Year 4
Number
94
December 29th
2002
4400 SHARERS are reading this issue of SHARE this week
__________________________________________________________
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single
candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never
decreases by being SHARED
__________________________________________________________
Dear SHARERS,
Today we are
sending you our last issue of 2002. No doubt this year was for us and for
everybody in our country a very hard one. I have always thought that it is
precisely in these hardest of times, when your strength is really challenged and
tested, that we can really see who our real friends are, how much a good family
is worth and where people around us place their priorities. I am not very good
at political analysis (Omar´s much better at this, I think) but I can tell you
how happy I am as a mother that we have gone through the first anniversary of
20th December 2001 without major or minor conflicts in the streets,
that nobody was hurt, that everybody could express their opinion freely. I was
scared, as many other people in our country were, that the worst might happen.
It didn´t and now I´m relieved. I said I was no political analyst but I´m no
fool either. I know problems are far from solved and that it will take us all
many years of sweat and tears to repair the damage that a whole generation of
corrupt administrators have
inflicted on our people.
At home we think
we have a very effective recipe to face a time of misery and crisis : To keep
your head up and as Robert Fulghum would say : “It´s best to hold hands and
stick together”
If you are willing
to, you will always find Omar and I ready to stick together with you.
May
God give us all a wonderful 2003
Omar and
Marina
In SHARE
94
1.-
Metacognition and its development.
2.-
Piaget and Vygotsky in Heaven.
3.-
Happy New Year! Nothing to Fear.
4.-
El Origen del Lenguaje.
5.-
Position Vacant.
6.-
26th of December: Boxing Day.
7.-
Segundo Encuentro de Gramática Generativa.
8.-
Summer Course at T.S.Eliot Institute.
9.-
The Ig Nobel Prizes (second round).
10.- Welcome
2003 with Bluesberry Jam.
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1.-
METACOGNITION AND ITS DEVELOPMENT
Our
dear SHARER and friend Professor Douglas Town has sent us this article that we
are honoured to SHARE with you. Professor Town halds a BSc in Psychology and an
MA in English Language Teaching as well as a postgraduate Diploma in English and
Spanish translation. Douglas Town holds workshops and private classes in Paper
and Thesis Writing, Research Methods,The Psychology of Learning (Multiple
Intelligences, Cognitive Approaches to Language Learning etc.) Teaching and Language Upgrades. Tel.
4328-5285. douglasandrewtown@yahoo.es
Metacognition and its development
Being aware of our thinking as we perform a specific task and then using
this awareness to control what we are doing is commonly known in thinking skills
literature as "metacognition". More recently, the term "metacognitive approach"
has been applied to strategy training aimed at teaching EFL students consciously
to plan, monitor and evaluate their own learning and to analyse the different
stages of a task in order to choose appropriate problem-solving strategies (see
Robbins 2002). The purpose of this article is to provide some theoretical
insights into the nature of metacognition and to outline additional ways of
supporting students' metacognitive development.
Metacognitive skills and metacognitive
knowledge
A clear distinction is generally made between metacognitive skills and
metacognitive knowledge. Metacognitive skills develop initially out of
self-correcting activities in domain-specific learning (Bruner 1986 quoted in
Von Wright 1992; 64) as children gradually learn to anticipate chains of events
and compare alternative procedures or mentally correct an action plan before
acting. Although these actions are often intentional - i.e. purposeful and
directed towards conscious goals - (Von Wright 1992:61), most children
nevertheless have difficulty in reflecting on their own intentions and seeing
their goals as choices that exist among a number of alternative goals.
Metacognitive skills improve task performance, but the choice of task remains
largely predetermined by unconscious (or external) factors. Voluntary action
depends on metacognitive knowledge, which results from introspection or
self-reflection.
The emergence of conscious control
In order to understand how people come to gain control over their
actions, we need to understand how self-knowledge and the ability to reflect on
one's own behaviour emerge. It is here that computer-based models of cognition,
which support much work on cognitive strategies, break down (since computers
cannot be said to be 'conscious" of what they do) and that we must turn to
social constructivist accounts of cognitive and emotional development for a
theoretical explanation. Social constructivism starts from the notion that
individual minds are constructed out of social interactions and social meanings.
We shall return to the practical implications of this point
later.
Vygotsky's (1978) theory of cognitive development is well known. Briefly,
it states that the L1 linguistic system is at the root of all higher cognitive
functions. Firstly, language frees the child from the stimulus-bound stage of
natural perception. By using verbal labelling, the child singles out separate
elements and forms "new (artificially introduced and dynamic) structural
centres" which can be re-synthesised into new concepts (1978:32). Later,
language acts as a cognitive barrier in problem solving, mediating between the
presentation of the task and the child's final response. (By contrast, children
with so-called 'attention deficit disorder', or ADD, seem to possess little
ability to delay their responses). In short, problem solving is first effected
through "ego-centric speech" (the child talks to himself or herself) and later,
around the age of five, this is replaced by inner speech (reflections)
(1986:30). Once egocentric speech has become thus internalised, the child is
able to focus consciously on cognitive processes such as memory and to bring
them under increasingly greater conscious control
(1986:170).
However, as Von Wright (1992:61) points out, a crucial step towards
greater expertise in self-reflection is the development of the concept of self.
