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Reflections on developing my skills as an autonomous learner

Posted by Elliott Hammer on April 25, 2010 at 7:03pm
My past experiences language learner have been in Spanish. I took 221 Intensive Spanish here but I didn't come out of it speaking/understanding very much. I then went to Argentina and became more or less fluent over the course of 6 months. Classes were not a priority as they were pass/fail and I was there to experience the culture and the people (I passed all of them with fairly good grades). I stayed with a host family who did not speak any English. They were surprised because I didn't carry around a dictionary (electronic or booklet) like many others before had. I never looked words up or looked up grammar until I was pretty sure I had figured it out myself. By figuring it out myself (through questions, describing words when I didn't know them, and intensive listening) I developed a strong language logic. As I got more advanced I continued doing the same thing and it seemed to work. Using the language logic I had developed I was able to guess at structures and "invent" words that wound up being correct.

During this semester I have built upon that experience to guide me in my autonomous language learning. I payed a lot of attention to the videos I watched and my language partner meetings. Because I was not surrounded by the language some of the tactics I used in Argentina didn't apply. I did find a need to spend time studying.
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Artifact #4

Posted by Laura Major on April 25, 2010 at 6:22pm
Farsi sentences about me:

Salam!
Esme man Laura ast. Esme fomil man Major ast.
Man inglisi suhbat mekonam.
Fardar char shanbah ast.
Man ahele Richmond hastam.
Man daram yak mawdar, yak padar wa yak berawdar.
Man daram se garba.
Shumawre telefon man se, haf, sifr, hast, yak, hast, nuh ast.
Shumawre otawq man yak, char, sifr, char ast.
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Artifact #3

Posted by Laura Major on April 25, 2010 at 6:20pm
Personal pronouns with verb "to have":

I have = Man daram.
You (informal) have = Tu dari.
You (formal) have = Shumaw darid.
He/she/it has = O darad.
We have = Maw darim.
They (informal) have = Anhaw darand.
They (formal) have = Ishawn darand.
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Artifact #2

Posted by Laura Major on April 25, 2010 at 6:16pm
Animals in Farsi:

cow = gow
pig = khuk
donkey = alaugh/khar
horse = asb
goat = buz
sheep = gosfand
rooster = khrus
hen = morkh
cat = garba
dog = sag
rabbit = khargosh
parrot = tota, tuti
bird = parenda
squirrel = senjob
mouse = mush
dolphin = dolfin
seal = khukobi
elephant = fil
walrus = fildarioi
snake = mar
shark = cosa
kitten = bacheygarba
puppy = tulasag
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Artifact #1

Posted by Laura Major on April 25, 2010 at 6:13pm
Common Farsi greetings:

Salam! = Hello!
Esme shumaw chist? = What's your name?
Esme man ___ ast. = My name is ___.
Esme fomil shumaw chist? = What's your last name?
Esme fomil man ___ ast. = My last name is ___.
Chtor hastet? = How are you?
Khub hastem = I'm good.
Khub nestum = I'm not good.
Shumawre telefon shumaw chist? = What's your telephone number?
Shumawre telefon man ___ ast. = My telephone number is ___.
Shumawre otawq shumaw chist? = What's your room number?
Shumawre otawq man ___. = My room number is ___.
Shumaw ahele kujaw hastet? = Where are you from?
Man ahele ___ hastam. = I am from ___.
Man inglisi suhbat mekonam. = I speak English.
Wa shumaw? = And you?
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Culture Blog 6

Posted by Tania Bukach on April 24, 2010 at 5:20pm
In the spirit of my culture presentation, I'd planned on writing a bit about modern Iranian fashion. However, during my research I found reference to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. What on earth was this, I wondered.

It is in charge of preserving Iranian culture, and restricting the influence of international (especially Western) propaganda. The ministry is the manifestation of an interesting governmental perspective - that Western cultural influence is an attack that Iran needs to defend itself against like any other aggression.

Some tactics of the ministry include prescribing certain garments (the hijab) or prohibiting some (tight pants, Western haircuts, etc) and stationing of morality police to enforce the laws. Punishment for disobedience can include fines, lashings, and jail time. The fashion industry is put under similar restrictions. Models, only four years ago legalized (fashion shows used to be done on mannequins), must "Move modestly. No garish makeup. Don loose and unrevealing clothing."

