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The last two sentences of chapter 28 put it best: "the aim of grammar, I shall be arguing, is to give structure meaning. So meaning is where we must begin". This description, I think, represents how language should be learned. It is impossible to learn words, phrases, grammar, and sentence structure if one does not have a cultural context; or even more simply, know the meaning of the words. When I was a child in Hebrew school, we learned the alphabet, how to read, how to write, how to pronounce words, how to sing, and how to have the proper accent. But I never knew what I was saying. Ever. As I write this, I realize how absolutely ridiculous that sounds. It is dumb! How could I have learned to read, write and speak "fluently" in a language while having absolutely no idea what I was saying? It makes absolutely no sense. But it is all about structure and context.

The framework in which I was working was to be able to read Hebrew well enough to read from a prayer book, speak well enough to pronounce words, songs and prayers properly, and write... well, I'm not exactly what the reason behind writing was. There was a purpose for all of it, yes. But it gave no meaning. There was no link between my Jewish culture and the words I was learning. I never learned the Hebrew word for the concepts about which I was learning. I never learned about uniquely Hebrew phrases or jokes (other than the ones I hear my grandfather say in Yiddish). This is such a travesty. It shows me how language learned in the wrong context, out of the correct structure is such a waste. This is why it is so important that I make a correct language learning plan. I want to know the meanings and the connections for everything.

There are connections between everything: between culture and idioms, between the origin of words and culture and geography, between religion and word use, between spelling and grammar. These links between grammar, diction, and culture are endless. And I already know how much of an absolute waste it is to not connect all of the dots. To me, these readings for today represented the importance between all of these connections. I am still not sure how best to draw the lines, but I know for sure that they need to be drawn. 

Week 1

Learn the alphabet

Learn common greetings (hello, good morning, good night, good afternoon…)

Week 2

Learn common short phrases (yes, no, maybe, a lot, a little, you are welcome…)

Learn common greetings

Week 3

Learn how to ask common questions about people (name,school, height, age, ..)

Learn how to answer common questions about myself (name, height, age,...)

Week 4

Learn self and family introduction

Learn how to describe object attributes (color, shape, size,)

Prepositions and their usage

Week 5

Learn basic food names (tomato, beef, watermelon, cake)

Learn how to conduct a basic conversation

Week 6

Learn how to ask and tell the time

Learn how to ask for directions

Week 7

be able to make sentences

Work on grammar

Week 8

Work on pronunciation

Work on reading

Work on speaking

Learn how to talk about my background in moderate depth

Week 9

Watching videos on Youtube

enrich vocabulary

Week 10

Conversation and practice speaking

Work on writing/ Spelling  

 Week 11

Learn more phrases

Practice speaking

Week 12

Reading a short story

Creating A Learning Plan Fall 2013

Over the last few years - in part due to taking SDLC 105, 110 and 111 - I have exposed myself to a lot of different parts of Afghan culture. In past years I have focused on the role of media, and modernity and secularism in the country. That said, this year I wanted to learn a little more about sports in Afghanistan. Learning about the role of sports in different cultures is always an interesting thing as each often has its mix of unique ones and others that are played throughout the world. I also want to examine how the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan impacted sports in the nation. Ultimately, I want to do a cultural project discussing the Taliban's influence on sports in Afghanistan and where sports in the nation stands today.

During the course of the semester some the topics I will take a look at are:

• Buzkashi - a sport created in Afghanistan 
• Afghanistan's participation in the olympics
• Sports vocabulary 

Also, when appropriate, I will write about topics related to Afghanistan that do not have to sports, such as politics. 

REFLECTION%20PAPER%20%23%201.doc

First Reflection Paper

After reviewing the Levels of Competence, this is where I stood last time I took the course Fall 2012 and where I stand now:

SDLC 111 (Fall 2012)

Interpretive

• Listening: Intermediate - Developing 1
• Reading: Novice - Beginning 2

Interpersonal

• Communication: Intermediate - Developing 1

Presentational

• Speaking: Intermediate - Developing 1
• Writing: Novice - Beginning 2

SDLC 112 (Fall 2013)

Interpretive

• Listening: Intermediate - Developing 2
• Reading: Intermediate - Developing 1

Interpersonal

• Communication: Intermediate - Developing 1

Presentational

• Speaking: Intermediate - Developing 2
• Writing: Novice - Beginning 2

Some of my goals for this semester are too:

• Actually understand a news broadcasts
• Talk about sports
• Be able to read short stories and some newspaper articles
• Improve my pronunciation to sound more like a native speaker than language learner. 
• Speak more freely / spontaneously 
• Translate from English to Dari, and Dari to English
• Write paragraphs

Emily and I met for two hours this week.  We worked together through the book I got for Ulpan in Israel and we spoke some in Hebrew.   Emily and I are working on speaking together.  Speaking with Emily is much harder than speaking with Shir, but it is ok.  Emily is forcing me to learn new vocabulary and expand my vocabulary.  The difficulty is retaining the new words that I learn from our conversations.  