The concept of self is a social construct that we acquire by being treated as a
self by others. In G H Mead's (1934) words: "self-consciousness involves the
individual's becoming an object to himself by taking the attitudes of other
individuals towards himself within an organised setting of social relationships,
and ... unless the individual had thus become an object to himself, he would not
be self-conscious or have a self at all" (quoted in Von Wright 1992:61). This
suggests that individuals with a poorly developed or confused self-concept will
lack insight into their own intentions, motives and intellectual functions, and
that development of metacognitive awareness in later life may ultimately depend
on early social conditioning. My own (unpublished) replication study based on
Rosenberg (1979) found that self-esteem, rather than age, determined teenagers'
and young adults' ability to focus on their psychological "inner worlds", set
realistic goals outside the classroom, follow them through, evaluate the results
and learn from their mistakes.
The fallibility of metacognitive
knowledge
Conventional analyses usually divide metacognitive knowledge into
knowledge concerning person, task and strategy variables (Von Wright 1992:64).
Thus, Marzano et al (1988) list the various types of knowledge that are
important to metacognition as: (a) executive control, which evaluates current
state of knowledge; (b) declarative knowledge, which is being conscious of the
facts surrounding a situation; (c) conditional knowledge which describes why a
strategy works; (d) procedural knowledge, which has to do with various actions
performed in a task. However, knowing when, how and why to use a particular
strategy in an objective, factual sense does not guarantee that it will be used.
This knowledge only counts as metacognitive knowledge when it is spontaneously
integrated with awareness of our thinking on a specific task and when we use
this awareness to control what we are doing (cited in Harrison
1991:37).
The value of Von Wright's emphasis on self-knowledge, I believe, is that
it emphasises the subjective basis of metacognitive knowledge. Metacognitive
knowledge includes conscious knowledge of one's actions, intentions and motives,
and also of one's intellectual functions. The latter "creates conditions for a
wider application of specific competences and learned rules" (Von Wright
1992:62) by integrating information which previously belonged to separate
cognitive systems (transfer of learning). But, like any other type of
self-knowledge, it is fallible.
Metacognitive strategies
How, then, do metacognitive strategies such as planning, monitoring and
evaluating one's own learning evolve? According to Vygotsky (1968:168) " in
order to subject a function to intellectual and volitional control, we must
first possess it". In other words, self-reflection will develop first as a skill
before it can be used as a series of consciously controlled strategies. We have
already noted the role played by language and social relationships in the
emergence of these processes. The emphasis on social interaction as a condition
for the training of reflective skills is today shared by most approaches to
instruction (Von Wright 1991:66). Reciprocal (peer) teaching, for example,
forces the "teacher" to use a whole series of metacognitive processes such as
determining what the learner already knows, deciding what is to be taught/learnt
and how; monitoring comprehension and evaluating the outcome in terms of
increased comprehension, which in turn encourage the "teacher" to reflect upon
his or her own thinking processes (ibid). In social constructivist terms,
metacognitive processes begin as social processes and gradually become
"internalised".
Some practical implications
The effective use of metacognitive strategies is one of the primary
differences between more and less able learners and students need to be taught
such strategies through direct instruction, modelling, and practice. Robbins has
already provided an excellent bibliography for the CALLA approach to strategy
training in SHARE 90. Perhaps the main implication of this article is that
instruction is more likely to produce permanent results in students with (1)
high self-esteem (the basis of accurate metacognitive knowledge) and (2)
extensive experience of peer teaching and assessment (resulting in a broader
range of metacognitive skills).
Assessing students' self-esteem
Recent empirical research in developmental and educational psychology
strongly supports a multifaceted view of self-concept, which distinguishes
academic self-concept from physical self-concept, and so on. The clearest
example of measures based on this view is Marsh's (1992) "Self-Description
Questionnaire I, II, or III" for ages seven to young adult. Other widely used
measures, such as Fitts' (1991) "Tennessee Self Concept Scale", stress the
distinctiveness of various self-concept facets but place global self-concept at
the top of the hierarchy. Unfortunately, such instruments are expensive and
generally available only to trained psychologists. However, interested readers
can find a test of global self-concept at:
http://literacy.kent.edu/Midwest/Resc/Kansas/psassessment.html. This contains
(1) a self and tutor rating scale, (2) a checklist for identifying difficult
daily living situations and (3) a tutor observation checklist. Please note,
however, that teachers without training in counselling should not try to offer
therapy and that these scales are not designed for children.
Enhancing students' self-esteem
One effective way of enhancing students' self-esteem and academic
achievement is adventure education. In a meta-analysis of ninety-six studies of
adventure education, Hattie, et al. (1997) categorized the benefits of adventure
studies into six broad outcomes: leadership, self-concept, academic achievement,
personality, interpersonal relations and adventuresomeness. All of the outcomes
except adventuresomeness maintained effects over time. Positive change is
thought to take place because participation in problem-solving tasks challenges
self-imposed limits, leading to improvements in relationships with others and
self-concept.
On a day-to-day basis, variations on Circle Time have been used at most
levels of education for enhancing students' general and academic self-esteem by
challenging limiting beliefs and fostering awareness of multiple options.
Hillyard (2002), a firm proponent of the metacognitive approach in bilingual
education in Argentina, claims that not only children but also adolescents find
whole-class discussions of this type highly
rewarding.
Peer teaching and peer assessment
Peer teaching may involve learners of different ages or of the same age.
