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Chinese Translation Teaching Failures Diagnosed

Chinese translation teaching and learning in university level has been confronted with many failures and deficiencies, mostly because of the lack of awareness of the irreplaceably key role played by contexts either in understanding the source texts or in translating. An empirical study based on the recognition of contextualization in translation is of paramount importance to all translators, esp. university students who are most desperately in need of both guidance and practice in translation.

First and foremost, it is contexts that determine the comprehension of the original contents, meaning and views. Word itself alone can not live without contexts, so do phrase and sentence or even paragraph. A ready consciousness of a complete and consistent context invariably gives rise to a more complete, accurate and insightful grasp of the discourse under analysis. On the contrary, the failure of contextualization is bound to generate sometimes inconsistent, sometimes disjointed, and even self-contradictory rendering, the view of which is universally justified by both Chinese translation theorists and translators.

Secondly, it is contexts that determine the mastery of the structure, form and style of the source texts. The understanding of the original contents and views alone can never guarantee a faithful and comprehensive understanding of the original text, not to mention a further faithful Chinese translation based on comprehension. Besides, the translator should also gain an insight into and stick to the original structure, form and style. It is common knowledge that merely a fraction of words, phrases or sentences, at most, can only hint at the structure, form or style of the whole discourse whereas contexts unveil the flow of ideas, the development of the utterances, the organizational features of the original text, and the stylistic features of the author’s works.

Last but not least, it is contexts that determine the quality of different translation versions of the same text. Chinese translation techniques applied, or the choice of words made must owe the kind of treatment to the needs of specific contexts, and be selected strictly within the realm of a faithful and smooth rendering of the original text. Moreover, in translation, every word chosen or transitional phrases selected lead to a series of changes and considerations upon the treatment of the following contents in the text. Thus, a high-quality translation version must subject to the realization of contextualization in translation.

An easy and readable rendering is justified by the translator’s exhaustive efforts made to read the Chinese version out aloud time and time again and check whether the rendering is comfortable to the picky ears of the target audience. In this way, generally speaking, stiff translation and mechanical copying are readily perceived and further revised into idiomatic expressions in the receptor language.

In the final analysis, as regards the learning and teaching of Chinese translation at university level, it is highly advisable that all translation programs pay due attention to the importance of contexts and provide corresponding translation exercise and practice based on a whole discourse instead of focusing on the translation techniques applied in translating a certain word, phrase or sentence, which constitute the common practice in most translation programs. Students, on the other hand, should take the initiative to practice translation based on a complete discourse and equip themselves with a ready awareness of contextualization in translation upon introspection and retrospection.

Michael Song is a professional Chinese translator working for VERY TRANSLATION which provides Chinese translation .

Education: Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

Our educators aren’t very good at raising SAT scores, increasing literacy, or spreading knowledge. But they are world-class at making excuses.

Let me rattle off a few. Money! You know money is always the problem. If only taxpayers weren’t so selfish. Violence! This is a big deal. All the students are in gangs or fighting in the halls. Broken homes, divorce, domestic tensions! How can children concentrate? Even if the home is stable, kids are watching TV or goofing off on the Internet. That’s a huge problem. Or they’re sending text messages on their phones. Or spending hours with their video games. No wonder that schools can’t get good results! Did we mention drugs? Kids are shooting up or stoned on marijuana. What else? They’re hanging around malls, wasting time and going to bad movies. What can you expect when most kids are lazy or ADD? The parents are ignorant and won’t help. The problems never stop. Not to mention, all the schools are too crowded. Teachers are overworked, and the whole system is broken from top to bottom and about to collapse…

In fact, there is only one thing our educators are better at than making excuses. And that is coming up with bad ideas.

Gee, probably there’s a connection. Maybe if our elite educators stopped inventing pedagogical gimmickry, they would not need excuses.

Here’s just a quick survey of education gone bad:

Starting in 1930, our educators have been insanely devoted to a reading method variously called Look-Say, Sight Words, Dolch Words, Whole Language, and Balanced Literacy (with so many aliases, you know it’s a criminal). This gimmick has resulted in 50 million functional illiterates and a million dyslexics. Whole Word requires that children memorize words by their shapes, at a pace of about 300 words per year. Do the math. By the end of high school, students will know only 4000 words and be, for scholastic purposes, illiterate.

Speaking of math, our educators show a similar incompetence when they pick math pedagogies. Around 1960 educators said that New Math was the answer. Five years later they said, never mind. In fact, they went back to their laboratories and devised variations of New Math, which they called Reform Math, but the rest of the world sarcastically labeled New New Math. Some of the familiar variations are Everyday Math, MathLand, TERC, etc. All these pedagogies engage in the same trick: they mix in college-level terms and perspectives, while refusing to teach any of the standard methods for addition, multiplication, etc. Such approaches virtually guarantee children will never master ordinary arithmetic.