  To help retain the information I have been writing down the words in my notebook and I will be reviewing them to help solidify them in my brain.  As well, when I come across a word in my book that I do not understand, I write down the word in my notebook.  I will be posting these words on my Ning for new words that I am learning each week and trying to master.  

Third Cultural Post:  Formality and Informality in Target Language

In Korea, formality is an important part of the life of people. It expresses respect, agreement and trust. It is the age of the person we are communicating with that influence the way we are interacting. The language contains very distinct formalities and informalities. With elders and hierarchical superior it is mandatory and expected to use a formal way of speaking while with friends and younger people we can use a less formal language. Besides the language itself, gestures are tremendously important in communicating in Korea. You are expected to vow when saying hello or meeting an elder. Another example is that you are required to use both hands to give something to an elder, if not it will be perceived as rude and uninvolved.  This respect for elders is also shown when clinking glasses with someone, it is extremely rude and irrespecutful to hold your glass higher than the elder's glass

As a first time self-directed learner, this semester has been an eye opening experience as to how much I do not actually take control of my learning. I had all these ideas and plans that I would use to further my learning but unfortunately I did not use many of them. I wonder how far I would have gotten with the language had I not had Mirwais as my language partner. This experience has helped me to reconsider how I will go forward with acquiring knowledge within the academic realm but outside of the standard American academic setting to which I have become accustomed.

While I have definitely increased my knowledge of Persian over the semester by ten fold, I feel as though I could have put a lot more energy and effort into having better command of the language. As far as being a self-directed learner, I have found that when I am presented with an agenda from someone else more experienced, I fall back and let them do what they want for the most part. I'm not particularly fond of that but it is what it is and the first step to changing anything is to acknowledge it. I found that I did not speak up as much when I felt like things were moving too fast and as a result, I fell behind due to frustration. This led to me just coasting through the rest of the semester and putting more energy into other courses and my campus employment.

Reflecting upon it now I can see how similar my situation is to that of a student that I mentor at Henderson middle school. Since he has trouble reading and comprehension of what he's read, he gets frustrated with trying and gives up, distracting himself with other things. My experience in trying to learning Persian has helped me to empathize better with my student in regard to his work, this in turn has helped me to get less internally frustrated with him and thus has made me a better mentor because I can better understand where he's coming from. 

All of that being said, there is more work to be done and hopefully I will be able to better accomplish my goals of reading Iranian poetry and translating it in the future as I intend to pursue my self-directed learning after graduation. With less things going on, I think I will be able to have more discipline with my Persian language studies.

Bosnian%20Extravaganza.pptx

Perhaps not surprisingly, my learning did not follow the trajectory which I laid out for it at the beginning of the semester. I accomplished both more and less than I had hoped to in various areas. One of my goals was to learn 300-500 new vocabulary words. I think I fell just short of this. Part of the reason is that I spent far more time than expected on questions of experiencing and thinking about a new culture, as I discussed my cultural presentation. I’ll go into this more in the second part of this reflection, but in short, much of my time was spent reading texts about others’ experiences in Bosnia, what informed those experiences, and how and why they told their stories as so. Or, in some cases, I read about various histories of Bosnia written for different audiences (academic, public, or policymakers). Thinking about these questions was important to me not just for my future experience in Bosnia, but in any space in which the people hold a very different reality from which I live.

There are some major differences when an American enters the Bosnian realm, or generally when someone enters a foreign culture. There are some similar major differences when an American basketball player for instance, attempts to step into the world of a world class American chef. These people in some vastly different realities. Might as well be speaking a different language. In both cases, I think the approach of the learner is the same: get in there, try it, and pay very close attention to anything and everything you can from the master, not necessarily the objects of fascination, of that universe. In other words, it’s not necessarily all about the food or monuments, but the ways in which people experience the food and monuments, trying to get as close as you can to experiencing the thing in the same way. This I found is the most personally challenging and perhaps even risky, is adopting and abandoning, if only temporary, the cultural assumptions/truths of the foreign land. This I’ve realized can be frightening, and with good reason. As we learned in SDLAP 105, students who come from abroad fear “losing themselves” or culture if they really immerse themselves and do things as the natives due. Truth is, I think, when you really delve into a culture, you do. You experience the world differently, and therefore, will act/think differently. Some people are not willing to do this, and for fine reason. But for those who are, risk aside, I think the transformative rewards are enticing. The value of this experience/realization is immeasurable.