Although not exclusively an experiment in peer teaching, the University of
Dundee's paired reading project has shown the value of support from more able
readers (teachers, parents, other adults or older children) in developing
reading and thinking skills among primary school children. Interestingly, it was
the least able children (both tutors and tutees) that benefited most from this
activity. The corresponding web page http://www.dundee.ac.uk/psychology/ReadOn/
also contains links to other articles on peer teaching.
Group projects are another obvious activity for promoting planning,
monitoring and evaluation through peer teaching, especially among older
children. Books such as "Project Work" by Diana L. Fried-Booth (O.U.P.) - which
also contains a project in which adult EFL students teach primary school
children - provide valuable advice and worksheets for teacher, group and
individual reviews.
Self-evaluation is a difficult strategy to acquire, partly because it
often comes at the end of a project or task when learners have run out of time,
interest or both, partly because it often involves comparing oneself with
others, a strategy recommended by Oxford (1990: 163) but which is potentially
threatening to learners with low self-esteem. Nevertheless, many ELT textbooks
contain reading and writing activities (e.g. jigsaw reading; assessing other
students' drafts) in which learners teach one another and receive peer feedback
on their understanding or performance. A non-threatening and on-going method of
peer assessment and awareness raising in oral skills, which comes with a
rationale and materials, can be found at
http://www.finchpark.com/courses/assess/oralpeer02.htm Finally, games can also
include informal peer teaching and evaluation. One of my own can be found at
http://www.eslcafe.com/ideas/sefer.cgi?display:989526399-5862.txt
Conclusion
Metacognitive strategy training enhances learning inside and outside the
classroom but many students have difficulty in using this approach once there is
no longer a reminder to do so. Within a social-constructivist perspective,
metacognitive skills and metacognitive knowledge, including a realistic
self-concept, develop through social interaction and are then internalised. The
key to more effective metacognitive strategy training would seem to be through
simultaneous training in social strategies together with social learning tasks.
The latter may serve to reduce or eliminate negative aspects of an individual's
self-concept such as learned helplessness, negative self-labels,
competitiveness, perfectionism etc., which prevent realistic and effective
goal-setting, planning, attending, monitoring or evaluating in real life
contexts.
References
Fried-Booth, D. L. (1986). Project Work. Oxford:
O.U.P.
Harrison, C.J. (1991). 'Metacognition and motivation'. Reading
Improvement. Vol. 28. No. 1 35-38.
Hattie, J.; Marsh, H. W.; Neill, J. T. & Richards, G. E. (1997).
Adventure education and Outward Bound: Out-of-class experiences that make a
lasting difference. Review of Educational Research, 67,
43-87.
Hillyard, S. (2002). Personal Communication (interview regarding on-going
investigation at Wellspring School, Buenos Aires).
Oxford, R. (1990). Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher
Should Know. Boston MA.: Heinle and Heinle
Publishers.
Robbins, J.A. (2002). http://jillrobbins.com/articles/LSIrobbins.html
(visited Dec.13 2002)
Von Wright, J. (1992). 'Reflections on reflection'. Learning and
Instruction. Vol. 2. 59-68
Vygotsky, L.S. (1975). Mind in society. The development of higher
psychological processes. Cambridge MA.: Harvard University
Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge MA.: MIT
Press.
Professor Town has worked for many years as an academic consultant and
ESP teacher in Spain. He has also taught English for Academic Purposes at
Manchester University and is currently living in Buenos Aires where he has
recently given seminars on Academic Writing and Contrastive Linguistics at the
University of Belgrano.
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2.- PIAGET AND
VYGOSTSKY IN HEAVEN
Our dear SHARER Cristina Mullet has sent us this “dialogue” between Jean
Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. The scene is set in Heaven were Vygotsky and Piaget
meet to discuss their two different kinds of Constructivism.
The dialogue was written by Cristina Mullet, Nylia Monté, Mónica
Vizzolini and Viviana Carbajal at Instituto Nacional del Profsorado de la
Universidad Tecnológica Nacional.
Piaget: Lev, look down there... all those people are talking about
us.
Vygostsky: Oh, those good old days of intellectual debate. You know? My
friends used to call me " little professor" when I was 15, because I always
generated intellectual discussions among my friends. By the way... I still think
that learning leads development.
Piaget: I must say that I don't see eye to eye with you in that issue.
From my point of view it is development what leads
learning.
Vygostsky: But my dear Jean, what about my concepts of zone of proximal
development and mediation? They are social in
essence!
Piaget: I'm afraid I am not acquainted with those
concepts.
Vygostsky: Oh, it will be my pleasure to enlighten you with them... Let
me see ... where shall I begin? Ah! By the zone of proximal development, a key
concept in my theory. Each child, in any domain, has an actual developmental
level and an immediate potential for development within that domain. I labeled
this difference between the two levels the zone of proximal development... that
is to say that the zone of proximal development is the distance between the
actual developmental level, as determined by independent problem solving, and
the level of potential development, as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in
collaboration with move capable peers.
Piaget: Very interesting, my dear friend. And what about the concept
of... how did you call it? Mediation?
Vygostsky: Well... this concept is in close connection with the previous
one. How can I put it? The concept of zone of proximal development integrates
key elements of my theory: the emphasis I gave to social activity and cultural
practice as sources of thinking, the importance of mediation in human
psychological functioning, the centrality of pedagogy in development and the
inseparability of the individual from the social. We humans use cultural signs
and tools such as speech, literacy, mathematics, etc, etc, etc.... to mediate
our interactions with each other and our surroundings. I have always been
interested in how knowledge is transmitted from the culture to the child. You
see? In the end, everything is social.