The articles I have found all cite Iranians who are outraged at the restrictions, and the fact that they can be so severely punished for how they are dressed. However, these articles are all in English, for a Western audience. I wonder how well the government reflects the sentiments of most Iranians.
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Artifacts

Posted by Elliott Hammer on April 23, 2010 at 2:00pm
Artifact 3.wavArtifact 4.wavI have created 4 Artifacts. Attached are my 3rd and 4th. One is a a conversation about food (me and zach). The other is a greeting conversation (me and zach). The other two artifacts are on Zach's page. They are: the conversation at the bar (me and zach) and the alphabet song (the whole group).
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Culture #8: Nowruz

Posted by Conal R Smith on April 23, 2010 at 1:30pm

Nowrūz, نوروز,"New Day", originally "New Light" is a traditional ancient Iranian New Year. Nowruz is also widely referred to as the Persian New Year.festival which celebrates the start of the Nowruz is celebrated and observed by Iranian people and the related cultural continent and has spread in many other parts of the world, including parts of Central Asia, South Asia and Northwestern China. Also some ethnic groups in Albania, Serbia, Bosnia and the Republic of Macedonia. Nowruz marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the year in Iranian calender.

It is celebrated on the day of the astronomical vernal equinox, which usually occurs on March 21 or the previous/following day depending on where it is observed. As well as being a Zoroastrian holiday and having significance amongst the Zoroastrian ancestors of modern Iranians, the same time is celebrated in the Indian sub-continent as the new year. The moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator and equalizes night and day is calculated exactly every year and Iranian families gather together to observe the rituals.

As it was stated before, the first day on the Iranian calender falls on the March equinox, the first day of spring. At the time of the equinox, the sun is observed to be directly over the equator, and the north and south poles of the Earth lie along the solar terminator; sunlight is evenly divided between the north and south hemispheres. Circa the 11 century, major reforms of Iranian calenders took place and whose principal purpose was to fix the beginning of the calendar year, i.e. Nowrūz, at the vernal equinox. Accordingly, the definition of Nowruz given by the Iranian scientist, Tusi, was the following: "the first day of the official new year [Nowruz] was always the day on which the sun entered Aries before noon".

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Listening activities.

Posted by Elliott Hammer on April 21, 2010 at 6:30pm
Lion King Clip:

Watching the lion king clip helped because I was familiar with the song and knew the words in english. There were also subtitles which helped a lot. It was good practice for my listening comprehension.

Kids in a classroom:

We watched a video in one of our language partner meetings about simple greetings. It was two students talking when they got to class and then the teacher introducing herself. We went through the video and wrote down what we remembered, we went through the video again, and then we went through the video sentence by sentence. This helped me increase my vocabulary and listening comprehension.

People at the market:

We watched a video about a marketplace in Israel. This helped me increase my food vocabulary and listening comprehension.
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Cross Cultural Experience

Posted by Conal R Smith on April 21, 2010 at 1:36pm
My cross cultural experience actually happened right in the Global Studio. It was a fascinating discussion about life in general with Wadia, my instructor, but more specifically, her desire to return to Afghanistan after graduation from Richmond (one year from now as she is a junior). I cautiously asked more questions in order to understand the motivations behind her wishes. What I discovered is that those Hofstede cultural dimensions really were true. First and foremost, she said that she loved studying in the U.S. but it was too individualistic for her. She later reiterated numerous times that she hated being away from her family though she knew this was quite the experience and opportunity of a lifetime. I inferred from that, even from overhearing the tone and excitement within her voice when she spoke with her father on the phone, she could be happy anywhere but she would be happiest when in closest proximity to her family. Referring back to the Hofstede rankings, Afghanistan places some of the greatest value on family and collectivism. I could sense those inherent characteristics of her culture within her words from wanting to be close to her family again. It made me rethink my own values and own individual desires and how I viewed my own family. It was a dose of reality from another person's perspective from another culture and see what they value. I could relate to her feelings of nostalgia as I spent my whole junior year abroad in Spain, only seeing my family once. The discussion showed how someone from another culture values keeping family close which I agree with. Though, maybe it is the "American Way" or it is so ingrained in the American culture but I feel as if I need to go out into this world on my own, away from my family for a period of time, in order to become fully content with myself, see the world and discover what is truly important to me.
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Culture #7: The Iranian Revolution and Creation of the Islamic Republic

