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Through meeting with Susan everyday I was able to learn a lot more than what I would have expected myself to learn alone while being an extremely busy college student. Our first few meetings we focused on learning the Farsi alphabet and we for the most part worked on that a majority of out visits as I learned new vocabulary and attempted to spell them correctly with this brand new alphabet. I found pronunciation to be a very difficult task while working with Susan because sounds I am not at all familiar with became expected of me and it was frequently quite a struggle to speak words appropriately and efficiently. 

The speed at which we went through lessons was comfortable as well as I spent a lot more time on the reading and writing aspects of learning, as I am more comfortable with that, than I did with speaking aloud. When it came time for our sessions this was usually my time to practice speech with Susan and having someone to guide me through rather than practicing alone was always a relief. Our lessons were also informative in how they incorporated information about culture: what people eat, how people speak to one another etc.

Overall I enjoyed the experience of working with a language partner. It relieved some of the pressure of teaching myself a language and made it sort of an informal classroom setting which I am very comfortable with. I also appreciated my language partner keeping me on track with my goals and helping me formulate plans on what I should be learning. 

My cultural project was about Persian Weddings and was able to virtually explore the types of music played at weddings and general types of Persian speaking music as well. Popular music in Persian speaking countries is recent and more often than not music is imported instead of made. This might be because in Iran and Afghanistan celebrity musicians are not as frequent as Western countries and those who are quite popular are known by everyone. 

Early pop music in Iran actually consisted of imitating many musicians from Western countries such as Elvis Presley and The Beatles. Latin romance rhythms were also introduced into this music. However, a few decades later Iranian officials began to produce and promote a more appropriate and decent style of pop music that would compete against the Western-style music. This type of music was well received in iran as it was domestically made and produced a national pride in the people.

Persian music is not very popular because extremely strict regulations discourage people from attempting to make albums and even publish a song. Firstly, permits must be obtained to perform or publish any music through the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Through this process it will usually take three years for an album to get a permit. Artists like Canadian-Iranian Mozhdah Jamalzadah, who have long since fled the country, use their opportunity to make Persian pop music regardless of their location. Attempts made by artists like Mozhdah are bringing Iran and Afghanistan closer to forming an identity in the popular music and entertainment industry which will bring these countries closer to forming a modern identity.

When I first began conducting research for my cultural project the first thing I asked my language partner about were any specific practices/ceremonies done for children that specified gender - as my topic was originally gender roles. Susan informed me that there is a naming ceremony heavily celebrated after the sixth day of birth for a child. On that day there is a celebration with family and food and the newborn is named. It is called شب شش (Sheb Shesh) or the sixth night. There is also a Child's Day or د،ذ ک،رک (Rozeh Kodek). It is held for children around school age which when Susan was in school was around 7 years old and has now gone done to as young as 5 years old. Reason's for this celebration could be that birthdays are not heavily celebrated so celebrations including many children occur instead. 

It is also around school age that children must learn to pray as it is practiced to pray several times a day. Along with prayer expectations of the child were expressed and children are taught to respect their elders similar to many countries and always make sure the elders eat first. Elders are also spoken formally to and always greeted with 'salam', from Susan's experience. School life for children was included in Susan's explanation as well. While the boys had their sports activities the girls most often participated in theater while it was offered to all of them. The boys uniform usually consists of slacks and buttoned shirt while the girls wear a long black dress and white head dress daily. Susan complained of the complete lack of personal expression in schools as jewelry or any other kind of accessories were allowed her entire school career nor when open toed shoes. The school regulations have stricter expectations of children than what Susan expressed to me in her everyday at home life.

My main interest in learning of Irani and Afghan culture was that of gender roles as we see the disparities women in these countries face. Before I had the chance to learn anything about countries like Afghanistan and Iran I had always assumed that life for women was like what I saw on television: no freedom of expression or self. I had assumed that the extremists of their countries were limiting them to their homes. After speaking with my language partner and even watching media from Afghanistan I learned that there is a lot of similarity to an Afghan woman's life similar to that of an American women and I had been too blinded by stereotypes on television to notice this. 