Piaget: How dare you say that? What about maturation and heredity? No, my
dear friend! There is no direct transmission, it is the learner who constructs
knowledge...Ok...Ok... I agree with you in the fact that social factors are
important... but only to influence individual disequilibration through cognitive
conflict... I remind you development leads
learning!
Vygostsky: Disequilibration? What are you talking
about?
Piaget: "Disequilibrium is a state of cognitive conflict that takes place
when someone expects something to happen in a certain way and it does
not.
Vygostsky: And how do you solve this
disequilibrium?
Piaget: Well... there are two more concepts that I have to mention in
connection to this: assimilation and accommodation. Disequilibrium is a state of
imbalance between assimilation and accommodation that activates the process of
equilibration. You see? The organism constantly strives for
equilibrium.
Equilibration is the regulator that allows new experience to be
successfully incorporated into schemata.
Vygostsky: Incorporated into what?
Piaget: Into schemata. Schemata can be simply thought of as concepts or
categories. They are intellectual
structures that organize events as they are perceived and classified into
groups according to common characteristics . And, you know? Schemata never stop
changing or becoming more refined. You see? From my point of view, knowledge is
a construction resulting from the child's actions. I believe there is no direct
transmission of knowledge from adult to child, my
friend.
Vygostsky: Well...my friend, I take your point when you say that the
child is active when he constructs knowledge, but I must say that I do believe
in direct transmission from the culture to the child. In fact; that is one of
the axes of my theory. For me, humans are internalized culture. The construction
of knowledge is always mediated by external social factors. Actually, the social
environment is the source of models of what constructions should look like. What
is more, even the acquisition of language depends on the social environment. And
this acquisition of language results in intellectual
development.
Piaget: Well, again I disagree with you. In my humble opinion language
does not produce intellectual development; it reflects it. Language is one of
the manifestations of the symbolic function. You see? We don't agree on
everything, but after this interesting intellectual debate I must say that I
have come to the conclusion that there are some issues in which both of our
points of view coincide. Don't you think so?
Vygostsky: Oh, yes! It's been so enriching to discuss these things with
you! But, you know? After all this chatter I'm starting to get
hungry.
Piaget: Me too. Shall we go to Heaven's pub? It's over there, on cloud
number nine.
Vygostsky: Great idea, my friend! Let's
go.
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3.- HAPPY NEW YEAR! NOTHING TO
FEAR
Our dear friend and SHARER Bethina Viale sends us this story with “ Lots
of Love” and her best wishes for a Happy New Year.
NOTHING TO FEAR
When I think about New Year's Eve, I think about pots and pans. Not for
cooking. For banging and clanging
and raising a ruckus. It was a tradition at our house, as much a part of our
annual New Year's Eve celebration as the non-alcoholic "champagne" we drank to
toast the New Year (in plastic champagne glasses, of course) and watching on TV
while that big ball came down over Times Square in New York. Dick Clark would
count down the last seconds of the old year, we would all shout "Happy New
Year!" at the appropriate moment, Mom would make her way
around
the room kissing everybody and then we would go outside and pound on pots
and pans and make all kinds of noise.
To be honest, I never cared for non-alcoholic champagne -- my taste
always ran more toward Dr Pepper.
The magic of the big ball coming down on Times Square evaporated as soon
as I figured out it had actually happened two hours earlier. Mom's kisses were... well... Mom's
kisses. But going outside in the
middle of the night to pound on pots and pans and make noise... now, that was
something.
Pot-pounding was generally frowned upon, even in the middle of the
day. And doing it outside for all
the world to hear... well, it simply wasn't done. Except on New Year's
Eve.
And that made New Year's Eve special, although I wasn't exactly sure why.
"I don't get it," I said to Mom one New Year's Day. "We don't go outside and pound on pots
and pans on Christmas Eve or Thanksgiving.
We don't do it on Easter or on birthdays. The only time we do anything like it is
when we set off fireworks on the Fourth of July, and I know why we do that. But I don't know why we pound on pans on
New Year's Eve."
Mom gave me that why-didn't-I-stop-after-seven-children look. As a parent myself, I finally understand
where that look comes from: not having any idea of the answer to the
question. But as anyone who ever
played cards with her knows, Mom was a master
bluffer.
"It's an ancient... Indian... tradition," she said, forgetting for a
moment that early Native Americans probably didn't have many pots or pans upon
which to bang. "They believed that
every year has its own spirit, and if you wanted the year to be good you needed
to frighten it into submission from the beginning. So every New Year the Indians would
gather to make all
of the noise they could in order to frighten away evil spirits and
motivate good spirits to action."
That seemed at least as reasonable to me as flying reindeer, or a rabbit
that lays colored chicken eggs. "So
when we're out there banging on pots and pans, we're actually chasing away evil
spirits," I said, sucking it all in like the huge, pre-adolescent sponge that I
was.
"Well, yes," she said. "But
mostly, we're trying to let the new year know who's in
charge."
And that isn't such a bad idea, when you stop and think about it. New years can be a little scary, filled
as they are with hidden traps and unknown obstacles. Maybe if we set out anxiety aside and
enter the New Year boldly, aggressively, noisily, we'll convince ourselves that
there's
nothing to fear. And that
we're in charge -- at least for ourselves.
So don't go gently into 2001.
