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Have you ever thought of learning Spanish but never had the time and right opportunity to do it? You don’t need to worry about “how” to actually do it but what you want to think about twice is if you really have the dedication and interest to learn the Spanish language.
Learning for adults does not come easy any longer compared to how children and teenagers learn. This is true because there is a certain point and range of interest and learning skills each age group has and as a person gets older, the ability to learn depreciates. Think about young children, learning a different language to them is easy as learning A,B,C’s.
Now the next question comes into mind…how do I learn a foreign language fast? We all know that it takes a while to learn new things. It also takes great enthusiasm and interest over something to be able to learn it well and apply it to normal day to day activities. Also, a good memory is built from a vivid event. Findings show that we tend to store in events or images that has a strong impact towards the senses in our memory. This is also why it’s recommended to imagine silly and outrageous images in learning foreign languages because the words can be easily remembered this way. A human brain can certainly not erase these images.
By now you should be able to realize that whatever you have seen ever since you were small is all still registered in your brain. So the next time you see something familiar, be aware that you haven’t completely forgotten what it is or what it is for but just that the image might have not been too interesting at the moment you saw it and in turn, didn’t alert your attention as you were absorbing it to your brain.
So to give you an example how pictures can create an impact in learning a foreign language, we’ll take the English word morning and mañana in Spanish as an example. Imagine this sentence as it happens: Every morning, the postman delivers mails and packages to houses with family names of Manny in a successive order. By associating the words in a scenario as you imagine it happening makes it a lot easier and fun to learn the Spanish language.
Try learning other Spanish words by visiting this link http://learn-spanish-program.com.
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Speaking to inform is the norm - but how do you convince your audience that what you say is worth acting upon?
Not dissimilar to having a debate perhaps or trying to persuade a sceptical audience over to your point of view. How should you approach this?
Without doubt the first step is to understand your audience and learn what they will like to hear. This is absolutely vital if you need to win them over on something that they will naturally be against; what in fact you are doing is selling them an unpalatable concept which isto process their data, and that there is nothing in it for them. Imagine telling them this in a seminar and you can hear the groans screaming out at you before you've begun to speak. It is inevitable that a workforce with reduced morale would result in a tailing off of productivity as well as individuals looking to move to different companies. Implementing a new system is never easy.
then made palatable by offering them "a sweetener" where this sweetener sounds greater than the sourness of the original bad news.
As an illustrative example, imagine that you need to inform a group of very busy processing clerks that on top of their work they all have to learn a new system in which
But it doesn't have to be like that!
Find out what will please the audience
Nobody implements a new system for fun (well maybe some organisations do!Whenever you are trying to persuade the audience or sell an idea, the benefits must be illustrated in 'What's in it for me?' terms. Whatever it is there will be something that you can use to persuade the audience to be right there with you.
Convince convince convince!
Now is the time to prepare your persuasive speech. Firstly, write down your specified objective (in this example, how you will use the overall benefits of the new system to ensure that these will lead to an upbeat mood in the audience by convincing them that, despite their extra workload, this really is very good news for them). The prospect of additional work should not be allowed to dwell in the minds of audiences; while you point out that there will be more work (no point trying to cover it up or dismiss it as it will emerge as a fact eventually and failure to be honest about it will probably lead to monumental problems in the future), it is only in terms of saying that this is a necessary pre-requisite for us all to reap the benefits which you then enthusiastically describe, especially those which impact the audience. In addition look out for other selling points - many organisations are so poorly run that finding things to offer the audience is usually pretty easy; for example, in this case you may well find promising to involve the clerks in the project so that they feel they are co-owners as opposed to enforced participants will do wonders for morale and willingness to take on the new system. Another possibility is for the new system to automate some of the currently manually produced reports thus reducing the workload of the clerks - this would be introduced as part of the opening seminar speech as a great innovation even if the automation could be carried out within the current system.