Meanwhile, a non-subject called Social Studies (truer name: Socialism Studies) appropriated everything it could grab–geography, politics, economics, civics, history–and tries to substitute PC opinions for knowledge.

Meanwhile, across ALL subjects, and all ages and grades, our educators sabotage what’s left of the traditional curriculum by insisting that children need not memorize anything. Not a single fact. Additionally, educator are in love with constructivist thinking, whereby students are supposed to invent their own versions of everything. Which can take a long time. Our educators are similarly enamored of cooperative learning, whereby children do everything in groups, thereby guaranteeing that children will not be able to think independently. Another fad that cuts across all subjects is what might be called sloppy thinking–fuzzy math, fuzzy English, fuzzy everything. Close is good enough.

Imagine the cumulative impact of all the shoddy pedagogies described so far. You will easily imagine schools doing a very bad job. You will easily imagine a perpetual need for excuses, excuses, excuses.

I suggest it doesn’t matter how much money you give these people. Nothing will improve until you take away their bad ideas. Educators are not a very glamorous group but I now think they have one thing in common with our Hollywood stars. They need to go to rehab now and then. For their own good. Somebody needs to take away their pills and bottles. Give them back their self-respect. Give them a life without excuses.

Bruce Deitrick Price is a novelist, artist and education activist. His main site is http://www.Improve-Education.org which now features 40 original articles on a range of topics, birds to robots, Latin to sophistry, phonics to Reform Math. If you love passionate non-fiction, you’ll love this site.

Funding Your Education

Funding your education can be a simple task or it can become very complicated depending on your eligibility status. You need to know what your requirements are in order to determine what your eligibility status is before applied for any loans or grants. Your eligibility stems on your social economic level, your grade point average, and things like your health may play an active part in your qualifications.

There are many programs out there for those who are in a low income or minority group. The Perkins Loans, Pell Grants, and The Stafford Loans are geared for people who need extra assistance to enable them to attend a Community College or a University to better improve their status in life. Minority groups often have private organizations that help them as well. The Negro college fund helps send any child who is willing to go to college. The American Indian has special funding that helps them as well this is just a few special helps for the minority groups. You can research and find many more helpful organizations that are willing to sponsor you.

Your grade point average is vital sometimes in getting accepted into the higher education Universities around the country. A person with all A’s and making very high score on their SAT is usually welcomed with open arms and all sorts of grants are made available. Yet many students who have an A-B average are still eligible for grants besides the student loans to help them in their pursuit of a better education.

People who have disabilities but show that they have a good aptitude for learning are equally accepted by colleges and Universities. These people are often helped by special programs that join together to help make their studies go a bit easier. It is difficult for them from the stand point of trying to get around if they are in a wheel chair or perhaps they need special aids because of poor mobility with their hands. The blind are afforded equipment that help them to read as well as voice equipment that reads material to them as a brief explanation to the type of adaptive equipment used by the disabled-blind.

Then we have one other category and that is of our athlete’s people who really excel in sports. Many of our Universities look for students who are good in football, basketball, soccer or baseball as a few of the sporting events made popular by our society. These sporting events bring in millions of dollars for the University and so they often have scouts who go out looking at high school seniors for the purpose of drafting them into the school for the team. The University provides the student enough grants etc. to help them get a degree for what they want to pursue in life after college.

When it comes to funding, there are many ways to fund it. Make sure that you do your research when you’re looking for your money. Some alternatives may seem good but always beware.

Think about funding your education today with student credit cards all at FINDcollegecards.com, where you can find more of Tom’s work.

Mental Arithmetic Magic Tricks

While working on a divisibility section for my web site, I across some interesting facts about numbers that, to someone who does not know about these things, would seem like mental arithmetic magic.

In case you don’t know, the divisibility of a number refers to whether a number can be evenly divided by another. For example, 24 is divisible by 2 but 13 is not as it leaves a remainder.

Here are some mental arithmetic magic tricks I have found that you can use to impress your friends, your colleagues, your teachers, . . .

1. if a number is divisible by 3 then so are the numbers based on mixing up the digits of the original number. For example, consider 123 which is divisible by 3. Then 132, 213, 231, 312 and 321 (which are obtained by mixing up the digits 1, 2 and 3 that make up 123) are all divisible by 3. This is called a permutation of the digits of a number. Check it for yourself!

