The coolness of Bilinguiailsm (Or "Tri-" "Quad-"...)

I was dining out with my family and a friend at a familiar Chinese restaurant this past weekend, and as my parents asked me what I wanted, I simply responded with memory. However, my friend ordered from the menu. This astonished me, and I couldn't help it, but feel impressed. Later that night, I wondered to myself, "Why am I impressed? Shouldn't I be equipped with such an ability. I mean I am Chinese right?" Confounded, I went to my mom and asked her why my Chinese competence wasn't up to par. She replied, "You speak it fluently and that's good enough. English was more important for your education here." Really? My sudden realization of an identity-crisis greatly exposed the haphazard environment that obstructs us from cultivating a second language.

People might argue that "on the bright side", students are able to access foreign language classes as early as middle school, but is that really the correct perspective? For more than a decade, neurologists and psychologists have compiled data that points to a critical learning period for bilingual languages (before age 10) due to the Broca/Wernicke area complexes that I won't delve into. Why not start teaching kids at an earlier age? Is it that abominable that we take maybe, an hour from Cartoon Network or the Disney channel? Or even so, parents even understand this essential concept. That is the duty of our education system. On the other end, is the practicality problem. Despite the tools offered, there remains a question that repeatedly pops up in these student's heads: Why are we learning this? The answer is a simple "fulfillment of a college requirement". There is just no driving force behind learning a second language. As a result, we don't really learn a second language in high school, - we are just there to earn a mere A. Interestingly enough, we are stuck on learning English. So are we as diverse as we thought ourselves to be? Or are we just compromising our identities to work for a decent university? Unforunately, the problem not only to the future, but also the past. Retrospect to my thoughts beforehand, my consciousness was raised through the realization that I neglected to truly learn my native language. If I could go back in time, I would surely have placed more heart and effort into my bilinguialism. Cuz' I gotta admit, it is pretty cool.

Blogs: Just a fad or much more than that?

I remember when online blogging was most popular.  It was around middle school for me when everyone had a blogger, livejournal or xanga.  It was like the myspace or facebook or today.  People were constantly writing posts with picture and videos and waiting for people to comment back and forth on their posts.  I never realized at the time that this was a literacy and language experience.  I just figured I'd get one and start writing posts because everyone else had one.  

I remember I had this one blog that was purely dedicated to writing back and forth to one of my friends that lived in Taiwan.  This wasn't the most ideal way to send letters back and forth but it was the most convenient.  However, when writing on these public spaces, I couldn't help but still feel distance between us, even though we were in constant communication with one another.  What is it that makes these virtual writing spaces so much more impersonal than actually taking a sheet of paper and jotting down your thoughts?  To me, although I have become accustomed to doing a majority of my writing on the computer, it still feels unnatural for me to consider it an actually "writing" experience.  Is online blogging just a fad that disconnects people from the reality of language and writing?  

I know people who purposely rid themselves of public blogging spaces like myspace or facebook, because they feel they are being consumed by these so called "fads".  Would having too many of these online blogging tools actually distance us from the reality of literacy and turn us off to the idea of writing?  This is definitely something to think about...

Representations galore...

"Representation doesn't always have to be literal."  This is what we had learned from our Kidnet guest lecturers.  They explained to us that representations of writing don't always have to be literal.  They showed us examples of digital stories that portrayed people's autobiographies through pictures and digital media.  

This reminded me of my own experience during my high school graduation.  Instead of a normal graduating speech, I expressed my feelings through dance and put together a graduation dance instead of a written oral graduation speech.  In the following video, me and four other graduating dancers danced to "For Good" to express how people have impacted our high school's lives for the better and as a tribute to our family and friends for always being there.

It is interesting how writing and language can really be portrayed in so many different modalities.  This is simply just one of them...

Reflection of Glynda Hull's presentation

I thoroughly enjoyed Professor Hull's presentation of Errors in Literacy.  As she discussed artistic forms of oral communication and different registers of language.  That got me thinking of how performing arts could be considered a modality of literacy and writing.  Professor Glynda Hull used examples of digital story telling to exemplify how incorporating different modalities into writing changes traditional writing.  