What does this mean for my experience in Bosnia or any country? Well, as I learned more about areas of Bosnia, famous monuments, the stories behind them, descriptions, etc… I felt a kind of outsider experience. I even felt this, thinking back, when Milica and I went to the Balkan restaurant and she was giving me a briefing about what was what and why. I’m not dismissing this as an important part of acculturation. Though I will say that being/doing as if you were one of the Bosnians is a very different cultural experience than being explained to, reading, etc… In any case, the various books I read on the topic I think have prepared me well for a close encounter with most any “foreign” culture.

Another goal was to improve conversational fluency on familiar topics and vocabulary. To some extent, I succeeded. When I ran into older Bosnian folks on campus (ie the custodial and book store staff) or off campus (field trip with Milica to the Bosnian markets), I was able to talk a bit about my family, where I was from, how I got to Richmond, etc… This was different from last semester, because I mostly spoke with individuals that I knew well, who I knew would be somewhat receptive or predictable in the matter in which they received the conversation. So in some senses, I tested my abilities further outside my comfort zone than last semester. At the same time, I came a bit short due to the frequency of conversation I had with familiar people. Apart from Milica and I, wasn’t able to converse as frequently with other Bosnians mainly for logistical issues (ie seeing each other as frequently and that really time consuming honors thesis). Also, mostly for the latter reason, I wasn’t able to delve into the Croatian workbook or other Serbo-Croatian media sources as much as I wanted to this semester, or as I intended to semester. In this sense, my conversational fluency fell short of expectations.

In any case, I am very pleased with my SDLAP experience, primarily for the self-directed skills I’ve been able to practice, as well as the sort of thinking and reflection I’ve been able to do thanks to the flexibility and freedom the program provides its students.

Cultural competence doesn't come with simply learning a language. There are many important aspects to it that make a person culturally competent. This has to do with understanding body language, sociolingual which include cultural norms and expectations, among many others. If someone does not understand these language in these contexts it can get them into trouble and make them look ignorant as well as insulting. 

This made think about how foreigners adjust to new countries- they have to adjust to a completely different lifestyle (usually) and then learn how the people of that country interact and what they mean by their actions, gestures, and understand their speech. This speech includes slang and other technical language parts such as grammar. It takes a long time to get used to them and when it clashes with pre-existing cultural understandings it may be hard to assimilate because one would want to resist changing their personal beliefs. 

I read the sentences beneath the alphabets from the Bangla alphabet book I had from my childhood. The sentences incorporated the alphabet that it was beneath into the sentence and had pictures with it. The interesting part about the captions in the book are all the religious references in it. It displays a cultural perspective on religion's influence in Bangladesh.

I read a poem by Rabindranath Tagore for one of my artifacts for 110. It was relatively an easy reading because it was written simplistically and didn't have many conjuncts, which I am not familiar with. The poem is "Chini go Chini" and I thought it was wonderful because he had written this song/poem for a woman he met in South America. I can't recall her name, however I remember when I was doing research on him, I came across a relationship he had with a woman after his wife had died. This was not a typical relationship, however, which is what makes it extraordinary. I think it was clear that they were both in love with each other, but Rabindranath, a conservative man who valued their actual friendship and connection, never crossed any boundary with her or advanced their romantic relationship. Although she had expressed a desire to be something more than just friends, they forever remained platonic and it never furthered. Learning about that I was amazed and found it extremely touching- made me admire him even more! And this poem is very sweet; it's now one of my favorites by him. 

The article about bilinguals was surprising to me because I had never quite thought about how new languages can form a person's perspective of thinking. In my Intro to Linguistics, I learned about the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis in which Whorf said that one's mother tongue influenced the way a person perceived the world, but that it also restricted their ability to perceive in ways outside of their language. His argument was half correct because he asserted that because of that restriction a speaker would never be able to understand concepts outside their language. Increasingly, his ideas are resurfacing because his statement that language shapes the way one sees the world and interacts with it was correct, but the fact that it would forever restrict their ability to think outside their language was wrong. In fact, if a person learned a different language, their perspective would begin changing because of the new language construct. It is for that reason that bilinguals are "smarter", they have more than one way to think and different concepts to see the world in. 

I believe that the more languages a person knows, the easier they are able to pick up other languages and their concepts of time or color. Learning languages means more vocabulary, syntax understanding, and more. As a multi-lingual person, I feel better about my capabilities! 