Steer the audience from their point of view to yours
The same principles would be used if you wished to attempt to persuade a liberal minded audience that life time incarceration, with no chance of parole, should be introduced for say muggers. Stating that anyone should be locked up for the rest of their life with no chance of proving that they have reformed will naturally inflame a liberal audience, but this same audience would probably agree with you that everything possible must be done to avoid innocent people being mugged in the street. At this point you would have the audience on your side but you would probably lose them very quickly if you stated that part of the solution is lifetime incarceration for offenders. However, if you emphasised that the offenders needed help and it was your intention to campaign to improve the rehabilitation programmes within prison, coupled with a through review process to ensure that muggers had been rehabilitated prior to release, you would still have the audience on your side. You may well be able to get away with saying that there is a chance that some people are beyond reform and therefore will have to stay in prison for ever - even the most liberal person would surely baulk at releasing a mugger who is almost certain to be looking for a victim upon release; you may well also get away with saying that resources are scarce, that there are many other deserving causes and that, regrettably, rehabilitation services will of necessity not be as widely available as is desirable or necessary.
In conclusion
Persuasive speaking is really one of understanding the audience's mindset, talking in terms that show you are broadly empathetic to their attitudes and acknowledging that their views are of considerable value which must be fully taken into account when deciding upon an action. Whether it's locking up muggers for life or introducing a new data processing system you will need to convince the audience that the alternatives lead to consequences which that audience will clearly be able to see are worse for everyone including themselves; try and let the audience work it out for themslves otherwise the audience could become scepticle. Persuasive speaking can be achieved by all, as always, the success lies in the preparation.
Copyright (c) 2007 The College Of Public Speaking
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In most of the English tea party preparations, the biscuit English tea recipes are always planned. It is for the fact the biscuit English tea recipe is considered part of the tea celebration. Many note that the biscuit English tea recipe is one of the essential vehicles that help a tea party to become successful. It is therefore important to note that with such considerations, many people planned and set for some the biscuit English tea recipes for the future tea parties and other related gatherings.
The biscuit English tea recipe commonly contains some helpful plans to produce a good quality biscuit and it is actually similar with the English tea cake. As such, the biscuit English tea is coupled is therefore any various plain cookies or tea cakes that is served with tea.
For those who share similar interest in the culinary field and willing to know some of the favored biscuit English tea recipes, I have provided a biscuit English tea recipe for your interests.
The first common biscuit English tea recipe is the English Tea Biscuit that is originally presented by The 1854 Wright House Bed and Breakfast. This particular biscuit English tea recipe includes 1/2 cup of butter that is softened, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of lemon zest, 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of almond extract, 1 1/4 cups of all purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder. Aside from those primary ingredients for this certain biscuit English tea recipe, 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 cup of currants are also provided. For further information regarding this specific biscuit English tea recipe, the procedures involved in this biscuit English tea recipe is so simple. First, you just need to combine the butter and sugar in a medium bowl, and beat it at medium speed until it becomes softened. Then, add egg, lemon zest, lemon juice, and almond extract and then pursue on beating for another 30 seconds. The next procedure involved in this biscuit English tea recipe is the mixing of the flour, baking powder, and salt together. And in this biscuit English tea recipe, with an electric mixer on low, you cal slowly add liquid to the dry mix. Then stir in dried fruit and blend well. After that, you drop the dough by rounded teaspoon into an unswabbed cookie sheet. This biscuit English tea recipe can be baked at 350 degrees for eight to ten minutes or even until the sides of the biscuits English tea parties usually served are light brown. Lastly, the biscuits English tea usually accompanied must be placed in racks to let the biscuits cool.
Aside from this recommended biscuit English tea recipe, there are too many biscuit English tea recipes to be found in most websites. Many of those websites not only offered biscuit English tea recipes but also other English tea recipes like scones, sandwiches, etc for those who are culinary and biscuit English tea recipe junkies. So for more information, just visit some of the available sites online that provide biscuit English tea recipes.
Learn about annabelle hydrangea, citronella plant and other information at the Gardening Central site.
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The biscuit English tea recipe commonly contains some helpful plans to produce a good quality biscuit and it is actually similar with the English tea cake. As such, the biscuit English tea is coupled is therefore any various plain cookies or tea cakes that is served with tea.
For those who share similar interest in the culinary field and willing to know some of the favored biscuit English tea recipes, I have provided a biscuit English tea recipe for your interests.
