguese as a means to get ahead in the business world. Associate Professor of Portuguese at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, Rodolfo Franconi, attributes the increased interest in Brazil to two factors, “One, knowing just Spanish limits them to working in only one side of Latin America and right now, the Brazilian side is becoming more appealing and, two, the growing interest in ‘emerging’ countries on the part of the richest nations, especially U.S. interest in Brazil.”

Other students hope for a cushy expatriate position in a Lusophone metropolis, like São Paulo or Luanda. Dartmouth College Assistant Professor, Carlos Minchillo explains, “The consequence of Brazil’s economic performance in recent years and the future events to be held in Brazil, such as the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games is that we have more students who choose Portuguese for professional reasons. Some of them are even eager to live and work in Brazil.”

While the demand for Portuguese language training continues to grow, so does the demand for materials that teach Portuguese for special purposes, such as business Portuguese. The market has yet to catch up to the influx of Portuguese language learners. Professor Franconi points out that while there is some dynamic material for beginners, more advanced textbooks leave much to be desired, and “Regarding materials for special purposes such as the petroleum industry, just introductory compendiums, reference books and specialized dictionaries are available.”  The lack of adequate intermediate and advanced material leaves a hole in the market that has yet to be filled by publishers. As more students strive toward fluency in Portuguese, the need for new material will also grow.

- Kristal Bivona

 

 

 

 

About the Turkish Language

About the Turkish language

See also: Turkish language

History

The earliest forms of the Turkish language were written in Orkhon script.

During the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Turkish was influenced mainly by Arabic and Persian. The primary writing system was based on Arabic and Persian script. Due to the difficulty of learning the script only about 10% of the Ottoman Turkish population were literate.

However, in 1928, modern Turkey’s hero, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, had changed many things about the Turkish language. He changed the writing system to a Turkish variant of the Latin alphabet (without the letters Q, W or X, and added the letters Ö and Ü from German, Ç from Albanian, Ş from Romanian; and also added the letters Ğ, I, and İ to represent certain sounds which weren’t present in any other Latin-based languages at the time), and replaced many loanwords with older or constructed Turkish words. The change of the writing system heavily benefited Turkey’s youth, and during the 1930s, the literacy rate shot up to 70%. Today, the overall literacy rate is approximately 87%, but the reason for the seemingly low literacy rate (for our time) has to do with personal family matters rather than any difficulty, even though it’s compulsory for all Turks to go to school up to the age of 16, so technically their parents are both breaking the law and depriving their children of a wonderful gift: knowing how to read and write.

Geographic distribution of Turkish

In terms of number of speakers, Turkish is the largest Turkic language in the world, spoken by approximately 100 million people worldwide.

Turkish is the official language of Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and is a recognized minority language in Kosovo and Macedonia.

There are also two million Turcophones in Germany, due to its very large Turkish minority living there; a slightly smaller minority living in Bulgaria; and also over 100,000 living in France, Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, Austria, United States and Uzbekistan. There are also smaller Turkish-speaking minorities living elsewhere, most notably Greece, Russia, Canada and Azerbaijan*.

Dialects

Within Turkey

Standard Turkish is basically the Turkish spoken in Istanbul, which has no particular accent, and is spoken clearly, smoothly and slang words are non-existent.

However, Turkey is a place full of surprises and diversity, and many dialects of Turkish exist. Here are the most common:

• Rumelice, which is spoken by muhajirs in the Rumelian area.
• Edirne, spoken by the inhabitants of Edirne*.
• Doğu, spoken in eastern Turkey, influenced by Azerbaijani.
• Güneydoğu, spoken in southeastern Turkey, heavily influenced by Kurdish.
• Karadeniz / Laz, the former spoken in northern Turkey in areas surrounding the Black Sea, and the latter spoken by Laz people in the same region*.

Outside Turkey

• Karamanlıca – spoken in Greece by Karamanlides, a Greek Orthodox, Turkish-speaking people whose ancestry goes back to central Anatolia.
• Kıbrıs – a dialect of Turkish spoken by Turkish Cypriots.

So yes, there’s a variety of different dialects spoken by Turks, but don’t let that put you off, because most Turks, regardless of whether they speak standard Turkish or a certain dialect, will understand standard Turkish, as it’s the standard for all schools in Turkey and Northern Cyprus.

Learning the language

Many people whose native language is not Turkish complain that Turkish is very hard to learn. Turkish, being an Altaic language, has grammar and vocabulary that is very different from Indo-European languages. Learning Dutch for a Brit or learning Italian for a Romanian is much easier than them learning Turkish. On the other hand, there are similar languages to Turkish such as Mongolian or Kazakh.