Bangla is not that big on gestures, but they point a lot when speaking to someone. There are different emotions for the pointing as well, but the most popular is angry or accusatory pointing in which a person will wag their finger at the person they are talking to as an emphasis. When speaking to someone, it is better to avoid eye contact because it is too direct, especially when the two people communicating are of opposite genders. Touching is also to be avoided because it's considered to be indicative of closeness and can become awkward if the two people don't have a close relationship and while having a conversation one touches them. It doesn't really break the ice because it creates discomfort- this is a cultural aspect. Hindi Bengalis will fold their hands in order to say "namoshkar", however Muslim Bengalis will not. Doing this to a Muslim will typically offend them because of religious differences. Muslim Bengali men will usually greet each other with clasped hands and hug each other while giving their salam (asalamu-alai-kum to the initiator of the greeting and walaykum-asalam) one another, especially in religious settings such as the mosque. Women can do the same. 

Bengali communication styles

This idea of time is prevalent in the language because there are certain phrases that Bengalis will use to talk about their schedule. For example, if they are just leaving the house and someone is inquiring about where they are (for a social event) they will say "I'm almost there" (eyje eshe gisi) or "I'm there" (aysi). This type of language would be confusing to westerners, but for Bengalis such responses are expected and while most don't mind (as long as the person isn't TOO late) others will be irritated by such timing. This is because as times become more modern, Bengalis' schedules are more busy and they have other activities or work to attend to. The socio-economic status of a Bengali is the main indicator of how lax they are with their time. The middle class tends to be the most time conscious while the lower classes tend to be the least.

In high school I took two independent study courses so I knew what time management would look like for me and my strengths and weaknesses in it. However, this was my first time doing an independent language class. Before coming into the class, I thought that I would not have problems in it as I did in high school because I love languages and enjoy spending time on it. I wasn't sure about what SDLC 105 would be like, but I had a better understanding of SDLC 110. When I started the classes, I wasn't really disappointed because I enjoyed the concept of learning what I thought was important for me- I found that it was a major perk and made me look forward to learning the technical Bangla. In formal language classes the structure of the class is designed from the very beginning and students don't usually have a "right", so to speak, in the design. The basic grammar, vocabulary, culture aspects are all chosen by a designated professor. Usually (or at least in the University of Richmond) the professors teach language in an engaging way that motivates the students to learn and become successful at it, however it doesn't help students that have an understanding of that language and want to learn a different aspect of it. That was my case, along with the fact that Bangla is not offered as a class. I wanted to learn the technical aspects of the Bangla language; reading and writing. 

My perceptions of how I would learn Bangla were not the same when I actually began learning it and meeting with my language partner. It was slow at first because I did not know what would be good for me since I had never done anything of that sort of learning before. We took a long time on the vowels and alphabet, but I think in the long run it helped familiarize me with them. The sounds weren't a problem, but recognizing the letters proved to be a difficult because many looked the same and it was hard for me to differentiate that. I still need to work on that, but practicing both reading and writing will be the only solution for that conflict. Surprisingly, writing in Bangla is much easier to me than reading it is and I think the reason behind that is I can concentrate and take more time writing sentences correctly than reading it right. Yes, I know the sounds associated with the letters, but the identification is the main issue. Also, I underestimated the complexities of Bangla. When learning the alphabets, I was suddenly exposed to conjunct letters that could only be learned by memorization. While the alphabet is 51 letters, there are over 1,000 conjuncts as it seems. Looking at that freaked me out and I felt the enormity of the language, not the feasibility of it. Once getting over the fear, I was able to concentrate on the simple alphabet and I figured that I would learn the conjuncts as time went along through reading. Because the conjuncts are letters connected with a vowel sound or another letter, they are recognizable. Maybe I'll be able to pick out a pattern from it and be able to untangle it on my own at one point in my learning Bangla.

I'm happy with my progress and where I stand now because I have basic understanding of the language and it's enough knowledge for me to use it during my trip to Bangladesh this summer! I'm definitely continuing my learning with SDLC 111 next semester and I want to work on small children's literature for my readings and move on to larger literature by the end of next year. Taking SDLC 110 definitely helped me put into perspective what I wanted out of learning Bangla and SDLC 105 helped me understand cultural dimensions of language through the class discussions we had on language as well as the readings. 

All in all, I enjoyed taking the two classes and I'm very thankful to Nuray Hanim and Dr. Scinicariello for enabling such an opportunity as independent language learning for students. 

Language history is very helpful in understanding a language's culture as well as its transformation over time. The reason for this is that all languages had influences from other languages. Those influences helped shape the language into becoming the modern language it is today. If one understands the changed concepts and where the language borrowed grammar constructions, vocabulary, or whatnot from it can make it easier to learn it and comprehend why the language is the way it is.