Pound on some pans. Bang on
a bucket. Raise a ruckus. The way I
see it, even if we don't scare away evil spirits, at least we'll let the new
year know who's the boss.
And who knows? Maybe we'll
remind ourselves, as well.
Joseph Walker
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4.- EL ORIGEN DEL LENGUAJE
The
following is a reproduction of an article published in La Nación last week:
Título: El origen del lenguaje
Por Antonio M. Battro – La Nación
22-12-02
A
veces la ciencia da un salto. Se produce algo importante, un cambio de
perspectiva. Eso ha sucedido en un artículo que publicó la revista Science el 22
de noviembre último, escrito por Marc D. Hauser, y W. Tecumseh Fitch, de la
Universidad de Harvard, y Noam Chomsky, del MIT.
El título es: "La facultad
del lenguaje, ¿qué es? ¿quién la posee? ¿cómo fue evolucionando?" Los autores
plantean algunas cuestiones.
Para empezar, es necesaria una mayor
colaboración entre lingüistas y biólogos. Muchas aves, por ejemplo, aprenden a
cantar imitando el canto de sus compañeros; si se crían aisladas, sin un modelo
de canto, lo harán en forma aberrante. En cambio, en los primates no humanos,
las vocalizaciones, gritos, llamados de alarma, son innatos en su mayoría. Pero
los primates no pueden imitar una nueva expresión vocal. El habla humana y el
canto de los pájaros tienen, en este aspecto, una mayor analogía entre sí que
con el lenguaje de los primates.
Los autores distinguen entre una facultad de
lenguaje en el sentido amplio de "comunicación" (FLA) y otra en sentido estricto
(FLE). Muchos aspectos de FLA son compartidos entre las diversas especies
animales (en la expresión de emociones, alertas, comida, territorio,
acoplamiento).
En cambio, FLE parece estar restringido al ser humano. Se basa
en la "recursividad", la capacidad de generar infinitas secuencias de palabras o
frases con sentido, a partir de un número finito de expresiones.
Este es el
enorme poder de la recursividad que, aparentemente, ningún animal posee. La
recuperación del lenguaje tras una lesión cerebral, el desarrollo del cerebro de
un niño bilingüe y otros ejemplos ya nos enseñan mucho.
El artículo afirma
que no hay "fósiles lingüísticos". El lenguaje hablado no ha dejado trazas
materiales de su evolución, pero sabemos que desde su tronco común con los
chimpancés, hace unos 6 millones de años, la especie humana tuvo tiempo para
poner en marcha un sistema recursivo propio. Además, ciertas características del
lenguaje humano son compartidas con algunas especies.
Por ejemplo, tanto el
infante humano de pocos meses como algunos monos pueden distinguir perfectamente
entre sonidos del holandés y del japonés. Pero el mono no puede aprender una
regla lingüística basada en la recursividad, a diferencia del humano. Los
delfines y los loros tienen sistemas de imitación de sonidos pero,
sorprendentemente, los monos y los chimpancés no son capaces de imitar
vocalizaciones. En cambio, los humanos aprendemos a hablar porque sabemos
imitar.
No existe un código universal de comunicación entre las especies. El
único código que todos compartimos es el genético, que tiene cuatro "letras".
Con el chimpancé compartimos más del 95% del genoma, pero los primates son
incapaces de hablar. Sólo el Homo Sapiens tiene algo que decir. Pero aún nos
sabemos por qué hablamos.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.- POSITION
VACANT
Our dear SHARER Aldana Biodi from Rio Gallegos sends us this
annoucement:
Instituto Salesiano de Estudios Superiores (Río Gallegos – Santa Cruz) needs a
teacher of English for Práctica Pedagógica II. The subject includes practice
lessons in kindergarten. For further details please contact / send CV to: aldanaboidi@yahoo.com.ar
As a visiting lecturer I taught courses for graduate
teachers of English at Casa Salesiana in Rio Gallegos for 4 years from 1996 to
1999 and I have only words of praise for the warm hospitality I enjoyed in each
one of my visits. To my dear friends in Rio Gallegos an enormous hug. [Omar]
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6.- 26th OF DECEMBER :
BOXING DAY
Our dear SHARER Maria Luisa Jaramillo from Córdoba sends us this article.
She says: “maybe you have always wondered about the origin of the term
"Boxing Day. I found this very sensible explanation on the Web”
Let me first explain that in
Britain Boxing Day is the day after Christmas Day, 26 December, a public
holiday. (Strictly, the public holiday is the first working day after Christmas
Day, but the name Boxing Day is always reserved for the 26th.)
We have to
go back to the early seventeenth century to find the basis for the name. The
term "Christmas box" appeared about then for an earthenware box, something like
a piggy bank, which
apprentices took around at Christmas to collect money.
When it was full, or the round complete, the box was broken and the money
distributed among the company. By the eighteenth century,
"Christmas box" had
become a figurative term for any seasonal gratuity. I cannot resist quoting the
First Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which has a splendid
lip-curling, drawing-away- of-skirts, how-awful-these-lower-orders-are
description of this sense that suggests James Murray, who compiled the entry,
had been importuned once too often:
A present or gratuity given at
Christmas: in Great Britain,
usually confined to gratuities given to
those who are supposed
to have a vague claim upon the donor for
services rendered to
him as one of the general public by whom they are
employed and
paid, or as a customer of their legal employer; the
undefined
theory being that as they have done offices for this
person,
for which he has not directly paid them, some direct
acknowledgement is becoming at Christmas. These gratuities have
traditionally been asked from householders by letter-carriers,
policemen, lamp-lighters, scavengers, butchers' and bakers'
boys,
tradesmen's carmen, etc, and from tradesmen by the
servants of
households that deal with them, etc. They are thus
practically
identical with the Christmas-box collected by
apprentices from their
masters' customers, except that the name
is now given to the
individual donation; and hence, vulgarly and
in dialect use it is
often equivalent to "Christmas present".