Posted by Conal R Smith on April 21, 2010 at 11:45am
When the Shah relaxed censorship laws in 1977, Iran erupted into a series of demonstrations and dissents. The writings of Ayatollah Khumayni began to circulate widely, and the amount of protest material in general began to flood the country. First off, who was Ayatollah Khumayni? He first came to political prominence in 1963 when he led opposition to the Shah and his "White Revolution",a program of reforms to break up landholdings (including those owned by
religious foundations), grant women the right to vote and equality in marriage, and allow religious minorities to hold government office. Khomeini was arrested in 1963 after declaring the Shah a "wretched miserable man" who had "embarked on the destruction of Islam in Iran."

Three days of major riots throughout Iran followed, with Khomeini supporters claiming 15,000 dead from police fire. Khomeini was released after eight months of house arrest and continued his agitation, condemning the regime's close cooperation with Israel and its capitulations, or extension of diplomatic immunity to American government personnel in Iran. In November 1964 Khomeini was re-arrested and sent into exile where he remained for 14 years until the revolution.

 All through the 1960's and 1970's, Iranians were deeply discontent with the dictatorship of the Shah, but the flood of protest material fanned this discontent into a raging passion. People demanded more reforms, more human rights, more freedom, and more democracy. There were two distinct revolutionary movements. The first was the religious movement headed by the ulama ; this movement demanded the return to a society based on the Shari'ah and ulama administration. The second movement was a liberal movement that wanted Westernization, but also demanded greater democracy, economic freedom, and human rights. As the revolution proceeded, these two groups gradually merged to form a unified front.


The spark that erupted into revolution was a protest inQumm on January 9, 1978. A group of students protested the visit of Jimmy Carter, the American President, and the governments attacks on Ayatollah Khumayni. In particular, they demanded that Khumayni be allowed to return to the country. The police, in an ill-conceived moment, opened fire on the students and killed seventy.

This set in motion an inescapable pattern that steadily
destabilized the Shah's government and reduced its legitimacy in the eyes of both Iranians and the world. In Shi'a tradition, martyrdom requires a commemoration of the martyrs forty days after they have been killed. So forty days after the massacre at Qumm, Iranians took to the streets to commemorate the dead students and, by extension, to protest the government. Again, Iranian police opened fire on the crowd. Over one hundred people were killed in Tabriz on February 18, the fortieth day after the Qumm massacre. On March 30, forty days after the massacre at Tabriz, over one hundred demonstrators were killed in Yazd. And so on. By August, demonstrations had become constant all over Iran.


The Shah was losing control. He appointed a new prime minister and made an attempt to allow demonstrations to proceed without violence. But on September 8, a day Iranian historians call "Black Friday," Iranian troops fired on a Tehran demonstration and killed several hundred people. On September 9, the Shah declared martial law and imprisoned as many opposition leaders as he could lay hands on.

Beginning in October, a long series of strikes, including oil-workers, began to cripple the nation. Even though the Shah convinced Iraq to evict Khumayni, when Khumayni moved to France he became more powerful than ever. He suddenly gained an international audience, and the French and British in particular sympathized with his dissent against the Shah. He spoke regularly to Iran through telephones, and these telephone "speeches" were recorded and distributed all throughout Iran. The Shah realized that he would have to let Khumayni return to the country, but Khumayni refused. Since the Shah's government was illegitimate, Khumayni declared that he would never step foot in Iran as long as the Shah was in power.


In November, the Shah turned the government into a military government. The month of Muhurram was approaching, the month in which Shi'ites traditionally celebrate the martyrdom of Husayn. It is a passionate and highly religious month, and since the protests against the Shah were largely religious in nature, everyone knew that the country was on the verge of exploding.


Muhurram began on December 2 with demonstrations, and these demonstrations would continue all throughout the month. They were massive, in the millions, and it was clear that the demonstrators, not the government, was in charge. They seized government buildings, shut down businesses with massive strikes, assassinated government officials. Iranian demonstrators knew this was the month of martyrdom and many would dress in white (the garb of martyrs) and try to provoke government troops to fire on them.


