I had a lovely blogger post all written out for you, and poof! (Grr!) Must start again.
Just of last post:
Yay! Holidays coming!
Boo! Thighs will get fat!
yay! Mom Y and I to diet in next week
Have done so far for diet:
this morning: 134.5 lbs
Have eaten: home made soup (if you can call it that, yes I made it).
Exercise: none - fighting cold and icky sore throat (had to look up how to spell throat)
Thesis pages done today: None, am starting now
Books not related to thesis read this weeK: 3
Bujold's latest (good)
Bridget jones's diary (mildly entertaining but lost points as being cheap Pride and Prejudice knock off)
Briget jones: the edge of reason (alternating between being amused and wanting to knock b. jones on the nose, although she reminds me of Kathleen and I when we are being silly - which is pretty much whenever we hang out)
Just to amuse all with the greatness of the folly that writing a thesis is, here is my first attempt at it, written when I was slightly buzzed because the prospect of beginning a thesis was overwhelming. All other attempts (including current one titled "first draft" although it is actually my 20th-something draft) have been written while completely sober and are much more academic sensiblity - meaning completely different from the following:
In Southern California classrooms there are diverse languages, cultures, creeds, and religions represented consistently. Any given random sampling will easily render this statement as fact. This region of the world is regularly inundated with thousands of new arrivals from distant (and not so distant) lands on a daily basis. Teachers are coping with all different levels of English language learners (EL) and cultural clashes constantly. In this thriving world of diversity and growing awareness, as a foreign language teacher one question comes to mind: why do foreign languages stay foreign? In a land where foreigners are not foreign, but familiar and multilingual is not a concept but a common occurrence I find it odd that our schools produce a consistent sample of monolingual graduates. In some countries this lack of linguistic diversity could be said to be from education. But as it so happens, our children are mandated to take at least 2 years of a foreign language in high school and “uneducated” third world countries often reveal a population with greater multi-lingual capacity than ours. It is obvious to any casual observer that our students are graduating without a usable foreign language from high school. In this research paper I endeavor to find out why our students, even after several years of study, are graduating without a viable foreign language; what they are actually learning in these foreign language classes; and how it can be improved.
Since it is best to, “begin at the beginning,” let us take a look at the history of western foreign language teaching. Long ago, on a far away island called Britannia, there was a great population of tribes that continually seemed to be overrun by different invaders. To this mythological place came the Vikings, the Romans, and finally the Saxons. After wave upon wave of invaders landed, conquered, and left their mark, Britannia immerged with what is known as the “bastard tongue” or English. These wild tribesmen of the North, whose mutterings were now forever changed, grew to become a, self-proclaimed, civilized group, ruled by Kings. These Kings were very politically aware (some more couth than others) and they realized that in order to engage their neighbors, and former conquerors, respect, they would have to have an educated population. This educated population existed of the wealthy who were able to afford an education. Their language defined their education. Whomever among them that claimed to possess an education, and therefore social stature and wealth, proved it by inflicting his native tongue with rules of grammar stolen from another language – Latin. At this time Latin was already a lost cause. It was no longer spoken in the streets, but it was something recorded in books by philosophers long dead. It was not a living, spoken language, but a dead written language. However, in one of the oddities that mankind exceeds so well in, being so long dead and illogical to use, it was even more respectable. Thus it was attempted to change the rules of the English language once more, only this time the change was not brought by the sword, but by the coin.
All were not possessing of the coin, and it came to pass that only a portion of the population was able to make this leap from the page to the spoken tongue. However, because the rich flaunted their educated, brutalized, form of English in front of the peasants, the commoners wished to be like their wealthier fellows and learn this dead foreign language as well. When America was first being colonized the English escapees, or pilgrims, carried with them this love of a dead language. So apart from French, German, Spanish, and all other useful foreign languages, this dead language was studied above all. From here the tradition of written, grammatical foreign language teaching in America sprung.
Since then greater work has been done to . . .