Some time after the beginning of
the nineteenth century, the word "box" of "Christmas box" shifted to refer to
the day after Christmas day, on which such gratuities were often requested and
on which the original Christmas box was taken round. The first recorded use of
Boxing Day for the 26th December is in 1833. By 1853 at the latest it had become a
scourge that justified Murray's later acerbic comments, at least to judge from
these comments by
Charles Manby Smith in his Curiosities of London Life:
We can hardly close
these desultory sketches of Christmas-time
without some brief allusion
to the day after Christmas, which,
through every nook and cranny of
the great Babel, is known and
recognised as "Boxing Day," - the day
consecrated to baksheesh,
when nobody, it would almost seem, is too
proud to beg, and
when everybody who does not beg is expected to play
the almoner.
"Tie up the knocker - say you're sick, you are dead," is
the
best advice perhaps that could be given in such cases to
any
man who has a street-door and a knocker upon it.
This
custom, seasonal visitors to Britain may be assured, has now died out, though
solicitations for Christmas tips continue to some extent, especially from the
deliverers of newspapers. Instead, on Boxing Day people now rush to the first
post-Christmas sales.
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7.- SEGUNDO
ENCUENTRO DE GRAMÁTICA GENERATIVA
07-Aug-2003 - 09-Aug-2003 - Buenos Aires, Argentina
Meeting Description:
Linguistic Subfield(s): General
Linguistics
Sponsored by ALFA (Formal Linguistics Association of Argentina) and
Master in Linguistics (Universidad Nacional del Comahue).
Contact Person: Patricia Jacob - Meeting Email:
encuentrogg@yahoo.com.ar
1st CALL FOR PAPERS - Call Deadline:
01-Apr-2003
The II Encuentro de Gramatica Generativa will be organized by the
Instituto en Lenguas Vivas Juan Ramon Fernandez on August 7-9, 2003. Submissions
are invited for papers in any field related to the formal study of grammar
(syntax, morphology, phonology, semantics,lexical theory, interfaces, language
acquisition, philosophy of language). Talks will be organized around major
topics, depending on the content of the
submissions.
ABSTRACT SUBMISSION
The abstracts should be sent by e-mail as a Word or RTF file to the
following address: encuentrogg@yahoo.com.ar. Abstracts should be no longer than
two pages, including references and examples, with margins of at least 1-inch,
letter size 12. At the beginning of your email,
in
the plain text part of it, please supply the following
information:
- name,
- affiliation,
- title of the paper,
- email address,
- snail mail address.
The format of the conference is 30 min for presentation + 10 min for
discussion. The official languages of the conference are Spanish, Portuguese and
English.
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION IS APRIL 1st,
2003.
Notification of acceptance will be no later than April 30th,
2003.
CONFERENCE FEES (estimated):
- Regular: $ 30
- Student: free
PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Cristina Banfi (Universidad Nacional de
Córdoba)
Eduardo Bibiloni (Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia San Juan
Bosco)
Heles Contreras (University of
Washington)
Marcela Depiante (Universidad Nacional del
Comahue)
Angela Di Tullio (Universidad Nacional del
Comahue)
Celia Jakubowicz (Universite de Paris V
CNRS)
Pascual Masullo (University of
Pittsburgh)
Nora Mógica (Universidad Nacional del
Rosario)
Jairo Nunes (Universidade de Campinas)
Organizing Committee: Patricia Jacob (IES en Lenguas Vivas), Marcela
Depiante (U.N. del Comahue), Laura Kornfeld (CONICET/ Universidad de Buenos
Aires), Silvia Iummato (IES en Lenguas Vivas), Moira Alvarez (CONICET/
Universidad de Buenos Aires), Julieta Barba (IES en Lenguas Vivas/ Universidad
de Buenos Aires), Lucía Brandani (CONICET/ Universidad de Buenos Aires),
Carolina Fraga (IES en Lenguas Vivas),Mercedes Valerga (ISP Joaquín V.
González), Elena Ganazzoli (Universidad de La Plata) y Cecilia Pfister (ISP
Joaquín V. Gonzá¡lez)
For further information:
encuentrogg@yahoo.com.ar
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8.- SUMMER
COURSES AT T.S. ELIOT INSTITUTE
Our dear SHARER Laura Renart sends us all this invitation:
TS Eliot Bilingual Studies - Summer courses for teachers and advanced
students
Course for Teachers and Advanced Students of
English
Advanced language practice based on videos, songs, poems and other
authentic materials.
Dynamic sessions to brush up your English, extend your vocabulary load
and improve your fluency. Small
groups. Time-table to be agreed on with the
group.