Susan, my language partner, described to me what a normal day for her was like in her home in Afghanistan when she was in high school. She would go to school in the morning separate from the boys at that age, however, they basically were taught the same coursework. After school is where there were differences as there were many activities available for the boys and none for the girls. Girls often returned home after school having nothing else to do. Susan said that occasionally she would have friends visit her home but her mother never wanted her to visit others homes to be bothersome (very similar to my own mother). One activity Susan discussed was going out with her parents to shop or see a movie. Other than that another activity Susan partook in was household chores shared between herself and her sister. As she became older it was expected of Susan and her sister to take on the household work for their mother.

Although, I do see gender roles demanding that women be the one to take care of household work instead of men I also noted that Modern day Afghanistan is in some ways very similar to the Western world. Afghanistan has changed in recent years to include women in many more activities and give them equal access to more of the world that they were denied in more traditional times. I found it surprising to hear of daily schedules not so different from mine when I was in high school, especially in what I thought was an area strictly divided between sexes.

My cultural project was about cuisine in Farsi-speaking countries such as Afghanistan and Iran. I explored what people eat for each of the three meals, what foods are the most common, food offering etiquette, restaurants, and learned the names of foods in Farsi.

Farsi Recipe

Farsi Sheet

 I thoroughly enjoyed everyone's presentations and will review each one since I took notes.

1. Lily

     Her presentation was very informative. She looked at the split between Sephardi and Ashkenazim Jews. I learned  that Hebrew is a prime example of a language that was influenced by and built upon by other languages. For example, there was Ladino, Judeo Portuguese, and Catalan forms of Hebrew. I also did not know that there were Jewish communities in some of the countries mentioned. There are Ethiopian Jews, Asian Jews, Yemenite Jews, and even Mizarahi Jews. I did not realized that Judaism was passed down through the mother. This is very different from Farsi and Islamic culture because that focuses on the role of men.

2.NiNa

    I thoroughly enjoyed Nina's presentation because I had never heard anything about a Rickshawala before. It was an interesting concept. Rickshaws are basically little cars that can be rented by drivers, comparable to taxis in America in a way. They do not have seatbelts or doors, so I do not think I could ever get into one now. If I was born there, I would not have that fear of course. I learned that this is a major employer in India and anyone takes a rickshaw (whether they be low-income, rich, or famous). I also learned that you need to negotiate the price of the fare before even entering the vehicle.

3. Danielle

      Danielle talked about Marriage in the Middle East. This presentation showed me that Middle Eastern couples value marriage much more than anyone in America. There is the courting process and much family input to see if the pair is fit. I really enjoyed the sacredness of the wedding and they all seemed genuine. I appreciate the tradition such as the knife dance and the honey. It was absolutely adorable that the marriage is built off of "sweetness," so many sweet items are incorporated into the wedding. This relates to my presentation in that it shows food plays a major role not only at small events, but at big ones as well.

My cultural project was about cuisine in Farsi-speaking countries such as Afghanistan and Iran. I explored what people eat for each of the three meals, what foods are the most common, food offering etiquette, restaurants, and learned the names of foods in Farsi.

I found it interesting that there were KFCs and McDonalds in Afghanistan. I know McDonalds is a huge chain restaurant, but I did not picture it in the Middle East. I learned that the menu is not the traditional one we see in America, but it caters to the dietary likes of Middle Eastern people. The foods are served spicier and they are not piled with cheese as it is in America.

 Since the cultures in the Middle East are so caring and familiar, it is impolite not to offer guests food or drinks when they show up. Guests do not necessarily have to call in, but if  they come over they should be offered something. In turn, it is impolite to refuse guest from a host. The host offering you food or drinks is a sign that they care about your wellbeing.

I found out that men often go to restaurants for lunch breaks at work. Some of these restaurants are not as sanitary as they should be. I have a friend from Iran whose brother, a worker, ate meat at a restaurant and caught Hepatitis. The water quality is not that great, so occurrences such as this are far from extreme.

At restaurants, it is impolite to tip because that means you are judging the worth of another.

A famous dish that I found is Qabuli Palau, which is a blend of rice, vegetables, raisins, and meats. The recipe varies depending on who makes it. This food is served mainly at lunch and large gatherings.