Advantages of Turkish (for English)

• There is no pronunciation help next to the word. Because every letter is pronounced the same in every word.
• Turkish is a phonetic language. Learning the alphabet is enough to pronounce the word correctly.
• Once you hear a word, you’ll know where to look in the dictionary.
• There are no dots dividing the word into its syllables or marks indicating a stressed syllable.
• Spelling determines the syllable count and stress.
• There are no inflected forms.
• Turkish nouns have no gender and its verbs are all regular.

Look at a noun and you’ll know all its declensions.

Look at a verb and you’ll know its tense, voice, etc.

• Turkish has no articles.
• You can hardly ever find exceptions in Turkish. Nearly all words obey strict rules.

The benefits of learning Turkish

Approximately 250 million people worldwide speak a Turkic language, Turkish being the most common. However, all Turkic languages have a very high degree of mutual intelligibility, therefore learning Turkish means you can speak to 100 million more people properly, and 150 million more roughly, but still understanding the basic gist of the conversation.

So, 250 million, that’s a lot of people, huh? Doesn’t that sound like good business and marketing opportunities to you? Trust me, Turkic countries aren’t as impoverished as you think. The West’s definition of poor is actually very exaggerated. Many, much poorer countries are still good places to do business. Take Africa, for example. At the moment African countries have the fastest growing mobile market in the world. When entrepreneurs hear news like this, they immediately appreciate Africa’s potential to generate lots of revenue in the mobile phone industry. As for Turkey, it’s richer and in better shape than most African countries, so financially you could do really well there. As a matter of fact, Turkey is a member of the G20, and is the 17th most industrialised country in the world. Turkey’s GDP ranks 17th, and has one of the fastest GDP growth rates in the world. Turkey has a developed services sector; a large, rapidly growing tourism sector; as well as construction, electronics, textiles and automotive industries which are very important to Turkey’s economy. So who says Turkey’s economy is bad?

Turkey and Northern Cyprus are also political hotspots, with many things going on in the Turkish parliament and politics. If you ever have to deal with Turkish or Turkish Cypriot affairs, learning the language would be highly beneficial.

On a much less serious matter, Turkish is a very beautiful-sounding language. Turkey and Northern Cyprus are actually incredibly beautiful places themselves, and are definitely worth visiting, so knowing the local language would be very useful.

Related languages

There are many languages related to Turkish in the Turkic family. Of these, Wikibooks of the following languages are available.

• Azerbaijani
• Mongolian
• Uzbek

• All external links in this article link to the English Wikipedia site.
• Turks don’t refer to southern Cyprus as Kıbrıs Cumhuriyeti (i.e. The Republic of Cyprus), because Turkey, and of course Kuzey Kıbrıs Türk Cumhuriyeti (the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus), are two of the only places in the world which don’t recognize it. Instead, they refer to Southern Cyprus as the Güney Kıbrıs Rum Kesimi (the Greek Side of Southern Cyprus).
  • Turks, particularly Cypriot Turks, find it offensive when you refer to Southern Cyprus as The Republic of Cyprus, because the definition of The Republic of Cyprus takes the entire island into account, including Northern Cyprus.
  • Unlike most languages, when you say the word Kıbrıs, Turks immediately assume you’re talking about Northern Cyprus, so when trying to refer to Southern Cyprus, you must say Güney Kıbrıs (southern Cyprus).
• Quite a few of the new loanwords are now either seldom used or the old equivalents are used as much as the new ones.
• The Azerbaijani language is, like Turkish, a member of the Altaic, more specifically, the Turkic language family, and is therefore extremely similar to Turkish. For example, a Turkish speaker listening to an Azeri conversation, or vice-versa, could probably understand the basic gist of the conversation without having to learn the language of it. Azerbaijani is sometimes even considered as a Turkish dialect.
• Edirne is the westernmost city in Turkey, and is close to the borders of Greece and Bulgaria. Because of this, the Edirne dialect is influenced by Greek and Bulgarian.
• Laz people have their own language called Laz language, which is spoken mainly in Georgia and the Black Sea region of Turkey.
  • Although most non-Laz people in Turkey tend to regard Laz people as all inhabitants of the Black Sea region of Turkey, Laz people prefer to differentiate themselves from the other inhabitants of the area.

Korean Language Throughout the World

Speaking Korean offers you social and business opportunities in the region, but the increasing number of Koreans who are studying English sometimes makes it hard to practice unless you go to the suburbs or rural areas of South Korea.
Compared to other Asian languages of the Northeast Asia region (Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese), this is the easiest to learn, due to the comparatively simple and logical script, the absence of tones, and the large number of borrowed English words.

UPAEP (Universidad Popular Autonoma del Estado de Puebla)

Spanish Immersion Program
The Programa de Inmersión Total en Español para Extranjeros (PITEE) is a linguistic and cultural study abroad program in Puebla, Mexico. The program offers students the opportunity to immerse themselves in Mexican culture for 5 weeks and receive up to 6 credit hours of academic study.