While she was describing this I was thinking about how physical movement or dance could be used as a modality of writing and communication.  One contribution of dance to literacy is the ecological psychotherapy and value of dance for patients.  According to Susan F. Graham, she talks about she agrees with educational writers, such as Vygotsky, that there is a pattern that develops in literacy development.  

They believed that literacy is stimulated by 

interactions of a gross physical nature with ones environment and others,

these experiences are then converted into internal or external verbal languageand finally

the concepts developed are reinforced and recorded through the more abstract mediums of reading and writing."

Read more:http://danceeducation.suite101.com/article.cfm/dances_contribution_to_literacy#ixzz0MX6hA9Xu

This really made me think that maybe I could do my final project incorporating this type of modality of literacy.

"Are you born in Chinatown???"

Funny how my field work experiences are moving hand in hand with class readings and discussions.  Just yesterday after class, I went to St. Martin de Porres and I met two cute little Mexican girls.  The quiet one was named Diana and the more outgoing and active one was named Rachelli.  As I was playing and talking with them, one of the first questions they asked me was what country are you from?  It was very interesting how they associated my race/ethnicity with what country I came from.  Yes... I am Chinese, but I have actually never been to China before.  I also have only gone back to Taiwan maybe twice my entire life.  So I answered I'm from the United States.  They both gave me puzzled looks and were waiting for me to continue my explanation.  I told them I am Chinese and I speak Mandarin, but I was born here and so I identify myself as an American.  

Diana and Rachelli were so interested in my ethnic background, culture, and language.  I was actually sad that I couldn't identify as much with it as I'd like.  They wanted me to tell them how to say all these different words and phrases in Chinese.  They even made me write the words on their arms so they could remember them.   Embarrassingly I couldn't write as proficiently as I speak.  As I taught them Mandarin, they taught me a bit of Spanish.  Although I had taken Spanish in high school for  years, I would say I'm far from good so it was a great experience for me!  I really enjoyed this opportunity for exchange of languages and their growing curiosity for other cultures.  It made me think about how eventually, someday, we could all learn to overlook boundaries of race and appreciate all the different cultures that do exist.

Transformation...

According to Vygotsky, interpersonal interactions transforms into intrapersonal interactions. Vygotsky repeatedly emphasizes the importance of education as a social learning process that develops into an individual internalization. Moving from the social level, where learning is acquired in an external manner, most of the time from another intellectual. One of his prime concepts and examples is that "we learn with the assistance of someone else who can help us do things we can't yet do on our own." I have found this to be very true since I've started to work at the St. Martin de Porres site. Many of the students that I have worked with are just waiting for someone to show them how something is done. They just need an older mentor or tutor there to teach them about the life experiences and achievements they are yet to obtain. One of the greatest feelings I get is when the kids talk about the schools they want to go to in the future. One of the young girls I went to even told me she wanted to go to Cal! She said that all of the tutors and mentors from there were smart, she hoped that one day she would be like that as well. Like Vygotsky says, all the students need is assistance to get to where they want to be and what they cannot yet attain by themselves. Interpersonal goals and learning processes are then transformed into intrapersonal scaffolding. =)

Exploring on Equal Territory

Often times I find it to be very intimidating to go up to a professor or person of higher scholarly merit than you and ask for help or even just to engage in conversation.  I feel incompetent in comparison to them and that I lack the capacity of knowledge necessary to communicate with them.  Although I know that this is a faulty way of thinking, I can't help but feel nervous and jittery when having to face someone who is considered an intellectual superior.  

This exact situation seems to be an underlying fear for a lot of tutors.  When working with kids, you really have no idea what to expect.  Personally, I am afraid to be stepping on a child's imagination and creativity by having to correct them or point out their academic faults.  I find it very difficult to find the perfect balance between the two hats that are mentioned:  researcher and teacher.  It seems like often times there is an assumed hierarchy between the student and the teacher that is hard for some of the students to break.  In that case, it is really hard for the teacher to empower the student, engaging in rich dialogue and the student to accept that help and encouragement.  

To make research and teaching work in unison, we learned that we have to be able to approach and make knowledge "together" rather than have a give and receive type of learning technique.  The main concept that I will be sure to take with me as I visit my sites this week is to simply imagine myself exploring the learning field once again, but this not as a tutor but as an equal to the kids there, experiencing and growing in knowledge with them.