Gender of Success

Article: She-Lawyers and Other Improbable Creatures

Source: http://www.thenation.com/article/she-lawyers-and-other-improbable-creatures

Check out this great article!

A few of my favorite pieces from the article...

"we are still not able to think about women who attain certain kinds of professional success as normatively gendered"

"success itself is masculinized"

"Similarly, there is research to suggest that even races are gendered in our culture. Psychologist Phillip Atiba Goff has done studies showing that blackness tends to be hypermasculinized while Asian-ness tends to be hyperfeminized."

What can we do to remedy these stereotypes?

Turkish... A Universal Language?

Last week, Begum mentioned that she does not feel so bad when indigenous languages die out due to the rising influence of the Turkish language. Well, it appears that Turkish is indeed a strong language right now, “universal” even.

What indicators support the importance of the Turkish language? This year, 750 students from 120 nations will participate in the International Turkish Olympiads. The sheer numbers indicated that Turkish has become a “universal” and global language that unifies people. The slogan chosen for this year’s competition – “we speak the same language” – emphasizes the unifying nature of Turkish. In connection to other readings from this quarter, I noticed that countries have deep pride and honor attached to the spread of their language. Turkey certainly follows suit.

What has helped Turkish spread globally? The increase in Turkish schools worldwide, thus more widespread teaching of the language, is just one of the factors. Turkey has gained more attention over the last few years as the debate about its possible EU citizenship status has heated up. Furthermore, Turkey’s geographic and economic position has captured the interests of officials in national security.

I did not know much about the Turkish language, but my Russian teacher has really encouraged me to consider studying Turkish, so I did more research online about the language itself. There are approximately 70 million Turkish speakers worldwide. The language has roots in Central Asia (roots date back to 1,200 years). Turkish spread due to the influence of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkish is definitely a language whose spread I look forward to observing.

Article: Turkish now ‘universal’ language, TDK head Akalın says

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-210870-101-turkish-now-universal-language-tdk-head-akalin-says.html

Article: The Rise of the Turkish Language

Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/education-articles/the-rise-of-the-turkish-language-329329.html

The New Language of Love?

When you hear the phrase “language of love,” you probably associate that with French or another Romance language. Those languages are known for their pleasant sounds. In an article that I read recently, “language of love” means something else.

As we have discussed in class, South Korea has a big appetite for languages. In 2006 alone, Koreans spent close to $16 billion on English-language tutors. Koreans want to learn English to succeed in the business world.

Young male expats, however, are learning Korean to meet Korean girls. Language exchange websites are now used for dating, not just for learning Korean. American men are engaging in language exchanges with young Korean women. There are 22,000 foreigners teachers English in South Korea and they are having no problems finding Korean study partners.

Are they even learning Korean in the process? One of the men interviewed for the article said he had not even learned Hangul (the Korean alphabet).

And in case you are curious where you can have a Korean study session yourself, the websites included in the article were: hanlingo.com, mylanguageexchange.com, and iaminkorea.com. You can make a profile and see the profiles of other members looking for language and love.

I find this phenomenon pretty funny because I first heard about it at Stanford. My friends who study Korean here said that half of their classmates are in the class because they want to communicate with their girlfriends. Also, when I was in high school, I observed that many Americans wanted to learn Korean. We had a sizeable contingent of international students from Korea. My Korean roommate taught me “sahranhey” and “anyung” along with other phrases. Many Koreans I know love teaching Americans to speak Korean and I guess Americans want to not only learn the language, but find a Korean date too!

Article: Speak Korean, the language of love

Source: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/south-korea/100506/learn-korean-language-dating-expat-life

Article: English Is The Golden Tongue for S. Koreans

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/01/AR2007070101259.html

Children's Language Development ... Additional Resources

Newsweek wrote about the Dutch study that I mentioned last week.

See their report here: http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/639135.html

Also, a great site about children's language development: http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/thebasics_speechandlanguage.asp

The site has a great timeline of speech and language development.

"The most intensive period in speech and language development is during the first three years of life. Research has shown that by the time they are six months old, most children already recognize the basic sounds of their native language." That's amazing!

How to Sell to a Female Customer

If men are from Mars and women are from Venus… then of course they speak different languages! I read two articles that focused on the ramifications of these “language” differences in the retail world. To succeed in retail, salespeople need to tailor their pitch to the gender of the customer.

While women like to tell stories and provide many details (use 25,00 words daily), men prefer “sound bites” and a faster, more concrete bottom line (use 12,500 words daily). Not surprisingly, each is frustrated when the other tells a story in the undesired format. So, men must remember to give women more details, whereas women must remember to state the bottom line as soon as possible. Prone to elaboration, women can also recall more nuances, the “fine points,” than men. Women are better listeners and analyze discourse more carefully. Women gather a lot more information before making a purchase – they seek to make an informed decision by evaluating several opinions. However, once a woman makes up her mind, she usually stays loyal to the brand. Men hold eye contact for 9 seconds less than woman do (average of 12 seconds for women, 3 seconds for men). Women need to know that men and listening and eye contact facilitates that goal. Moreover, women care whether a place or item is polished or tidy, whereas men do not care as much about looks. These are all tendencies that we should keep in mind when speaking with customers.