I would like to explore more about the meat quality and rice harvesting in these two countries. I was not expecting them to be big on dairy products, but that is not the case.

I met with Susan to discuss aspects of my cultural project about food, so she gave me the run down of food in Afghanistan.

Tea is to be served after each meal, especially lunch and dinner. Chocolate and sweets can be served alongside the tea.

Breakfast in Afghanistan typically includes eggs,milk,sweet tea with bread, and any oil foods. The eggs are usually served fried with tomato and onion. Although dairy is common, cheese is not served with many of the meals. If you go to restaurants in Afghanistan, you will certainly find some foods containing feta.

Lunch consists some sort of rice, meat, and vegetable combination. Rice (barinj) is served alongside most, if not all, meals in Afghanistan. Popular meats include veal, goat, sheep, and chicken. Pork is not consumed based on religious values; pigs are toxic.

Dinner is the time when the entire family will sit down to eat. The cuisine is basically the same as lunch.

It is important to eat meals three times a day and to treat the body well.

  I decided to research the history of music in Iran since I do not know much about it. There were four main genres that i discovered: classical, symphonic,folk, and pop. This made me wonder if each genre of music carried some of the same historical characteristics as American music. I will discuss each genre and give an example of music from the specific era. One genre that is often ignored when it comes to research is Iranian rap, but I discovered that on my own academic quest.

First, Classical music was deeply rooted in the Sassanid era. The Sasssanid era  was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire. After this era,  the country name shifted from "Persia" to what is know as Iran today. Classical music at this time was reserved for the royal courts of the monarchy. This is comparative to early music in America which was seen as a form of entertainment for the upper class. Classical music was well written and "classy," so it is not surprising that the elite felt entitled to this genre. This music also gained popularity in Iran after it was able to be recorded on cassette tapes in later years. I found an interesting fact about women in classical music. They were not allowed to sing solos for male audiences, but were allowed to do so if they were singing for females. Early Classical music in America was male-dominated as well and males would dress as females if a female was ever needed.

The symphonic era in Iran was also interesting. It is believed that operatic music developed in Iran long before it was picked up in Europe. A common sub-genre is Tazeeieh, which is very dramatic and emotionally driven. The audiences are so emotionally attached to this music based on videos I've seen. 

Watch An Iranian Opera

Folk music in Iran is connected to classical music as far as the emotions go.Folk music strays away from the usage on instruments. The vocals set the mood for the song rather than using instruments to set the tone. There is much room for improvisation in Iranian folk music as well. 

Maryam Akhondy is a in a category of her own because she is a classical Iranian singer. It is very rare to find women who are able to have a career period and especially one as a singer. This is because of general customs and norms in Iranian society.

Female Iranian Classical Singer

Pop music emerged in Iran in the 1950s after the guitar was introduced and became increasing popular in the late 1970s. This as a result of the Iranian Revolution and many artists fled to the U.S. to pursue their careers. 

Iranian Pop: Listen Up

I think that this was a successful semester of language learning.  It was a different, and frustrating experience to not have a steady language partner to work with.  Last year I might have said that my favorite part about Hindi is writing it because I like working in the script, but this semester has definitely made me realize that what I most enjoy is speaking the language.  

I spent a portion of the semester reviewing material I had previously learned, but forgotten especially since I did not use Hindi over the summer.  I now feel more comfortable than ever with this material, particularly the past tense which I have previously struggled with.  I learned a lot about immigration first hand through talking with the kids I tutor. I learned several new, useful verb constructs.  I can write them all well, and I would feel comfortable incorporating almost all of them into a conversation in Hindi.  Education definitely became my focus throughout the semester.  I was able to interview Saifali about his education.  The interview was very informative.  Among other things, I learned that Saifali went to private school and that he was taught in Hindi and English.  He did not live at school, because his home was very close and classes only lasted about six hours per day.  He attended a co-educational school and they learned about religion as part of their curriculum.  These were the most interesting things that I took away from our interview.  I was also pleased with my ability to read a newspaper article reasonably well that related to education.