Academic and Cultural Blend
The PITEE ties weekly cultural trips directly into academic study. Trips include such places as Tepoztlán, Mexico City, Cuetzalán, and Veracruz. A highlight of the program is the preparation to successfully participate in a global world by developing a linguistic and cultural mindset from living in Puebla, México for the summer. Classes are based on written and spoken texts addressing a variety of themes that will allow students to approach Mexican culture with ease and experience it to the fullest

Instructional Model
Course methodology ranges from research based on communicative language teaching (CLT) to Content–Based Instruction (CBI) to Styles and Strategies–Based Instruction (SSBI). Language tasks are designed to facilitate language acquisition in a meaningful way through problem–solving, and projects that promote interaction and the negotiation of meaning in and out of the classroom. The PITEE focuses on successful language learning by placing an emphasis on developing an awareness of students’ learning preferences and students’ autonomy.

Click here to find out more!

Spanish for Kids

Language Magazine’s Victoria is setting off for Guatemala today to escort her 7 year old daughter while she takes a Spanish immersion program for kids at CSA Antigua.
We’ll keep you posted with their progress.

Update from Guatemala:
on Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 2:31pm

Valentina is looooooooooooooooving her Spanish classes and her teacher. It is like a playground for learning spanish painting, drawing, cut and pasting. CSA is fabulous. Everyone is so kind, helpful and very professional. The best Spanish school I´ve attended in Antigua, Guatemala. Valentina met her Guatemalan grandmother (abuela) on Sunday

The Guatemalan family we are staying with is great – our accommodations are clean and simple. The hospitality outdoes the luxury, which is what we wanted.

Valentina’s classes are like an art , painting and singing class all in Spanish. Couldn´t be more pleased. Her words after 4 hours of ¨studying´: “when do we go back to my school.”

Victoria and Valentina

English in America

From Austin with love

I questioned whether it was a ludicrously fortunate coincidence or simply my consistent failure to remember that this is a city of musical diversity; but with no sign of any answers other than “just be grateful,” I was still ecstatic to learn that Austin’s finest The Black Angels were to charm Manhattan with their wondrous Texan psychedelia on the days either side of my birthday. By an additional token of convenience, it turned out that both of these shows were as easily accessible to me as I would have desired, the second of which was dubbed “A Secret Show” — predictably not so secret once word got out, but equally exciting all the same.

The venue was as cavernous and cryptic as necessary, and looking around at the beards and ponchos I tried to shift every ounce of familiarity I had with this band (and city) into perspective. I was there to listen to music I knew and loved, with lyrics that had implanted themselves into my head on a bed of London concert memories, but the atmosphere was entirely different. Could it be possible that with differing nations comes an alternate interpretation of lyrics? Or was this crowd just wholly more serious? I had certainly spent time admiring the lyrical ingenuity of Alex Maas and Co. with their accompanying 60s inspired drones and echoes, but living in a place so far away from the visions behind these words, it seemed almost impossible for me to turn this music into something tangible, let alone a lifestyle.

So there I was, in an atmospheric hybrid of the Wild West and a sinking pirate ship, with adoring fans singing “Fire for the hills, pick up your feet and let’s go!” with such burning passion that the room felt like it was on the brink of a rum-fuelled canon brawl; when it became obvious that there was more than one performance happening here. Evidently the band held the fort, but in return the audience were bringing the lyrics to life as an alliance, doing their best to re-create the musical imagery with choice items of leather clothing and pseudo-tribal attitudes.

Despite feeling slightly like I had been thrown into another dimension, it was probably the most musically enriching two hours of my life. Albums that I had listened to repeatedly on the other side of the Atlantic were transformed into something physical by the dedication of this entire following, and it was actually in reach. It seemed like these people, (rumoured to frequent certain Brooklyn haunts in between visits from rugged Texans) were creating a movement right there in front of me.

The Black Angels, practically straight out of the desert, had brought their 60s revival to the North East and they had been met with a mass of people ready to start a full-on revolution – one in which language was a key component. Speaking to some fellow devotees, I learnt that like the teachings of an ancient scripture, songs “First Vietnamese War” and “Entrance Song” had been adopted as rose-tinted life mantras. I noticed one girl throwing her arms in the air and screaming praise in such an evangelical manner that, after “…we can’t live if we’re too afraid to die…”, I wondered if we were the beginning of a ‘First Psychedelic Church of The Black Angels’ – and to think, all this from what started as a few words in the mind of a hipster. It was unique, the world outside was a distant blur and we were comfortably trapped in a musical time warp that could never be repeated. Two states had merged into one on a catalyst of perfectly paired words and musical notes and with this, history had been made.

References:

www.theblackangels.com

 

Athina Kontos is writer/photographer from the UK spending the summer in New York