The funniest tip was this one: “Another point to be taken care of is, it's not a good idea to have a woman salesperson when a male client is to be handled. Women talk a lot and men are bad listeners. The woman salesperson will go on and on about the product and the man will just nod his head without getting any meaning out of it.” This observation is definitely stereotypical, but I have seen it in action!

I would like to explore the differences between marketing to men and to women in more depth.

Also, do women in more male-dominated professions tend to talk more like men (and vice versa)?

Article: Do Men And Women Speak A Different Language?

Source: http://www.tirereview.com/Article/73778/do_men_and_women_speak_a_different_language.aspx

Article: Selling to a Woman vs Selling to a Man

Source: http://profitableblog.com/index.php/internet-sales/50-selling-to-a-woman-vs-selling-to-a-man

The End of "Mothernese" ?

In Tuesday’s class, we talked briefly about the use of “mothernese” or “baby talk.” Most families adopt a unique lexicon to communicate with their children. However, a new study from Dutch researcher Lotte Henrichs has stressed influence of how adults approach their children. Specifically, it is important that adults use “academic language” when communicating to kids aged 3 to 6 years old to help with language acquisition. The study followed 150 children from the Netherlands, ages 3 to 6 years old.

What exactly is “academic language?” Academic language is used by teachers for instructions and teaching. Characterized by abstract words and complex sentence structures, academic language can be significantly harder to understand for students used to simpler words and sentences. Researcher Henrichs has shown that such language is used as early as nursery school.

In class, Professor Boroditsky mentioned that in some Native American communities, children are not spoken to until they can carry on an adult population. On the other hand, in some American households, mothers use “mothernese” and silly language with their kids, adoring anything that their child says.

According to Henrichs, children who were given the opportunity to “make meaningful contributions to conversations” often “use characteristics of academic language proficiency naturally.” Other factors, such as parents’ reading to children and engaging in conversations about specific subjects also have an impact on the development of “academic language.”

What implications do these findings have? Perhaps we should start using proper language with children instead of using incredibly simple or “baby” language. Today’s newspapers, paperwork, and other written documents are incredibly complex and convoluted. We should expose children to abstract words and complex sentences earlier on in order to facilitate their comprehension skills.

Article: Talking seriously with children is good for their language proficiency

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news192907116.html

Chinese -- It's Got the Power!

Is this a clue on which languages “matter”? The College Board dropped the AP Italian exam from its slate of AP Language Placement exams in January 2009. The recent removal of the AP Italian exam is just one sign of Italian’s waning influence. When the Italian AP exam program launched in September 2003, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi flew to New York and several Italian cultural groups donated funds. However, even with all of the investment put into the exam, it still “incurred losses of $1.5 million a year.” The funds did help enroll more students for Italian, but not enough to sustain the program.

So which languages have better endowments and prospects? Not surprisingly, Chinese is amongst the most promising ones. The Chinese government and several private organizations have committed $30 million (not a typo – $30 million USD) to fund Chinese teacher recruitment. Dr. Cuomo claims that this is “not an equitable situation for teachers of Italian,” yet should every language have to carry equal weight? From our discussions in class, we already see that several languages carry more clout than others.

Let’s return to a discussion of how Chinese language learning is becoming more widespread in the United States. According to a recent article from the New York Times’ Education section, there are about 325 Chinese guest teachers who “have volunteered to work up to three years in American schools, with their salaries subsidized by the Chinese government” as the result of a partnership between China’s Education Ministry and the College Board. The claim is that “China wants to teach the world its language and culture.” In return, there are about 2,000 American school administrators in China… at Beijing’s expense. Although the exchange is not balanced, each country is getting a better glimpse of the other’s culture.

The cultural exchange is certainly acting in both directions. Chinese teacher Ms. Zheng is learning from her American students, whom she feels lead more interesting lives than Chinese students, who “study and study and study.” Furthermore, some of the Chinese teachers are trying to adjust to the informality of American schools and the diminished respect that students have for teachers. In some ways, when I was reading the article, I felt that American students were being called “rude,” yet perhaps that was more of a comment on the informality of the classroom setting than on the students themselves. As Chinese teachers continue to enter the United States to teach the culture and language of their homeland, will they change the nature of the classroom? Language – it’s got the power!

Article: Italian Job: Resurrect the AP Exam
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703674704575234232176866638.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsForth

Article: Guest-Teaching Chinese, and Learning America

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/education/10teacher.html

Accents in Arizona

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer recently signed a controversial law against illegal immigration. One repercussion of this law is that the state education department has decided to move around teachers who speak accented English. The officials in the state education department claim that teachers whose spoken English is heavily accented or ungrammatical should be removed from classes where students are still learning English in order to provide better instruction for ESL learners. Ironically, in the 1990s, Arizona sought bilingual teachers for its bilingual-education program and actually recruited teachers from Latin America. With today’s rising anti-immigrant sentiment, the feelings towards bilingual education in Arizona have changed.