Fees:
One meeting per week: $ 60 (4 classes in January and / or
February)
Two meetings per week: $ 100 (8 classes in January and / or
February)
Personalised training for students willing to start teacher training
college or translation courses at tertiary level. Personalised intensive writing
sessions
Co-ordinators:
Claudia Ferradas Moi
Master of Arts in Education and Professional Development, University of
East Anglia - PhD candidate, University of
Nottingham
Teacher trainer at the Instituto de Enseñanza Superior en Lenguas Vivas
"J.R. Fernández", Universidad Virtual de Quilmes and NILE (Norwich Institute for
Language Education), UK
Literature consultant for the British
Council
Co-director of the T.S.ELIOT Bilingual Studies
Centre
Laura Renart
Master of Arts in Education and Professional Development, University of
East Anglia
Teacher trainer at the Instituto Superior del Profesorado "Pbro. Dr
Antonio Sáenz", Universidad Virtual
de Quilmes, UADE and NILE (Norwich Institute for Language Education),
UK
Co-director of the T.S.ELIOT Bilingual Studies
Centre
Please phone or e-mail for further
information.
Alem 1380 - (1828) Banfield - Buenos Aires - Tel./fax (54) (11) 4202 -
3672
e-mail:
tseliot@interserver.com.ar
- info@tseliot.com.ar
Página
web: www.tseliot.com.ar
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.- THE IG NOBEL PRIZES (SECOND ROUND)
Last week we published the list of recipients of the
Ignoble Prizes. Today our dear SHARER Joyce Spencer from North Carolina
contributes the names and citations of the 2001 and 2000
winners.
What are the Ig Nobel Prizes?
The Igs are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative --
and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology. The Prizes are
awarded at a gala ceremony in Harvard's Sanders Theatre. 1200 splendidly
eccentric spectators watch the winners step forward to accept their Prizes. The
Prizes are physically handed to the winners by genuinely bemused genuine Nobel
Laureates. The Igs are inflicted on you by the science humor magazine Annals of
Improbable Research (AIR),and co-sponsored by: the Harvard Computer Society;
the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and the
Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students;
The 2001 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
MEDICINE
Peter Barss of McGill University, for his impactful medical report
"Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts." [Published in: The Journal of Trauma, vol.
21, no. 11, 1984, pp. 990-1.]
PHYSICS
David Schmidt of the University of Massachusetts for his partial solution
to the question of why shower curtains billow inwards.
BIOLOGY
Buck Weimer of Pueblo, Colorado for inventing Under-Ease, airtight
underwear with a replaceable charcoal filter that removes bad-smelling gases
before they escape.
ECONOMICS
Joel Slemrod, of the University of Michigan Business School, and Wojciech
Kopczuk, of University of British Columbia, for their conclusion that people
find a way to postpone their deaths if that that would qualify them for a lower
rate on the inheritance tax. [reference:"Dying to Save Taxes: Evidence from
Estate Tax Returns on the Death Elasticity," National Bureau of Economic
Research Working Paper No. W8158, March 2001.]
LITERATURE
John Richards of Boston, England, founder of The Apostrophe Protection
Society, for his efforts to protect, promote, and defend the differences between
plural and possessive.
PSYCHOLOGY
Lawrence W. Sherman of Miami University, Ohio, for his influential
research report "An Ecological Study of Glee in Small Groups of Preschool
Children." [PUBLISHED IN: Child Development, vol. 46, no. 1, March 1975, pp.
53-61.]
ASTROPHYSICS
Dr. Jack and Rexella Van Impe of Jack Van Impe Ministries, Rochester
Hills, Michigan, for their discovery that black holes fulfill all the technical
requirements to be the location of Hell. [Reference: The March 31, 2001
television and Internet broadcast of the "Jack Van Impe Presents" program. (at
about the 12 minute mark).]
PEACE
Viliumas Malinauskus of Grutas, Lithuania, for creating the amusement
park known as "Stalin World"
TECHNOLOGY
Awarded jointly to John Keogh of Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia, for
patenting the wheel in the year 2001, and to the Australian Patent Office for
granting him Innovation Patent #2001100012.
PUBLIC HEALTH
Chittaranjan Andrade and B.S. Srihari of the National Institute of Mental
Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India, for their probing medical discovery
that nose picking is a common activity among adolescents. [REFERENCE: "A
Preliminary Survey of Rhinotillexomania in an Adolescent Sample," Journal of
Clinical Psychiatry, vol. 62, no. 6, June 2001, pp.
426-31.]
The 2000 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
PSYCHOLOGY
David Dunning of Cornell University and Justin Kreuger of the University
of Illinois, for their modest report, "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How
Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated
Self-Assessments." [Published in the Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, vol. 77, no. 6, December 1999, pp. 1121-34.]
LITERATURE
Jasmuheen (formerly known as Ellen Greve) of Australia, first lady of
Breatharianism, for her book "Living on Light," which explains that although
some people do eat food, they don't ever really need to.
BIOLOGY
Richard Wassersug of Dalhousie University, for his first-hand report, "On
the Comparative Palatability of Some Dry-Season Tadpoles from Costa Rica."
[Published in The American Midland Naturalist, vol. 86, no. 1, July 1971, pp.
101-9.]
PHYSICS
Andre Geim of the University of Nijmegen (the Netherlands) and Sir
Michael Berry of Bristol University (UK), for using magnets to levitate a frog
and a sumo wrestler. [REFERENCE: "Of Flying Frogs and Levitrons" by M.V. Berry
and A.K. Geim, European Journal of Physics, v. 18, 1997, p. 307-13.]