The first common biscuit English tea recipe is the English Tea Biscuit that is originally presented by The 1854 Wright House Bed and Breakfast. This particular biscuit English tea recipe includes 1/2 cup of butter that is softened, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of lemon zest, 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of almond extract, 1 1/4 cups of all purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder. Aside from those primary ingredients for this certain biscuit English tea recipe, 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 cup of currants are also provided. For further information regarding this specific biscuit English tea recipe, the procedures involved in this biscuit English tea recipe is so simple. First, you just need to combine the butter and sugar in a medium bowl, and beat it at medium speed until it becomes softened. Then, add egg, lemon zest, lemon juice, and almond extract and then pursue on beating for another 30 seconds. The next procedure involved in this biscuit English tea recipe is the mixing of the flour, baking powder, and salt together. And in this biscuit English tea recipe, with an electric mixer on low, you cal slowly add liquid to the dry mix. Then stir in dried fruit and blend well. After that, you drop the dough by rounded teaspoon into an unswabbed cookie sheet. This biscuit English tea recipe can be baked at 350 degrees for eight to ten minutes or even until the sides of the biscuits English tea parties usually served are light brown. Lastly, the biscuits English tea usually accompanied must be placed in racks to let the biscuits cool.
Aside from this recommended biscuit English tea recipe, there are too many biscuit English tea recipes to be found in most websites. Many of those websites not only offered biscuit English tea recipes but also other English tea recipes like scones, sandwiches, etc for those who are culinary and biscuit English tea recipe junkies. So for more information, just visit some of the available sites online that provide biscuit English tea recipes.
Learn about annabelle hydrangea, citronella plant and other information at the Gardening Central site.
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Learning Spanish: Learn Business Spanish Online
Learn To Speak Spanish Online For Free
The faster you master the basics however the faster you will be conversing in Spanish. Another way to learn Spanish through the arts is by watching Spanish language movies. Spanish language broadcasts on TV are also the most popular. So if you are interested in learning to speak Spanish on your podcast, you may go to www.learnoutloud.com where you could download a wide range of videos that could teach you to speak the language of Spanish wherever you may be. Also, you will be surprised to know that sometimes, the Learn Out Loud also gives free downloads of videos that could broaden your knowledge of the language wherever and whenever you want. But Spanish grammar need not be boring. .
Free Lessons On Spanish Via E-Mail
While you can follow the general rule of using the same sentence order you use in English there are exceptions and this is what you must watch out for. "Now I have to know Spanish" she said. This is the fastest way to learn conversational Spanish. See online kids spanish tutorial Today you find in the market a number of CD ROMs which help you with the pronunciation as well as translation from English (or your native language) to Spanish.
Jeopardy - Spanish Lessons
Think Spanish! Audio Magazine published every month is full of high interest articles about Spanish life and culture travel and traditions people and places. Get this part right and you will save yourself a lot of heartache later on. You can do it without the expense and hassle of traveling abroad. Grab more at spanish based creole languages information from answers com Everyone says they visit Antigua because it has the volcanoes around it. I don't buy it. People go to Antigua because everyone else goes there. Central America has volcanoes all over the place. By the way - very important - there is a village in Guatemala where turtles lay eggs. I read it in Lonely Planet. google.com He called the issue one "that I'm not sure either Democrats or Republicans are going to solve.
Spanish Language Learning Software:
What this means to you is that if you can learn to speak the Spanish language then you will be a hot commodity in the work place and you will enjoy your life more by avoiding all the potential frustration of not understanding people. Other learning programs have similar features. You would have learnt a new foreign language or at least to converse anyway. If you'd like to learn Spanish, for whatever reason, you'll be glad to know you can learn this beautiful language online. There are many reasons for wanting to learn Spanish. You may need to learn Spanish because of a job. Being bilingual can mean more money and more opportunities for any job seeker. Or, you may want to learn Spanish so that you can get around during your travels of Mexico or even Spain. Or, maybe you just want to learn another language for the challenge it offers. Whatever your reason, all you have to do is find an accredited website, log on and start learning. Just make sure you give yourself enough time to learn. You must have plenty of patience as learning a language is nothing that can be done overnight. It takes time, perseverance and a good teacher, which a good website can provide. Most of all, learning a new language can be a lot of fun if it is taught the right way. Learn more at http://www.learnspanishonlinereview.info/spanish-online/children-learn-to-speak-spanish-online.php Patience is the key! Of course you should be very positive and excited about learning Spanish after all if you don't enjoy doing it then what is the point! Learning Spanish could be one of the most amazing.