On January 16, 1979, the Shah left Iran for good. On February 1, Khumayni returned to Iran to a welcoming crowd of several million people. On February 12, the Prime Minister of Iran fled. The Revolution was over and Khumayni declared a new Islamic Republic.


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Problem: Dependency?

Posted by Conal R Smith on April 20, 2010 at 6:14pm
Before entering my evaluation session today, I realized I had a problem. It has been something that had been bothering me for quite a while but hasn't really come to the forefront until yesterday. I realized that, after spending hours and hours working my Wadia and all the exercises she has helped me with, I still find it difficult to maintain a frame of reference to how the letters, when put together in a whole word, sound correctly. I usually can pronounce certain parts, if not the majority parts of the words correctly, though I still hold a sense of doubt of how I can pronounce the word in script form. Obviously, I am able to pronounce correctly the transliterated forms of the word and sentences but this isn't completely learning the language. For example, if I work on a Friday for an hour and half or so on pronouncing a variety of words and do not look at them again until the following Monday, I have difficulty pronouncing the same words again. The problem, or cheating way, is that I attempt to transliterate the word using English characters but end up mispronouncing the word regardless. This is my dependency. As I posted in my last blog, in which Wadia gave me the trick to speak properly, I believe this issue can be contributed to the fact that the process of learning Farsi, is constant repetition and the memorization of vowels within specific words. As I have not had the constant barrage of listening to someone or audio tape of these words and sentences, I have difficulty retaining exact sounds of words. Just some food for thought after today's session.
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Cultural Post 8 - Regions in Turkey, Part Two

Posted by David Mowry on April 19, 2010 at 5:00pm
Four other regions represent their respective histories of civilization. These regions are Southeastern Anatolia or Güneydoğu Anadolu Bölgesi (Diyarbakır,Şanlıurfa, Gaziantep), Eastern Anatolia or Doğu Anadolu Bölgesi (Van,Kars, Erzurum), Black Sea or Karadeniz Bölgesi (Trabzon, Rize,Safranbolu, Samsun), and finally the Central Anatolia or Iç AnadoluBölgesi (Ankara, Sivas, Konya, Kapadokya).

Southeastern Anatolia has been a hotbed of controversy for much of the history of modern Turkey. With a large Kurdish population, the region enjoys a wide and sometimes competing diversity. Linguistically, both Turkish and Kurdish are widely spoken. Kurdish pronunciation influences Turkish in that the throat-based "kh" sound common in Kurdish and Arabic is common. Further, Kurdish uses the letter Q, which adds a softer pronunciations of names and words such as "Kemal". A common sight in Southeastern Turkey is the alternating black and white ring pattern on buildings, especially minarets on mosques. Such architectural designs allow for the continuation of Kurdish influence even when language and other cultural aspects are restricted.

Eastern Anatolia is full of ruins from many past civilizations, including the Armenian and Seljuk empires. Armenian architecture can be seen most readily between Van and Kars, most notably in the historical Armenian capital of Ani. There is much Seljuk influence in Erzurum and Divrigi. Such diversity is most apparent in the art of the region, especially rugs that combine Turkish, Armenian, Persian and Kurdish influence. As the area is cold and often snowy, it has a reputation of being drab and muddy. This perception was not changed by Orhan Pamuk's Snow, which is set in Kars. Both Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia are thought of as the most religiously and socially conservative regions of Turkey.

The Black Sea region is one of the most culturally distinct regions of Turkey. With a rainy and mountainous terrain, it is somewhat isolated geographically from the rest of the country. The Black Sea has a tradition of dance and music that has expanded throughout Turkey, most recently with the Kolbasti trend. The dialect is the thickest the farther east one gets. Residents of this tea-growing region make it known that they are proud of coming from the Black Sea.

Finally, the Central Anatolia region is the historical center of the Ataturk-led independence movement. Ankara, the capital, was formerly a small town but has expanded to be the country's second largest city. The region is diverse, with the region of Cappadocia frequented by tourists and the eastern part frequented by ticks (which notably carry Crimean-Congo Hemmhoragic Fever...). The dialect in Ankara is similar to that of Istanbul, but with an increased frequency of the word "hocam" as a term of respect, used for teachers and people in positions of authority though originally used for religious leaders. This region contains many rugs and clay tradesmen/women, reflecting the abundance of wool from Angora (the former name of Ankara) sheep and clay from the Red River.
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