2. to make up a number that is divisible by 4, make up a numberr and tag on the end any 2 digit number divisible by 4. For example, I make up the number 111111111, and now I tag 16 (which is divisible by 4) on the end to get 11111111116. This number is divisible by 4. Check it for yourself!

An interesting trick follows on from this one. The following numbers are all divisible by 4: 116, 1116, 11116, 111116, and so on . . . Not what you would expect!

3. if a number is divisible by 6, then any permutations of its digits will give you a new number divisible by 6 as long as the last digit is even. For example, 1272 is divisible by 6. Permutations of its digits while keeping the last digit even gives me 2172, 2712, 1722, 7122, 7212 which are all divisible by 6. Check it for yourself!

4. to make up a number that is divisible by 8, the process is similar to point 2. above. Make up a number and tag on the end any 3 digit number divisible by 8. For example, I make up the number 777777, and now I tag 016 (which is divisible by on the end to get 777777016. This number is divisible by 8. Check it for yourself!

Another interesting trick follows on from this one. The following numbers are all divisible by 8: 7016, 77016, 777016, and so on . . . Again, not what you would expect!

5. if a number is divisible by 9 then so are the numbers based on mixing up the digits of the original number. For example, consider 189 which is divisible by 9. Then so are 198, 819, 891, 918 and 981. Check it for yourself!

6. if a number is divisible by 11, then permutations of its odd digits and/or its even digits will give you a new number also divisible by 11. For example, consider 154 which is divisible by 11. Then so is 451 (obtained by swapping its first and third digits). Another example, consider 1122 which is divisible by 11. Then so is 1221 (obtained by swapping its second and fourth digits). Check it for yourself!

7. if a number is divisible by 12, then any permutations of its digits (except for the last 2) will give you new numbers also divisible by 12. For example, 14652 is divisible by 12. Then so are 16452, 41652, 46152, 61452 and 64152. Check it for yourself!

You have to agree that such tricks do look like arithmetic magic which you can do in your head. Hence the title of this article being ‘mental arithmetic magic’. In case you are wondering ‘why is it so?’ The answer lies in the test that determines whether a number is divisible by another.

S M Botans is the CEO of Mental Workout and has 13 years experience teaching Maths, Science and Physics.

The Difference Between IELTS and TOEFL

You have spent many hours learning English, whether for your work or school situation. Now you need to prove that you do, in fact, know the language as well as you need to for the program you are entering. How can you do this? You can prove your knowledge of the language by taking a test. Two of the most popular are the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). While these two tests have a similar goal – to show that you know English – they are different in many ways.

Difference in Intent

One difference in the two tests is in the intent. The main intent of the TOEFL is to determine whether or not the test taker can speak, read, understand, and write English well enough to attend college in an English-speaking program. The questions, reading material, and listening material are all designed on a college level.

While there is one version of the IELTS that is designed for college applicants, the Academic Version, the IELTS also comes in a General Training Version. This is used for those who are looking to head to an English-speaking country for work or immigration. Many companies who are looking to hire non-native English speakers need to know that their employees can speak and understand English, and they require a test to show this. Also, Australia and Canada require those who are immigrating to their countries to pass the test as part of their citizenship requirements.

Difference in Focus

Another difference between the two tests is the focus. The TOEFL is designed for North American speakers and hearers. The spoken portions are read by native North American speakers. The questions of form and style are based on North American English. On the other hand, the IELTS is designed to fit a variety of accents and situations. The writing styles and accents incorporated into the test are designed to mimic the accent and style of many different countries. This makes this test ideal for those who are looking to test their ability to speak and read English, but do not necessarily need to speak and read North American English.

The Structure of the IELTS

Candidates who are taking the IELTS are required to complete four modules. These are speaking, reading, writing, and listening. Once complete, the applicant will receive a band, or score, which will be displayed on the IELTS Test Report Form. The highest possible score is a 9 band score, which means the individual is completely competent in all tested areas.

The Listening and Speaking Modules are the same for both the academic and general versions of the exam, but the Reading and Writing Modules are not. The test takes 2 hours and 45 minutes to complete. The Listening, Reading, and Writing Modules must be completed in that order on the same day without a break. The Speaking Module can be completed within a week prior to or following the written portion of the test.

The Structure of the TOEFL

The TOEFL can be taken online or at a testing center. When taken online, the applicant has four hours to complete the Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing sections of the test. Each section has its own time limit. The paper-based test is similar in structure. However, it has a structure and written expression section rather than a speaking section. These test similar skills, just in a different format.