First, I do not believe that the law is indicative of the wants of the students and their families. As indicated by the statistics provided in the WSJ article, 46% of kindergarten to second-grade students are ESL learners. Some of those students come from homes that wish to preserve the native tongue, a trend that we have discussed in depth in class. Those families might want their kids to keep their accents (and their heritage).

Second, I wholeheartedly agree with Luis Tavarez, who claimed that: “It doesn’t matter to me what the accent is; what matters is if my children are learning.” As indicated in the statistics, by high school, only 14% of the students are ESL learners. Eventually, as immigrants spend more time in the United States, they learn English. Furthermore, the argument that non-accented teachers should be placed in ESL teachers because they have better grammar is not supported by my observations. I had many teachers in Brooklyn who were native-born but did not use proper grammar. Student achievement should be the measure of success of ESL classes, not whether or not the students have un-accented English.

Third, teachers with accents might actually benefit students who are learning a second-language. According to a recently released Israeli study – from the University of Haifa – students who are learning a second-language benefit from instruction by a teacher with the same accent that they have. The reason for this pattern is that students need to concentrate a lot more to understand English in a different accent than the one they are used to. I see this apply to my own family; my mom can fully understand Russians who speak English but cannot understand Dominicans who speak English. In addition to requiring a lesser degree of concentration to learn a new subject, teachers with accents due to their origin might better understand the cultures of the students and thus be able to relate to them. Such a connection is surely critical to a student’s feeling comfortable in the classroom.

Personally, as both an immigrant and a former ESL-student, I find the language debate in Arizona ridiculous. Accents are natural; everyone has an accent. To start filtering people based on their accents is a drastic step; what next – refuse to hire workers who are capable but have an accent? Yet that already happens…

I think that achievement and skills should be the basis of hiring decisions, not accent or background. This notion is already backed by anti-discrimination laws, so why is it so hard to enforce? I would love to discuss this further in class.

Article: Arizona Grades Teachers on Fluency

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572504575213883276427528.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

Article: Accented teachers may be better for English language learners: stud

Source: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/learning/accented-teachers-may-be-bette.html

Article: Putting the “accent” on language perception

Source: http://www.israel21c.org/201003077751/culture/putting-the-accent-on-language-perception

French Language Pedagogy & Endangered Languages Find a Home in NYC

Article: Valette Honored with Gold Medal for Promotion of French Language, Culture

Source: http://www.bc.edu/publications/chronicle/TopstoriesNewFeatures/news/vallette042910.html

I was very pleased to learn that Professor Emerita Rebecca Valette of Boston College received a gold medal for the promotion of French language and culture from La Renaissance Française, a French non-profit organization. I feel personally indebted to her work because I used the textbooks that she wrote throughout my junior high school and high school French classes – the Discovering French series is forever embedded in my mind. Professor Valette was only one of two honorees to receive La Médaille d'Or de la Renaissance Française – her contributions have truly been exceptional.

She has undoubtedly played a key role in French language pedagogy and even served as president of the American Association of Teachers of French. Overall, it is wonderful to think of what a big impact one person has had on French in the United States.

French is the second-most widely taught language in the United States (after Spanish, but followed by German, Latin, Mandarin Chinese, etc.). In the United States, language teaching is most emphasized in junior high school and high school; I would like to learn more about the formalities and techniques used to teach a language. I was interested in the publication “Foreign Language Teaching in U.S. Schools: Results of a National Survey” but I could not order it. However, it seems like a good overview of language pedagogy in the Untied States. See the publication here: http://www.cal.org/resources/pubs/fl_teaching.html. In my Spanish 1 class, I have noticed that there is a major emphasis on immersion and lots of exposure to Spanish culture (through music videos, magazine articles, and stories).

Article: Listening to (and Saving) the World’s Languages

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/nyregion/29lost.html?pagewanted=1

As a New Yorker, I was also proud of my city for its linguistic diversity! According to a recent New York Times article, there are more than 800 languages spoken in NYC and 176 of them are spoken in NYC’s public schools (Queens is most diverse).

It is amazing that New York City has become the safe haven for some of the world’s endangered languages. I find this phenomenon to be very typical of New York City – because the city is so accepting and intense, people’s identities are amplified (as are their linguistic roots). Professor Kaufman of CUNY has helped start the Endangered Language Alliance to identify and record dying languages. The website is great; check it out at http://endangeredlanguagealliance.org/main/. Also, I think the directors have interesting backgrounds. If you are interested, you can find it here: http://endangeredlanguagealliance.org/main/directors.

Robert Holman, a teacher at Columbia, had a great quote that I wholeheartedly agree with: “It’s not like putting jelly in a jar. A language is used. Language is consciousness. Everybody wants to speak English, but those lullabies that allow you to go to sleep at night and dream — that’s what we’re talking about.”

Indeed, it was due to my confusion about the language of my dreams that spurred my initial interest in languages. Why was I speaking in English during the day but dreaming in Ukrainian?

I look forward to learning more about projects that Professor Kaufman is involved with; maybe I will be able to visit this summer.

There’s a great video associated with the article; you can watch it here: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/land-of-lonely-tongues/.