Bengali, for example, is an Indo-European language that derived from Sanskrit. It is one of the languages that is most close to Sanskrit when it comes to pronunciations and vocabulary. Some of the words are exactly the same in Bangla as it is in Sanskrit. Examples of this are the following words: manush (man), prabhu (god/lord), shaukal (morning). Another important aspect to note of Bangla is its influences from religions. Because Sanskrit is the sacred language for Hinduism, Bangla was first comprised of Hindu speakers and thus their vocabulary was more "Hindu". However, most Bengalis in the modern day are Muslim because of Arab and Persian interaction in the 8th century. Due to the Islamic influence, new vocabulary became introduced to the language for religious and non religious terms. There are many synonyms in Bangla for the "God"; prabhu, rama (Hindu) and Allah, raba, maula (Islamic). 

Learning a language's background adds a cultural dimension to it and transforms the language into something more active . Not to mention how interesting it is!

Artifact ideas I had were largely writings and recordings.

In order to show my progress in reading Bangla, I thought of recording myself reading a Bangla text and then putting it together in a video to show what I was reading and include a translation of it. I actually ended up doing this for two of my artifacts, but they were of two different levels. For the first one I read a certain amount of alphabets and the simple sentences beneath them from my Bangla alphabet book. The second was more advanced because it was a poem/song by Rabindranath Tagore and had few conjuncts in it. I used audacity to record my voice and then windows movie maker to make the videos with the text in it.

As for writing, I planned on showing my progresses in writing from the beginning stages to the last stage I ended up in. So, I wrote out the alphabets with their sounds and shortened forms (for the vowels). For the last stage, I made a card for my parents writing in Bangla. Here are those:

            The culture shock video we watched was a documentary that talked about the disorientation international students felt upon relocating to a new country. It had interviews from various international faculty members and students of the University of Richmond. The culture shock documentary put into perspective a many things that I encountered, but did not know was a common occurrence with other people as well.  The documentary discussed topics such as the meaning of silence in America in opposition to foreign cultures, conflicts in miscommunication, cultural integration, and the difficulty in the contexts of friendship.

            Some things that the international students addressed as part of their difficulties in adjusting to life in America were cultural aspects that even I as an American found difficult to understand. Such an aspect is not knowing how to answer to someone who asks “how are you” in passing. The question follows a greeting and acknowledgment; however, the person does not stop and actually want to hear the answer to how the person they asked the question to is. I think that this cultural difference lies in the American concept of time—Americans tend to be less relaxed when it comes to everyday life so in order to display an acknowledgment to a person they are passing by, they ask them how they are, but don’t expect an actual response because they don’t have time to listen to it. Their expectation is a short “fine” or “good”, even if the person is not doing so well, the standard answer is the same because of the lack of time both people have. This was something I had to adjust to growing up here, but I think people fall into the habit of doing that because it becomes a cultural trait, not a personal characteristic. I can see why it is difficult for international students to grasp this because it shows miscommunication—an international student who is asked how they are might feel ignored and disliked if the one asking does not stop to listen or actually begin a conversation with them when they ask them how they are. In reality, the behavior is not related to the person’s like or dislike towards the person they asked.

            Similarly, the concept of silence is different in America and miscommunication is a comment occurrence when it comes to foreigners. Silence in America usually indicates disinterest or irritation, and so it is uncomfortable when spending time with a person—especially if it is someone that they do not know very well. In other cultures, silence is comfortable because it does not indicate anything of the sort. For this reason, Americans are stereotypically loud and talkative. Therefore, if an international student remains quiet when with an American student, the latter student may think that the student dislikes them or is not enjoying their time with him or her. This type of miscommunication occurs too often without anyone having the opportunity to realize the misgivings and it tends to make it difficult for an American student to accept the international student and the international student difficult to integrate into friend groups.

            The culture shock video brought to light many things that once concerned me in my interactions with international students earlier in the year. I was mystified by their manner of speaking (which would sometimes come out rude), but I saw it as a cultural thing and tried not to think too much about it. Regardless, I would feel an inkling of discomfort because I didn’t know how to behave around them and what not to take offense towards. It is more complicated than it seems to be friends with international students because you don’t usually know their culture and their differences. Many of their characteristics may come off as indifferent at first, but now I realize that it may just be that as an America, or even as an individual, I overanalyze everything and worry about what someone else is thinking of me. The culture shock video made it easier for me to understand different concepts and issues that foreigners experience when outside of their native country.

Culture Shock Response