Stephen is an expert in deaf amercian can learn sign spanish sign language for over
20 years. More sources at http://www.learningspanishonline.org/speak-spanish/spanish-time-translation.php
You can find additional info at the following links:
Click Here for more information
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Learn To Speak Spanish Online For Free
The faster you master the basics however the faster you will be conversing in Spanish. Another way to learn Spanish through the arts is by watching Spanish language movies. Spanish language broadcasts on TV are also the most popular. So if you are interested in learning to speak Spanish on your podcast, you may go to www.learnoutloud.com where you could download a wide range of videos that could teach you to speak the language of Spanish wherever you may be. Also, you will be surprised to know that sometimes, the Learn Out Loud also gives free downloads of videos that could broaden your knowledge of the language wherever and whenever you want. But Spanish grammar need not be boring. .
Free Lessons On Spanish Via E-Mail
While you can follow the general rule of using the same sentence order you use in English there are exceptions and this is what you must watch out for. "Now I have to know Spanish" she said. This is the fastest way to learn conversational Spanish. See online kids spanish tutorial Today you find in the market a number of CD ROMs which help you with the pronunciation as well as translation from English (or your native language) to Spanish.
Jeopardy - Spanish Lessons
Think Spanish! Audio Magazine published every month is full of high interest articles about Spanish life and culture travel and traditions people and places. Get this part right and you will save yourself a lot of heartache later on. You can do it without the expense and hassle of traveling abroad. Grab more at spanish based creole languages information from answers com Everyone says they visit Antigua because it has the volcanoes around it. I don't buy it. People go to Antigua because everyone else goes there. Central America has volcanoes all over the place. By the way - very important - there is a village in Guatemala where turtles lay eggs. I read it in Lonely Planet. google.com He called the issue one "that I'm not sure either Democrats or Republicans are going to solve.
Spanish Language Learning Software:
What this means to you is that if you can learn to speak the Spanish language then you will be a hot commodity in the work place and you will enjoy your life more by avoiding all the potential frustration of not understanding people. Other learning programs have similar features. You would have learnt a new foreign language or at least to converse anyway. If you'd like to learn Spanish, for whatever reason, you'll be glad to know you can learn this beautiful language online. There are many reasons for wanting to learn Spanish. You may need to learn Spanish because of a job. Being bilingual can mean more money and more opportunities for any job seeker. Or, you may want to learn Spanish so that you can get around during your travels of Mexico or even Spain. Or, maybe you just want to learn another language for the challenge it offers. Whatever your reason, all you have to do is find an accredited website, log on and start learning. Just make sure you give yourself enough time to learn. You must have plenty of patience as learning a language is nothing that can be done overnight. It takes time, perseverance and a good teacher, which a good website can provide. Most of all, learning a new language can be a lot of fun if it is taught the right way. Learn more at http://www.learnspanishonlinereview.info/spanish-online/children-learn-to-speak-spanish-online.php Patience is the key! Of course you should be very positive and excited about learning Spanish after all if you don't enjoy doing it then what is the point! Learning Spanish could be one of the most amazing.
Stephen is an expert in deaf amercian can learn sign spanish sign language for over
20 years. More sources at http://www.learningspanishonline.org/speak-spanish/spanish-time-translation.php
You can find additional info at the following links:
Click Here for more information
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This country doesn’t need millions of visitors living and working here. We need millions of Americans living and working here. And what we really need is for the immigrants who are here to become Americans. The most important thing they have to do to become American, is learn the language that most of the residents speak.
These people will never learn the laws or the rights they are entitled to, will never get good jobs, will never become successful, will never become Americans if they don’t speak english. And they will certainly never learn much about this country they moved to or feel any loyalty to it. In their minds, they will always be guests or visitors, always planning, however unrealistically, that they will go “home” sometime.
When Spanish speaking immigrants first arrive in this country, legal or not, they should be encouraged to learn english. Right now, they don’t have to. They can live here quite easily and even drive without speaking ANY English. They can get government forms in Spanish and almost all offices and departments have interpreters available for them. This certainly makes it easier and safer for them to live here, but it is perpetuating the problem and proving to them that learning english is unnecessary.
