Happy New Year!
Sunday, February 14th, 2010
Fireworks welcome in the ‘Year of the Tiger!’
Archive for the ‘Asia’ Category
U.S. Keeps Foreign Ph.D.s
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010Despite Fears of a Post-9/11 Drop, Most Science, Engineering Post-Grads Have Stayed
By DAVID WESSEL : The Wall Street Journal
Most foreigners who came to the U.S. to earn doctorate degrees in science and engineering stayed on after graduation—at least until the recession began—refuting predictions that post-9/11 restrictions on immigrants or expanding opportunities in China and India would send more of them home.
Newly released data revealed that 62% of foreigners holding temporary visas who earned Ph.D.s in science and engineering at U.S. universities in 2002 were still in the U.S. in 2007, the latest year for which figures are available. Of those who graduated in 1997, 60% were still in the U.S. in 2007, according to the data compiled by the U.S. Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education for the National Science Foundation.
Foreigners account for about 40% of all science and engineering Ph.D. holders working in the U.S., and a larger fraction in engineering, math and computer fields. “Our ability to continue to attract and keep foreign scientists and engineers is critical to…increase investment in science and technology,” Oak Ridge analyst Michael Finn said.
“Data for all available cohorts indicate that ’stay rates’ of foreign science and engineering doctorate recipients in 2007 are slightly higher than they have been in recent years,” Mr. Finn said. His findings, which use tax data to track graduates over time, cover the years before the U.S. plunged into a recession that damped job prospects in many U.S. industries and universities.
Other analysts see signs that recent foreign grads are increasingly likely to return home, particularly in today’s weak job market. “I have no doubt that the 2009 data will show a dramatic shift,” said Vivek Wadwha, executive in residence at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering, who has been warning loudly about the threat that trend would pose to innovation in the U.S. In October 2008, Mr. Wadwha and others used Facebook to question 1,224 foreigners studying at U.S. institutions at all levels. More than half the Indians and 40% of the Chinese said they hoped to return home within five years. (more…)
Is China stuck in ‘cultural isolation’?
Friday, January 1st, 2010by Yu Qiuyu / GT
Why Chinese culture is not as alluring as it ought to be
I once heard an American musician who was friendly toward China say, “Every westerner who comes to China for the first time will be shocked at how many misconceptions they had before they came. Perhaps your propaganda methods have created a kind of cultural isolation.”
To call it “cultural isolation” is obviously going too far, since there are few people in the world who deny the grand history of Chinese culture, and few people reject Chinese material or food culture. At present, a “China fever” is gradually rising. However, it cannot be denied that in the case of the Chinese cultural mainstream being understood abroad, despite a certain improvement over the past few years in rejecting habits like “leftist” extremes and arrogant, one-way indoctrination, there nonetheless still exist serious problems. Internationally, our cultural dialogue overall is still stuck in a situation that is hard to accept.
Is this because of political bias? It actually is not – take the two World Expos that China has attended for example: at Hanover, Germany, in 2001, in a public opinion survey taken before the opening ceremony, China’s exhibit ranked second on the list of “exhibits you most want to visit.” So where then is the problem?
I visited the China exhibit at the Hanover Expo. What struck me most were the photographs of the Great Wall and Peking Opera masks, as well as some backlit photos of famous Chinese vistas. After that it was a smallish model of the Three Gorges, a conceptual model of a Chinese person on the moon, and finally a model of the human body labeled with acupuncture points next to some Chinese medicine. Out of all of the foreign audience who lined up to come in, few lingered at any one spot; most of them walked quickly through in a few minutes and then left.
The China exhibit at the 2005 World Expo in Aichi, Japan, obviously took a lot of work, but conceptually there was little change. At that time, there was a computer screen at the main entrance that displayed how long you would have to wait at particular moment to enter any country’s exhibit. That screen essentially became a competition board for the attractiveness of each country’s culture; for example, France was three hours, Korea three-and-a-half hours, Japan four hours. But at the entrance to China’s exhibit you hardly had to wait at all. (more…)
Recasting in Language Learning
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009If you’re a language teacher, you’re probably quite familiar with the concept of recasting, even if you don’t know the name. And if you’re a language learner, being aware of recasting can help you learn faster. So what is recasting?
Fukuya and Zhang define a recast as “implicit corrective feedback.” Another definition of “recast” given by Han Ye in a presentation at theACTFL 2008 conference was “a native speaker’s corrective reformulation of a student’s utterance.”
It’s not very complicated in practice. Here’s a simple example:
Student: I want read.
Teacher: Oh, you want to read?
In the above example, the English teacher communicates with the student (using a question to confirm what the student had said), while at the same time making a correction (adding “to”). The teacher may or may not choose to emphasize the correction.
Here’s a slightly more subtle example:
Student: I want read.
Teacher: What do you want to read?
In this example, while you could identify a correction in the teacher’s question, the focus is more on communication and less on correcting the mistake.
Recasts don’t have to be questions, and they can be focused on pronunciation, on grammar, on vocabulary… but they always carry with them some degree of ambiguity, because recasts are not overt corrections, and some degree of repetition is a natural part of normal speech. Will the student pick up on the correction, or will the conversation just keep moving along? (Does it even matter what the student consciously notices his mistakes?)