The Internet based version has a highest possible score of 120 and a lowest possible score of 0. The paper version is scored in a range between 310 and 577, with each section scored separately, but the writing section not included in the final score.

While the TOEFL and the IELTS have significant differences, both are good ways to judge whether or not an English speaker truly knows the language. If you are trying to decide which test to take, contact the school or company with which you are applying to see which test they prefer.

You don’t need to live in an English speaking country to learn English. Online English school offers English lessons online to help students learn English and achieve their goals. Offering services in many languages. Visit us at: Aprender Ingles.

The Art of Charm School New York City

The following is an Interview with Jordan Harbinger from the Art of Charm School. This guy is the real deal and the Master of Social Dynamics. You can catch him on the Today Show or Sirius Satellite Radio, at PickUp Podcast or at The Art of Charm.

1. In a nutshell what is that Art of Charm School and why do we need it?

The Art of Charm is a team of highly trained dating coaches and social dynamics instructors, with an emphasis on being successful in business and life. We will teach you everything you need to know to master social interactions in all areas of your life. The classes and in field work you’ll be attending are professionally organized and personally catered to target easy application and retention of the knowledge you’ll gain. Everyone can benefit from learning to connect better with others in both their personal and professional lives. We can teach you how to get whatever you want, from a girlfriend or wife to a raise or promotion at work.

2. How does a lawyer find himself running a 21st century charm school?

I was not only sick of the Wall Street grind, but was disappointed that the so-called ‘top level’ minds in America and from abroad were merely social invalids who studied hard and worked even harder, yet had almost no social savvy and had trouble relating to just about everyone. I had already been doing the PickUp Podcast for about a year and it was incredibly popular while I worked on Wall Street doing financial law, so I figured I would begin to apply what myself and my staff of experts knew and taught to those who needed it most, and the business started to really take off. Now we’ve got several programs each week and a regular show on Sirius Satellite Radio.

3. What’s the biggest mistake men make with women and why do you think that is?

There are so many mistakes that men make with women that are shockingly simple to remedy. One of the biggest mistakes men make with women that I’ve seen very consistently over the years is the myth that women don’t like sex as much as men, and that we’re impolite or improper somehow for wanting to get intimate with a woman. This is ridiculous, and any woman who is honest with herself will confirm as much. The reason men, especially American men, hold this belief so strongly is because of the way we’re raised, mostly by women, and the myths that society projects upon us. Unfortunately, these society-bred wives’ tales are contrary to our basic biology.

4. Let’s use a real life example. A typical reader of this blog could find himself at the bar of Nikki Beach Marbella surrounded by beautiful women in Bikini’s. What are some strategies that that could get him talking and partying with these girls rather than sipping his Mojito alone or just with his guy friends?

This is a pretty common situation. Being a wallflower and propping up the bar is no fun. If you’re out with your friends surrounded by women, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be interacting and partying with all of them. Remember, they came there to socialize, not just to be seen. Contrary to what many of us are taught growing up, we’re not ‘bothering’ women by flirting and interacting with them. Women LOVE to flirt. They’ve been doing it since elementary school and are very adept at it.

Try this: interact with EVERYONE. As soon as you go to the bar, greet the doorman and get his name. Ask him how his night is going and tell him you’re going to the bar and ask if he wants a glass of water or juice or anything. I used to be a doorman and let me tell you, this NEVER happens. When it does, we remember you, and we’re thankful. That way, next time you’re in line waiting with your friends, I’ll be happy to let you in because I know you and like you. Women you’re with (and those in line) will see that happen and wonder why you’re so special.

Once inside, talk to the barman like you’re friends. Again, ask how his day/night is going, banter a little bit and get on friendly terms. When he asks what you’re having after that, tell him “barman’s choice” and ask him to make you his favourite drink. I can’t remember the last time I paid for a drink when I order like that. Tip well.

Now you’re wondering why I still haven’t told you to talk to the girls. The idea here is to cultivate social value. Women are very in tune with that and will notice that the doorman and bartender like you. Don’t stop there. Talk to everyone in sight, young, old, big, small, male or female. The more people who know and like you and that you interact with, the higher your social value in that venue. Soon enough, you’ll be able to talk to the women without seeming like you’re blatantly hitting on them, and more than likely, they’ll start talking to you or giving you signals that they’re interested. This type of basic outgoing dynamic is what allows me to walk into an exclusive New York or LA club without waiting in line, get free drinks, and befriend everyone there while becoming the life of the party. I’m not even a hyper-energetic or crazy guy. The trick is that I don’t ignore ANYONE from the barman to the busboy.