When Hispanic immigrants don’t learn english, they are doomed to remain second class citizens (or never become citizens). They are segregated in their “ghettos” and never assimilate. They are forced to take low paying jobs, their children are raised in poverty, often don’t finish school, take low paying jobs themselves, raise their own children in poverty and remain in this cycle.
Our federal and local governments must organize English classes for all immigrants, regardless of legal status. While they are learning english, they should be taught some of our laws and history. If these people are ever to become citizens, they must be given the opportunity to learn how to do that. This isn’t something people can figure out for themselves, they have to be taught.
Obviously there will be some cost to this, but the returns will more than make up for it. If these newcomers understand the language and laws, they will not get in as much legal trouble or traffic accidents, they will be able to get better jobs and pay more taxes, they will be healthier, they will be loyal Americans and contribute much more to this country. When parents speak english and get involved in their children’s schools, the children are likely to get better grades and the school benefits. When the schools are more successful, it helps the neighborhood.
Much of the animosity felt by citizens here is because these immigrants don’t speak English. Some think they are stupid, some think they are arrogant, some think they are dangerous. They actually are probably confused, scared or shy because they can’t communicate. If these people, the immigrants and the ones who are feeling the animosity, started talking to each other and found out all the things they have in common, I’m sure the bad feelings would dissolve. That can only happen with a common language.
About 50% of Europeans speak more than one language and only 10% of Americans do. Most Americans don’t realize how difficult it is to learn a language as an adult and don’t have much compassion for immigrants who have heavy accents or are too shy to try out their few English words and learn more.
Americans can do so much more to help immigrants. This country was built by immigrants, imagine how hard it was for our grandparents to move here and learn the language and the culture and succeed. They helped make this a strong country, we can help make it even stronger by helping the new residents integrate into this society and become Americans.
Immigrants have to be shown how important it is to learn English and how much they will benefit when they do. Their success adds to our success and everyone who lives here benefits when immigrants succeed.
Unless you have read Jonathan Kozol's 1985 book, Illiterate America, or Bob Cleckler's new book, revised in 2009, Let's End Our Literacy Crisis, or you have carefully analyzed the most comprehensive, statistically accurate study of U.S. adult illiteracy ever commissioned by the U.S. government, a five-year, $14 million study involving lengthy interviews of 26,049 U.S. adults, statistically balanced for age, gender, ethnicity, and location (urban, suburban, and rural in a dozen states across the U.S. and in several prisons) to represent the entire U.S. population, you undoubtedly do not realize the seriousness of the problem. Illiterates have developed numerous coping methods that make them very good at hiding their illiteracy, Several of your acquaintances may be -- unknown to you -- functionally illiterate.
A front page report in the New York Times on September 9, 1993 and a shorter article in the Washington Post on the same date, the day of release of the above-mentioned study, listed some of the details of the report, but did not mention the most serious problems found in the body of the report. These reports were evidently based upon the short "Executive Summary" of the report. Even though a follow-up report issued in 2006 showed no statistically significant improvement, there have been no other known references to this report in any known media source. Jonathan Kozol, in Illiterate America, explained why the official U.S. Census Bureau reports on literacy rate are inaccurate and explains that it is in the short-term best interests of political and educational authorities to downplay the seriousness of the English literacy problem.
It is in YOUR best interest, however, to understand the seriousness of the problem and to take action because illiteracy has human suffering costs for the illiterates (at least 34 types of serious physical, mental, emotional, medical, and financial problems that we would consider catastrophes if they happened to us) and monetary costs for every American: (1) for the cost of government programs that illiterates use (from our taxes) and for the cost of truancy, juvenile delinquency, and crime directly related to illiteracy, and (2) for the increased cost of consumer goods as a result of functional illiterates in the workplace.
How does functional illiteracy cause serious problems for illiterates?
Here are four brief examples. Janitors have been fired because they cannot read an after-hours note with special clean-up instructions. Families have been evicted from their apartment -- even in the coldest part of winter -- when the apartment owner (who wants to raise the rent, but knows the present renters cannot afford the higher rent) falsely claimed that the rental contract allows eviction if a crying baby disturbs other tenants; evicted tenants who cannot read the contract will not challenge the apartment owner fearing their illiteracy will be exposed. The taking of medicines poses a danger to those who cannot read the instructions on the medicine bottles. Children who have medical emergencies, such as asthma, are in grave danger if the illiterate parents become lost because they cannot read the street signs; even if they have cell-phones they cannot tell the 911 operator their location when they visit a remote place if they cannot describe their location sufficiently to allow ambulance personnel to find them.