I was very happy with the oral assessment that Nina and I completed together.  It was great to know that my conversational skills have not gotten rusty, even without speaking the language very regularly.  As I wrote in my evaluation, I was most proud of my ability to explain things that Nina did not understand in an alternative way, using different verbs or descriptive words.  This was something new for me, as I have always spoken to people who are much more advanced Hindi speakers than myself.  Thus, I have always been the person to need something explained in a different way.

I was satisfied with my individual presentational speaking that was recorded, as well.  I am actually glad I did that component without specifically preparing a monologue in advance, even though I was nervous about it at the time.  I am someone who really likes to prepare for things, and practice them a lot in advance.  This showed me that I may underestimate my ability to speak spontaneously and without prompt from someone else.  I was able to say essentially everything that I would have otherwise prepared, and with minimal error.

            In the course of this semester, I successfully learned how to express thoughts and ideas in Polish and mastered the vocabulary that would be necessary to navigate the country of Poland as a tourist, namely concerning food, lodging, and transportation.  I believe, however, that the most important skill that this class provided me was the knowledge and experience of how to be an autonomous learner.  I feel confidant that the techniques of self-regulation and self-discovery of the methods by which I learn the best will not only aid my post graduation studies in medical school, where limited time necessitates efficiency, but also promote my ability to be a life-long learner in the future.

            In my exploration to discover which methods of learning aided me the best I attempted different combinations of audio and visual learning techniques and assessed the effectiveness of each.  To accomplish this I studied word and phrase lists with BYKI, studied from a polish grammatical workbook, listened to polish songs and radio broadcastings, watched polish television, and listened in on Polish phone and Skype conversations.  After three months of experimentation, I found that I am much more of a visual learner than an auditory one.  Much of the Polish that I was able to use and understand had been a product of visual studies with BYKI flashcards and the Polish workbook while the amount of information absorbed from listening to Polish was minimal.  As a result, at the end of the semester I focused nearly all of my attention upon the BYKI program and the grammar workbook, greatly increasing the speed with which I was able to learn the language.

            As a result, one of the greatest challenges that I encountered as a visual learner was my less than adequate ability to process words spoken in the Polish dialect, though I am able to read them and speak them with a certain amount of fluidity.  My language partner and I attempted to address this issue by increasing our practice of inter-personal speaking and although this helped slightly, it also hindered my ability to understand other polish speakers as a result of my expectance to hear polish words and phrases in my language partner’s particular accent.  This struggle evidenced itself greatly in my oral examination at the end of the semester in which I was barely able to understand what the native Polish speaker was saying in some instances while I knew the meanings of the individual words that were spoken.

            I would recommend to a new self-directed language learner the importance of maintaining personal motivation in the desire to become fluent in a language.  If an individual has the proper motivation to learn the target language, the amount of time that is spent outside of actively learning the language becomes just as valuable to the language learning process as the amount of time spent with one’s nose in the books.  Realizing new terms that one does not know in the target language but uses on a regular basis, thinking about and discussing the differences in culture with friends, and identifying the application of learned vocabulary to the real world can each greatly increase the speed of learning as these “real life” mental associations are the first steps to fluency.  Without the proper motivation, the target language may be understood as “work” which will result in an inability to achieve any form of fluency in the language due to the inability to relax and interact freely within a mental environment which is thought to be stress inducing.

            I think that the only thing that would improve the speed of my progression as a self-directed language learner would be to fully immerse myself in the Polish culture via living in the country for a few weeks.  From what I have heard from other students that have returned from abroad, this is easily the quickest way to become fluent and as I have successfully uncovered the ways in which I learn most effectively this semester, I would be curious to discover the effects of employing these methods within the target country and viewing the resulting acceleration of my language learning process.

            The only area in which I believe that the MLC 105 course (and I am unsure if this area lies within MLC 105 or MLC 110) is if students and language partners met on a more frequent basis than for only two hours a week.  In my opinion, this is not enough time to fully take advantage of all the benefits of language learning that come from interacting with a native speaker.  It is extremely difficult to fit into two hours all of the questions about history, culture, spelling, grammar, and pronunciation that arise from a week’s worth of learning while still having time left over to practice interpersonal speaking and experiment with different methods of learning.  If any factor in the student’s learning process must be limited, it should not be this one, which, in my experience, provided a greater amount of cultural and lingual understanding compared to the semester of studying that I accomplished on my own.