5. On the other side of the spectrum are the guys who have “too much confidence” and act like a bit of an A- hole (maybe to everyone BUT him). How does that guy get coached out of that behavior (especially if he isn’t aware of it)?

Guys who seemingly have too much confidence are more arrogant than confident. You’ll see these guys standing near the bar showing off their muscles/watch/bling, sunglasses on, not smiling. I call this “too cool for school”. Guys with this issue don’t get NEARLY as much attention as they’d like, and are often bitter about it. They seem like jerks, but are really scared to open up to people because they’re afraid they won’t be accepted. If you try to talk to them, you’ll find initial resistance but soon after they’ll be very, very happy to engage you in conversation. Being ‘too cool for school’ is awkward and painful. Trust me, I was this way before I started learning this social dynamics skillset and it was miserable!

The trick to getting out of this is to realize that people will only find you interesting if you’re interested in them first. As above, start talking to everyone and slowly allow yourself to open up to them. This is a slower process than most, because it requires that the client eventually internalize that they are interesting/fun/cool enough to be accepted and liked by others. This happens through positive feedback. In other words, it happens when they man-up, try being more open with others, and are rewarded with attention, friendship or affection from the people they open up to. We do a LOT of this at The Art of Charm during our workshops.

6. I understand that you do actual “in field” training. How does that go down and could you give us some real life stories?

In-field training is a big part of our bootcamps and workshops. While there are dozens of hours of in-class training, it’s crucial to go out with the coaches and apply the knowledge in real-life situations so that it can be tweaked, perfected and eventually internalized. We take our clients to a variety of venues in whichever city we’re holding the program (usually we have connections to get us into exclusive places, but the occasional dive-bar isn’t out of the question either!) Once there, the students are pushed outside their comfort zones and encouraged to apply their new skillsets, all under the watchful eye of our coaches. This ensures that when the client goes back home, they’ll be able to make real, lasting change in their lives as opposed to merely having a notebook full of useful information collecting dust on the nightstand.

We’ve had so many success stories here at The Art of Charm, such as older clients (oldest client so far is 63 years old) meeting future wives and girlfriends, virgins going home non-virgins, and tons and tons of relationships as a result of our programs. A few extreme cases I remember off the top of my head include one client getting a job offer at Goldman Sachs, one of the most prestigious companies on Wall Street, after meeting a hiring partner during an exercise, and another client who’d never approached a woman at a bar before and ended up going home with two women and enjoying a nice, long night and morning with both of them.

7. I’m sure we can all improve in the area of Social Dynamics, but are there just some people that have “natural confidence” and don’t need coaching? Conversely are there people that you just can’t help?

There are plenty of people who have natural confidence, but everyone can use coaching. All of our expert coaches are expected to continue to grow as people and learn to master new areas of their lives. Some of our best Attraction coaches are learning business networking from our business and success coaches, and vice-versa. Our programs encompass so many facets of life that there’s something for everyone.

There are always people who think they don’t need coaching, and, ironically, it’s them who usually need the most help, because they can’t even see their own shortcomings and mistakes. Unfortunately, those are also the people that we really can’t help. It’s much easier for us to help someone who is really socially awkward and KNOWS they’re socially awkward than it is for us to help someone who is not getting the results they want but blames other people and can’t understand why others don’t find them as amazing as they find themselves.

8. My personal observations (especially when I travel abroad) are that the Masculine and Feminine roles are much more clearly defined outside of the U.S. It seems that the Clark Gable Masculine American man of the 50′S is long gone and has morphed into a khaki pants wearing P**Y in the 2000’s. Also, the sexy feminine American woman has turned up a bit more masculine. Is that your observation as well and if so why do you think that is?

I agree 100% -the roles of men and women seem much more clearly defined outside of the US. People here are so confused by what their biology tells them to do, what they ‘think they want’ out of life, and what society is forcing upon them. I know plenty of women who’d be happy homemakers and raise great children but feel like they have to use their college education to be a CEO first, then try to raise a family on top of it all, and meanwhile all they think they want to do is not get married at all because there’s so much pressure and consequence riding out the outcome! It’s a shame, and men fall into a similar trap. The social landscape of gender roles has changed a lot over the past few decades, and it’s done some serious damage to our socio-cultural ‘navigation’ systems. There are plenty of benefits that go with being empowered and presented with options, but problems arise when other people’s agendas start pressuring people into lifestyles, goals, and outcomes that don’t mesh with their biology and actual desires..

Robert Murgatroyd is the co-owner of Jet Set Life Tv. Read more from Rob Murgatroyd by visiting his blog- Living Jet Set http://www.jetsetlife.tv/robsblog/

Continuing Care: Is it Right For You?