CHEMISTRY
Donatella Marazziti, Alessandra Rossi, and Giovanni B. Cassano of the
University of Pisa, and Hagop S. Akiskal of the University of California (San
Diego), for their discovery that, biochemically, romantic love may be
indistinguishable from having severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. [REFERENCE:
"Alteration of the platelet serotonin transporter in romantic love," Marazziti
D, Akiskal HS, Rossi A, Cassano GB, Psychological Medicine, 1999
May;29(3):741-5.]
ECONOMICS
The Reverend Sun Myung Moon, for bringing efficiency and steady growth to
the mass-marriage industry, with, according to his reports, a 36-couple wedding
in 1960, a 430-couple wedding in 1968, an 1800-couple wedding in 1975, a
6000-couple wedding in 1982, a 30,000-couple wedding in 1992, a 360,000-couple
wedding in 1995, and a 36,000,000-couple wedding in 1997.
MEDICINE
Willibrord Weijmar Schultz, Pek van Andel, and Eduard Mooyaart of
Groningen, The Netherlands, and Ida Sabelis of Amsterdam, for their illuminating
report, "Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Male and Female Genitals During Coitus
and Female Sexual Arousal." [Published in British Medical Journal, vol. 319,
1999, pp 1596-1600.]
COMPUTER SCIENCE
Chris Niswander of Tucson, Arizona, for inventing PawSense, software that
detects when a cat is walking across your computer keyboard.
PEACE
The British Royal Navy, for ordering its sailors to stop using live
cannon shells, and to instead just shout "Bang!"
PUBLIC HEALTH
Jonathan Wyatt, Gordon McNaughton, and William Tullet of Glasgow, for
their alarming report, "The Collapse of Toilets in Glasgow." [Published in the
Scottish Medical Journal, vol. 38, 1993, p. 185.]
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10.- WELCOME
2003 WITH BLUESBERRY JAM
Our dear friend and SHARER Susan Hillyard sends us this invitation:
Wednesday 1st January - 11.30 p.m.
Bluesberry Jam
Featuring Mick Hillyard
singing rock 'n roll in English
At Kilkenny
Reconquista and Alvear - Downtown
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Today we will say goodbye with a story our dear friend and SHARER Susana
Bosso sent us:
Queridos Omar y Marina:
Como todo lo que hago con el corazón lo hago utilizando mi propio idioma.
Al leer esta historia he pensado en Ustedes que nos brindan su mensaje semanal y
su tiempo para mantenernos comunicados.
MUY FELIZ NAVIDAD Y EL MEJOR AÑO
2003!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cariños
Susana
LA ESTRELLA
Existían millones de estrellas en el Cielo. Estrellas de todos los
colores: blancas, plateadas,
verdes, doradas, rojas y azules. Un día, inquietas, ellas se acercaron a
Dios y le dijeron:
-"Señor Dios, nos gustaría vivir en la Tierra entre los
hombres".
-"Así será hecho", respondió el Señor. “Pueden bajar a la
Tierra".
Cuéntase que, en aquella noche, hubo una linda lluvia de estrellas.
Algunas se acurrucaron en las torres de las Iglesias, otras fueron a jugar y a
correr junto con las luciérnagas por los campos, otras se mezclaron con los
juguetes de los niños...y la Tierra quedó maravillosamente
iluminada.
Pero con el pasar del tiempo, las estrellas resolvieron abandonar a los
hombres y volver para el Cielo, dejando la Tierra obscura y triste.
-"¿Por qué volvieron?", preguntó Dios,a medida que ellas iban llegando al
Cielo.
-"Señor, no nos fue posible permanecer en la Tierra. Allá existe mucha
miseria y violencia, mucha maldad, mucha
injusticia...
"Y el Señor les dijo: -"¡Claro!, el lugar de ustedes es aquí en el Cielo,
la Tierra es el lugar de lo transitorio, de aquello que pasa, de aquel que cae,
de aquel que yerra, de aquel que muere... nada es
perfecto".
-El Cielo es el lugar de la perfección, de lo inmutable, de lo eterno,
donde nada perece.
Después que llegaron todas las estrellas y verificando su número,Dios
habló de nuevo:
-"Nos está faltando una estrella... ¿será que se perdió en el
camino?".
Un ángel que estaba cerca replicó: -"No Señor, una estrella resolvió
quedarse entre los hombres, ella descubrió que su lugar es exactamente donde
existe la imperfección, donde hay límite, donde las cosas no van bien, donde hay
lucha y dolor".
-"¿Mas qué estrella es ésa?",volvió Dios a preguntar.
-"Es la esperanza, Señor, la estrella verde... la única estrella de ese
color".
Y cuando miraron para la Tierra, la estrella no estaba sola. La Tierra
estaba nuevamente iluminada porque había una estrella verde en el corazón de
cada persona. Porque el único sentimiento que el hombre tiene y Dios no necesita
tener, es la esperanza. Dios ya conoce el futuro y la esperanza es propia de la
persona humana, propia de aquel que yerra, de aquel que no es perfecto, de aquel
que no sabe como será el futuro.
Recibe en este momento, esta estrellita en tu corazón: "la esperanza"...
tu estrella verde.
No dejes que ella huya y no permitas que se apague. Ten certeza que ella
iluminará tu camino... se siempre positivo y agradece a Dios por todo. Se
siempre feliz y contagia con tu corazón iluminando a otras
personas.
HAVE
A WONDERFUL YEAR!
Omar
and Marina.
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