In the chapter on communicative competence, I found the section on Functional Approaches to Language Teaching to be very interesting because of the seven function laid out as belonging in an advanced-beginner's language learning textbook. These seven functions are important to master in order to be culturally competent, but as we talked about, there are many other aspects that play into communicative and cultural competence, as well. I believe that person who understands these seven factors, and how they can change in various situations is competent. I also believe, that competence implies minor flaws, and that understanding, implementing, and accomplishing, are very different aspects. A person is likely to commit faux pas in their own culture, so it would be even harder to avoid committing one in another culture. A person can understand the rules and norms of a culture and a language, but implementing may even be able to implement them, but accomplishing that in perfection in very hard. the difference etween understanding and implementing what will make one communicatively and culturally competent, is understanding the difference between the mentality and physicality of an action. It is one thing to know what to do or say, and another thing to actually say or do it.

One of my most ambitious goals for the semester was to learn several expressive, but irregular verb forms. These sentence constructions are listed throughout my goal sheet.  I worked on these forms throughout the semester, and compiled some representative examples of each on these sheets.  The only verb form listed on my sheet that I did not cover was expressing "must." However, I did an additional form to replace this: "need" which is similar to "must."

This chapter on  sociocultural factors was very interesting. I believe that I found the section on 'Second Culture Acquisition' the most interesting. I had learned about enculturation in my anthropology class, but I had not heard of acculturation before. I found it to be a really interesting aspect because it is almost like resocialization, but from a purely cultural aspect. Also, we had, of course, touched on the topic of culture shock after watching the culture shock film. I enjoyed, though, how this section laid out a definition with all possible meanings and emotional effects it can have on a person. My favorite part of this section, and chapter, though, was when they broke down culture acquisition into steps. Sometimes it is hard to puts thing into steps or a series of events, because you run the risk of generalizing or oversimplifying the situation. However, I thought that this summed up the process of second culture acquisition admirably and quite succinctly. I had also never thought of it in such a way, or process, before. I had of course heard and learned about culture shock, but I had never though of it as part of a process of culture acquisition, and I never would have guessed it to be the second step. The word shock seems to imply something that happens instantly, so you would think that culture shock would be something experienced upon arrival in a new culture, but in fact, culture shock sets in after one as become disillusioned of the idea, that this new culture os mostly similar to their own.  I definitely found this section to be the most interesting and informative.

Jewish humor is a relatively new cultural aspect, but it is cultural none the less. Humor in Judaism can date back to the torah and the midrash. However, in more recent times there a pattern of self-deprecating, and often anecdotal humor has appeared. This type of humor originated in Eastern Europe, but truly took root in the United States, particularly during the vaudeville era. This humor was shared through radio, television, film, and stand-up comedy. In fact, a high percentage of comedians in America and Russia have been Jewish. Jewish Humor often relates to many different aspects of Jewish life, culture, and history. Religion, assimilation, self-hating, self-depracating, wits, and the ever loved rebbes are all common joke topics.

The Yiddish language has also played a large part in humor. The combination of hebrew and german often led to words that were found funny by non-yiddish audiences. Yiddish words were thought of as inherently funny due to their funny sounds, and odd letter sound combinations. The phenomenon of Shm-reduplication actually started with the yiddish, language; comedians started adding shm into a word or phrase for humor (ex. fancy-shmancy). many comedians also adopted the practice of ending sentences with questions, which is a Yiddish construction.

Another popular form of humor was the joke that exploited Jewish stereotypes. Jewish mothers, frugality, hypochondria, and the Jewish 'accent' have often been picked out as prime joke targets. My personal favorite idea, though, has to do with the Jewish stereotype of kvetching (complaining). many jokes that center around other themes, still have the element of kvetching. Jewish humor is often self-deprecating, and many people can admit that they kvetch quite often, so its great fodder for jokes.

Jewish humor is not only an aspect of Jewish culture, but it plays on many other cultural aspects as well.