Not everyone is cut out to pursue a career in continuing care. It requires a special temperament and personality to withstand the unique challenges and pressures that the caregiver will be subjected to. So how do you know if you have the right personality for the job, preferably before you start down this career path? This is an area where personality and ability are both extremely important.

Many medical professionals avoid this area because it requires a dedication that just doesn`t suit everyone. Looking after someone for a long period of time just isn`t the right way to go for everyone, so you`ll want to be sure that it`s the right path for you. There are a few characteristics that are common throughout the continuing care community. If you have these, then chances are, this is the right line of work for you.

Compassion: Without this, you`ll fail. It takes a compassionate heart to spend long hours caring for someone who is unable to look after themselves. If you have always enjoyed helping people and feeling useful, then this is a good indication that you`ll enjoy continuing care.

Strength: Not just physical, though this is quite useful, as well, when you are lifting a full grown adult into the tub. However, mental strength is also necessary. You need to be able to deal with situations that may not be very comfortable, for you or the patient. It can be embarrassing for a teen boy to be helped onto the toilet, for example, and you`ll need to deal with things like this on a daily basis.

Patience: If you are an impatient person, chances are long term care isn`t a good place to work. This is a career that requires long hours of doing very little, simply being present in case your patient needs help. It can involve repetitive tasks, like checking heart rate and blood pressure, reading the same book over and over and hours doing tasks that would normally take a few minutes, like feeding a patient or helping someone get from one room to another. Patience is essential.

Friendliness: Continuing care involves long periods of time spent with the same patient. Unlike regular hospital care where you only see a patient for a few hours or days and never really get to know them, this career will leave you with more than enough time to get to know the people you work with. A callous attitude won`t work well, though many patients, particularly those in hospice care, will be resistant to you. A friendly attitude can go a long ways.

It can be mentally and physically exhausting working with people in long term care. You`ll be working with the elderly, the terminally ill and those who have been incapacitated in some way. It can take a toll on your personal life if you aren`t careful, so you also need to know when to take a break. You won`t be able to continue indefinitely and it`s important to be able to separate work from personal life.

Continuing care is not the ideal career for everyone. However, if you are compassionate, friendly and strong mentally and physically, with the ability to separate the life you lead on your off hours from your work, then it could be a good fit for you. The world needs people who are willing to participate in long term care, so this is an area that will always be open to more workers. It`s a good field to go into if you find that you have the right personality.

Halifax College has one of the most reputable paralegal schools that will expose the students to the most relevant aspects of a paralegal career.

How Spanish Can Change Your Life

Do you want a better job? Do you want more friends? Learn Spanish and you can have both! Spanish is spoken in many parts of the world and is spoken throughout the United States. With so many people speaking Spanish it can improve your job aspects and your friends network if you learn Spanish. Take the time to learn Spanish and many jobs will open up to you. If you learn Spanish, you will have a whole new group of people to be friends with.

Many jobs open up to you when you learn Spanish. Spanish speakers are all over and people need to be able to talk with them. In restaurants, offices, schools, stores, churches, or anywhere else that you find people, there is likely a need to have someone who can speak Spanish. Learn Spanish and these jobs become available to you. Learn Spanish and you can often get higher pay for this very important skill.

Some of the many tools that can help you learn Spanish include listening and responding to Spanish tutor recordings, reading Spanish books, practicing Spanish grammar, spending time in Spanish chat rooms, or talking to friends in Spanish. Learning a new language can be very challenging, but if you are willing to spend the time to work in the language, you will be able to learn Spanish in little time.

To learn Spanish in a classroom is difficult. You get very little one on one attention from the teacher. In a standard classroom, you go in to learn Spanish, but you are practicing with someone who speaks it at the same or lower level than you, another student. You are hearing them speak it wrong, you are practicing it wrong. The teacher might give you a little one on one attention, but if they have 30 students, you will get a minute or two of individual attention in a 60 minute class. This is not enough to learn Spanish. There are many different ways but the easiest way I found is using today’s technology on the net and once I learned a few words it was easy to get into conversation and stumble through to learn more and more words. Going back to how we learned our own language, by using pictures and sounding out words makes learning a new language quick , fun and easy!

Now, if you really want to improve your life and learn Spanish, then you need to spend time with Spanish speakers. Listen to native speakers and practice saying the words like they do. Practice your limited Spanish on native speakers. You will learn Spanish faster, the more you practice. Not to mention how quickly you will pick up the accent. Any native speakers will usually appreciate your attempts to speak their language, even if you get it wrong. Let them help you learn Spanish and use the excuse to go on holiday so you can show off your new skills!