I believe that much of my own success in acquiring Chinese has been due to (1) getting lots of practice with native speakers, and (2) being receptive to recasts.
Here’s a typical example of an exchange that might occur (in Chinese), with a string of letters representing the focal language point:
Learner: Abcde.
Native speaker: What?
Learner: Abcde.
Native speaker: Ohhh… AbcDe!
Learner: Yes, Abcde.
The native speaker’s second utterance above was a recast, but as we see in the last line of the exchange, the learner didn’t get it. Yes, the recast was almost imperceptibly different from what the learner said originally, but recasts tend to be that way (from the learner’s perspective)… especially when they involve tones. As a learner, when you become more sensitive to recasts, you’ll hear them all the time.
Think about it… some people will pay big bucks to a teacher in order to obtain explicit corrective feedback. In actuality, though, if that person is in a second language environment, he is probably getting corrective feedback all the time in the form of recasts and not even knowing it. Recasts are great because they don’t impede the flow of information and they’re usually not an embarrassing form of correction. They’re also great because you don’t get them if you don’t get out there and talk to native speakers. They’re a positive side effect of speaking practice. As a learner, recasts are your friend.
Culture & Society Mid-Term Project Guidelines
Thursday, October 29th, 2009For those of you in my “Society and Culture of Major English-Speaking Countries ( 英语国家社会与文化入门 )” class, here are the guidelines for your Mid-Term Group Project:
Mid-Term Project Guidelines Fall_09
If you have any questions, let me know!
If You are Sick with the Flu
Saturday, September 5th, 2009I received word today that H1N1, commonly called “Swine Flu”, has been found this week in several students at H.I.S.T. So far, classes are NOT canceled, but the faculty are requesting that all students take extra care so that we can keep the spread of this flu to a minimum. If you think you are coming down with the flu, DON’T COME TO CLASS!
Seriously, it’s better to miss a week of class than it is to get all the rest of us sick! Here are some more tips if you think you might be sick;
- Know the signs and symptoms of flu. Symptoms of flu include fever or chills and cough or sore throat. In addition, symptoms of flu can include runny nose, body aches, headache, tiredness, diarrhea, or vomiting.
- Stay home or in your dorm if you are sick for at least 24 hours after there is no longer a fever (38 degrees Celsius) or signs of a fever (have chills, feel very warm, have a flushed appearance, or are sweating). Staying away from others while sick can prevent others from getting sick too. Ask a roommate or friend to check up on you and to bring you food and supplies if needed.
- Cover you mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing or sneezing.
- Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after coughing or sneezing. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective if soap and water are not available.
- Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth. Germs spread this way.
- Drink plenty of clear fluids (such as water, broth, sports drinks, and electrolyte beverages for infants) to keep from becoming dehydrated.
A New Semester, New Responsibilities
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009So, it’s been quiet around here all summer, sorry about that! It’s not because nothing was happening, in fact, the opposite is true! We were VERY busy this summer with the end of the Spring ‘09 semester and the arrival of 13 cultural exchange students from America!
Now the Fall ‘09 Semester has begun and in addition to the class I taught all last year, The Society and Culture of Major English-Speaking Countries ( 英语国家社会与文化入门 ),I am now also working in the foreign exchange office of the Hunan Institute of Science and Technology ( 湖南理工学院 )!
I have some new and exciting responsibilities that are going to make this next semester a new challenge, but one that I’m really looking forward to! I’ll be sure to post a story or two here about how things are going!
Faculty Lecture
Thursday, May 21st, 2009I was privileged to give a lecture for the Foreign Languages Department and International Exchange Department at the Hunan Institute of Science & Technology ( 湖南理工学院 ) on Wednesday, May 20th.
My topic was “Cross-Cultural Communication: Communicating Effectively in a Culturally Diverse Environment” ( 跨文化交际 ).
If you’d like to see my powerpoint slides, download them here.
Week 12: USA (Mid-Term Group Project)
Friday, May 8th, 2009
This week in my class, “The Society and Culture of Major English-Speaking Countries ( 英语国家社会与文化入门 ), we had our mid-term group project reports. Each group came up with a list of stereotypes that Chinese often have about Americans or America in general. From that list of stereotypes, I chose one and the group chose one and those two stereotypes became the basis for a research project.
The results of the research were put into a written report (500 words) and a 5 minute oral report to the class.
Everyone did a great job. If you’d like to see the reports, I’m slowly getting them online here. (They should all be up by next Thursday – that’s my goal anyway!)
Week 11: USA (Unit 12 – US Foreign Policy)
Friday, May 1st, 2009For my students at the Hunan Institute of Science & Technology ( 湖南理工学院 ) who are taking the course: “The Society and Culture of Major English-Speaking Countries ( 英语国家社会与文化入门 ) : An Introduction (Book Two / Second Edition)”
This week’s lesson covered unit 12 from the textbook which is about US Foreign Policy.
If you would like to have the Presentation Notes from this week’s class, click on the link to view or download them.