[My favorite joke is: One early winter morning, Rabbi Bloom was walking beside the canal when he saw a dog in the water, trying hard to stay afloat. It looked so sad and exhausted that Rabbi Bloom jumped in, and after a struggle, managed to bring it out alive.
A passer-by who saw this remarked, "That was very brave of you! You must love animals; are you a vet?"
Rabbi Bloom replied, "And vhat did you expect? Of course I'm a–vet! I'm a–freezing cold as vell!"]

Throughout the semester I found the implementation of language partner interaction into this course to be extremely helpful as a motivational tool.  Without an accountability partner that tested my progress in my target language on a weekly basis I know that I would have fallen prey to the procrastination that I am naturally prone to.  The language partner meetings also served to bolster my desire to learn by reminding me on a weekly basis of the unique and interesting characteristics of the Polish culture that had inspired me to study it in the first place.  Throughout the semester, my language partner and I experimented with different theories and tools to determine how it was that I learned language the best and each approach met with varying amounts of success.  Although our initial attempts to teach me the necessary topics and phrases that I would be tested upon in the course through memorization were successful, they did not successfully lead me to any understanding of the language as a whole and I was completely unable to understand any of what was said in polish if the vocabulary that was spoken was outside of that limited to the specific topics I had chosen to study.  As a result, we next approached the language from a grammatical angle and through the learning of the most basic grammatical structures of Polish I became able to form my desired thoughts into speech, albeit in extremely broken speech, but in vocabulary that was independent from my topics of interest.  However, although this approach yielded success in self expression, it did little to allow me to express complex thoughts or understand spoken Polish.  To address these issues, my language partner exposed me to as much spoken and written polish as possible in the form of listening to polish songs, reading polish children's books, and watching her interact with other native polish speakers via skype and phone conversations.  As a result, my vocabulary slowly improved and I began to be able to identify certain phrases in heard Polish by markers such as common intonation gestures.  Although this methodology was extremely successful in expanding the nature of my polish skills even farther beyond that which was required to speak about my topics of interest and increasing my vocabulary, it was a gruelingly slow process and did not progress as far as I would have liked it to before the conclusion of the semester.  Unfortunately the downside to this method of learning Polish is that I became too familiar with my language partner's particular "lived in America for 8 years" polish accent which she also slowed down for me so that I could better understand.  As a result, when I was presented with another native polish speaker in my oral evaluation, I found her mannerisms in speaking and her accent much harder to understand.

Although my language partner and I experienced much success, my only regret is that she did not have more time in her schedule to meet more than twice a week as I believe that this occurrence would have improved my language learning greatly since learning on my own without a native speaker to confer with was often extremely frustrating and unsuccessful since it led both to incorrect learning and the positive reinforcement of incorrect speech for days before it would be noticed and then re-taught.  I believe that occurrences such as this wasted precious time in my attempt to learn an entire language in a single semester.  

Although Andrew's project was the only presentation I was able to see, I was extremely impressed with his delivery of the presentation in Bengali.  He seemed able to speak with reasonable confidence and only minimal notes, entirely in his target language.  The statistics that Andrew shared were very informative, and I liked the way that he gave statistics about the number of ICU beds, doctors, etc in America as well, for context.  I also liked his approach of talking to different people that he had met in Bangladesh about their experiences with healthcare.  I know, in India, that what is published can often diverge from what typically happens for working class Indians.  

I also enjoyed reading over some of Jason Stickel's blog posts.  I especially enjoyed what he had to say about politeness in Polish.  The article he cited about the percent of language devoted to politeness in typical conversation as compared to English was really interesting to me.  I think Hindi may actually have a lower percentage of language devoted to politeness, because as I noted in a previous culture post, Hindi incorporates formalities into the subject.

Presentation%20on%20Indian%20Education.pptx

My cultural project this year was very different from my previous one on Hindu death rituals.  I think a lot of the terms I learned for this presentation are more practical for everyday use and that I was able to incorporate slightly more of my language this year, or at least did so with greater complexity.  From looking at the literacy statistics I found through the Indian census, it is clear that India has made great improvements to its quality of education.  However, it is still disheartening to see the gap that exists between male and female literacy rate and access to education.  Literacy has been shown to be important for enhancing women's rights, improving quality of life, and reducing child mortality, so it is extremely important that India work to improve access to education for girls.