See the reasons why I learned a new language and how it changed my life at my blog page http://fluentinspanishintwomonths.blogspot.com/

Viewing Homework as an Educational Liability

The value of homework has been questioned before. In fact there have been periods of time during the past 100 years when homework played a minimal role in schooling. Interestingly, homework, which is believed to improve learning and self-discipline, received two of its strongest promotions from a political concern, “Sputnik”, and an economic one, Japan’s business success. Each of these events brought an outcry that we were doing poorly as a nation because our educational systems were failing to produce competent adults. The answer, in part, was to intensify demands upon our students, which meant significant increases in homework. So our students now do about 50% more homework than they did just 20 years ago, while the USSR disintegrated and Japan has proven to be a paper tiger. In the meantime, decades of research on over a half-million students has failed to demonstrate that homework achieves any of its stated goals. Thirty-five years of working with children and schools has led me to conclude that homework impedes learning and is bad for the mental health of children and their families! It’s time for parents and educators to ask some hard questions.

A recent book, “The End of Homework” by Etta Kralovec and John Buell addresses these questions about the value of homework. In essence, they claim that it only serves to further the gap between students because of the severe inequalities of what families can offer as surrogate educational settings. Over 20% of our children are raised in homes below the poverty level. The gap between the haves and have-nots is increasing in our country. Poverty, along with the mother’s’ educational level, seem to be the strongest predictors of educational achievement. Making homework an important part of the educational process means many students are doomed from the start. In general, home is not a good setting for FORMAL learning. Today’s families are dominated by either two working parents or a single working parent. There is little time or energy to devote to the role of teacher. Conflict over homework is one of the prime sources of parent-child tension. This is a very serious concern when children are already experiencing marked reductions in family time.

We also face a society with a high divorce rate. Many children enter homes where there is chronic parental conflict and frequent transitions between two homes. What happens to homework on the night that the children are having their weekday dinner with father? At the same time parents are more anxious than ever about their children’s academic achievements. They are driven by another unsupported belief, that children with higher grades who end up going to better colleges will have more successful lives. Parents put pressure on teachers to give significant amounts of homework, believing that it’s good education.

Even where parents are able to commit the time required to monitor and assist with their children’s homework, there are additional major obstacles. First, the parent is usually dependent upon the child to acknowledge and explain the homework. It creates a different relationship, going from parent-child to teacher- student. Conflicts commonly ensue. In addition, most parents are not trained in teaching methods. Their way of doing an assignment may not match what is being taught in the classroom. By middle school, many parents are already challenged to understand the work. By high school, forget it! It is also a fuzzy line between helping a child and doing too much of the work. What a child brings to class may reflect significant parental effort or even help from a friend. This is one of the core problems with homework – the teacher has less control over and influence upon work done outside the school. The best setting for most schoolwork is in a school.

Does homework improve learning and build character? A recent article in Forbes magazine compared math scores in Japan, Canada, Germany, and the U.S. Scores on national tests indicated that beyond 1-2 hours of total homework, scores actually decreased in every country except Japan, where the scores were flat. More than 3 hours and the decrease was marked. Yet 24% of EIGHTH GRADERS in the U.S. already do more than three hours of homework a night! Forbes conclusion: The heavier the homework, the poorer the performance. A key reason for this may be the research indicating that our children, especially teens, are significantly sleep-deprived. Physicians are concerned about this as well as the increase in back problems from these students carrying overweight backpacks.

Most homework is either practicing something learned that day or pre-learning something for the next day. Many students get it right away and don’t need the practice. Many students don’t get it right away and need an educator to explain it to them, not a parent. Research has made it very clear that if students do assignments incorrectly and it’s not unlearned quickly, the wrong way becomes harder to change. It’s like the golfer who is taking lessons infrequently. The more times he plays and develops bad habits, the harder it is to correct.

This time-learning relationship touches on another major issue with homework. It is brutal to the lives of teachers, especially at middle and high school levels. Depending upon the subject matter, a teacher can face correcting hundreds of papers a night. No wonder many students do not get papers back the next day, especially exams or essays. This time gap is known to be harmful to the learning process but can we really fault teachers on this?

The notion that students who do their homework get better grades demonstrates the confusion between cause and correlation. Students who do their homework are generally more organized, stronger in language skills, eager to please, and/or very anxious to be successful. Most of this fits what I refer to as the “student personality.” They do their homework and get better grades, especially in high school where homework typically becomes a more significant part of grading, because it is natural for them to do so.

On the other hand, many students learn better by doing than listening, only do well in things that really interest them, prefer to challenge than to simply accept, and/or do better in more creative modes. These students have personalities that may be very successful in the real world but are not good fits for the traditional educational model. Some of these students blossom when transferred to a private school that is a better fit for them. Others blossom when they become adults and can choose work that fits who they are. Unfortunately many others have long since given up on themselves, believing they are stupid because they don’t fit the mold. Most high school dropouts point to falling behind in homework as the key factor in their failure and discouragement.

As for building character, many argue that the self-discipline and responsibility of doing homework prepares children for the real world. One of the problems here is the view that children are miniature adults and that there is a linear relationship between what children do and what they are like as adults. But this is not supported by research. Children have very different needs than adults. They learn by playing and socializing and experience a world that is constantly changing for them from the inside as well as the outside. They go through spurts of change, good and bad (from an adult’s perspective). Children develop their character in many ways in multiple settings. Not only is doing homework unproven as a means of building character, it robs children of time that could be spent doing other things that might have more influence on character, i.e., developing relationships with other children and adults. People fear that children will only spend more time watching TV or playing video games if given more free time. Another possibility is that children turn to these activities to crash because they are overloaded with isolating, draining mental tasks and have lost connections to their friends and the community around them.

I believe schoolwork should be done in school where there are the human and material resources to ensure that quality learning take place. Children then need time to be with friends, family, and involved in the community where they have much else of value to learn. This, of course, requires that all schools have equal resources and a different structure to the school day. Unfortunately this is not the case, especially in areas dominated by poverty-level families. This is one reason why schools in those communities that now provide longer days are reporting significant improvement in the skill levels of their students.

Dr. Heller is a clinical psychologist, now retired, who specialized in providing services to children, families, and couples since 1968. He has written over 170 columns about parenting and marriage which are available on his website, http://www.drheller.com.

4 Interesting Facts About Renaissance Doctors and Medicine

Do you usually link Renaissance to advances in medicine? Typically, when we talk about the Renaissance period, we talk about an explosion of learning and creativity. From paintings to music, this was a tremendous time for the arts in particular. However, the era of the Renaissance, which lasted from the middle 1400s until the 1700s, also featured major developments in European medicine. Here are some of the important facts surrounding the Renaissance period and medicine:

1. New knowledge and inventions improved medicine

A flurry of new knowledge and inventions helped to advance medicine quickly, during the Renaissance. There were no instruments yet to observe bacteria, and thus create a need for cheap urbane scrubs. However, diagrams of the human body and the printing press both had a huge influence on the world of medicine. Thus, doctors had a better comprehension of how the human body functioned, than during any previous era in Europe’s history.

2. Galen was no longer king

During the previous Middle Ages, the medical world considered Galen’s writings to be infallible. Galen was an ancient Greek living in Rome, who had developed the concepts of Hippocrates, “The Father of Medicine.”

However, during the Renaissance, doctors took a more practical and academic approach to training in their profession. Medical students studied from books with realistic diagrams of humans. In addition to better books, doctors-in-training also had access to more of them, thanks to the invention of the printing press. In fact, universities even permitted students to dissect humans, towards the end of the Renaissance. This practice had previously been limited to animals.

3. Science began to supersede spirituality

During the Renaissance, people still held to some spiritual reasoning regarding diseases. For instance, people were unaware that bacteria existed, and could spread from person-to-person. However, logic became king, due to a new wealth of knowledge available, and an efficient way to distribute it faster-the printing press. In addition, the training for surgical procedures greatly improved. Apprentices would learn surgical techniques, from an active surgeon. Interestingly, universities themselves failed to supply doctors-in-training with these skills. Nevertheless, the improvements in textbooks about human anatomy significantly boosted the complexity of the surgeries that doctors did.

4. Many did not embrace advances in medicine

While the Renaissance ushered in a new era of medical knowledge and skills, not everyone was impressed. During the Renaissance, home remedies remained a vital aspect of medical treatment, for many people. In fact, some people still sought treatments from local shaman who lacked formal training in the medical profession. Also, many “old-school” doctors and the Catholic Church still adhered to the teachings of Galen. However, within time, medical advances during the Renaissance would revolutionize the whole professional.

The Renaissance was clearly an era of enlightenment and developments. Besides the fantastic output in the arts, the medical profession flourished as well. While doctors were yet unaware of bacteria or the need to wear scrubs during surgeries, they were nonetheless learning. Essentially starting with the Renaissance, spiritual doctors were becoming scientific doctors!

Brent McNutt enjoys talking about cheap urbane scrubs and cheap landau scrubs as well as networking with healthcare professionals online.

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