These and hundreds of similar "horror stories" occur all around us every day -- most of them without our knowledge because functional illiterates are extremely good at hiding their illiteracy. About HALF of adult Americans are now functionally illiterate and must constantly endure permanent SHAME, ANGER AND DESPAIR, unable to lift themselves out of privation.
Although nearly every American can at least read a few words, if someone can only read 1200 to 1500 simple words they learned by sight, they are functionally illiterate. They cannot get by in our complex society as well as they should and must constantly endure at least thirty-four different kinds of serious physical, mental, emotional, medical, and financial problems. Many simple tasks we take for granted are impossible for illiterates. Most of us would consider some of the problems that functional illiterates must constantly endure a catastrophe if they happened to us. See Jonathan Kozol's 1985 book, Illiterate America and Chapter 1 of Bob Cleckler's new (2009) book, Let's End Our Literacy Crisis. The .com website in the resource box allows you to read the first chapter titled "Illiteracy Hurts."
America's Dirty Little Secret: How many Americans are now functionally illiterate?
The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) reported in 2006 that 44% of adults in the study were in the two lowest of four reading levels (below basic and basic) and that 51% of those in the below basic level had given up looking for a job and 5% were unemployed, looking for work. The percentages of employed adults increased with each increase in reading ability. The 2006 report was a follow-up to the much more thorough 1993 NCES report, the most extensive study of illiteracy ever commissioned by the U.S. government. Employment statistics from the 1993 report were about the same as the 2006 report.
The 1993 study used five literacy levels instead of four as in the 2006 report and revealed several devastating facts about functional illiteracy that are not covered in the 2006 report. Most people don't know these facts; there is no known reference to these facts in any national media.
The shocking illiteracy statistics in the NCES 1993 report shows that the average yearly earnings were: Level 1 (least literate), $2105; Level 2, $5225; Level 3, $9090, and Levels 4 and 5 combined, $16,311. The threshold poverty level for an individual in 1993 was $7363 per year. (See the U.S. Census Bureau's Threshold Poverty report for 1993) Shockingly, 22.0 percent of U.S. adults were Level 1 and 26.7 percent were Level 2. This means 48.7 percent of U.S. adults had average annual earnings SIGNIFICANTLY below the poverty level largely because of their functional illiteracy.
We do not see 48 percent or more of U.S. adults in poverty because most households have more than one employed adult and because low-income households receive governmental assistance (from our taxes) and from family, friends, and charities. Even so, the 1993 NAAL report showed that 31.2 percent of the adults in the two lowest literacy levels were in poverty (the report only showed poverty in each literacy level, but the combination of levels 1 and 2 can be easily calculated).
Although the 1993 NAAL report did not show the combined poverty rate for literacy levels 3 through 5, it is easily calculated to be 10.1 percent. The 1993 NAAL report chose 26,049 interviewees for lengthy interviews according to strict statistical balancing of age, gender, ethnicity, and location (urban, suburban, and rural locations in a dozen states across the U.S. and from several prisons) to accurately represent the entire U.S. population. Since there are no provable differences in the interviewees except their literacy rates, this is a strong indication that about twice as many (deducting 10.1 percent which is NOT due to illiteracy from the 31.2 percent total and comparing the resulting 21.1 percent to the 10.1 percent) U.S. adults are in poverty because of their literacy level as for all other reasons combined. See the .com website in the resource box. This website allows you to read Chapter 2, titled "How Widespread is United States Illiteracy?"
How Will YOU Benefit From Ending Illiteracy?
Although there are many causes of illiteracy, most people are not functional illiterates because of any failing of their own but because of a defect in the English language. In 1755 an English dictionary was prepared by Dr. Samuel Johnson. Linguists will tell you that Dr. Johnson made a very serious linguistic error in his dictionary. Instead of freezing the spelling of the sounds of the English language, as linguistic logic demands of an alphabetic language, Dr. Johnson froze the spelling of words. In effect, English words are now logograms -- certain letters, in a certain order, combine to represent a word, in the same way that strokes of various kinds combine to represent a Chinese character or word. Present day English is a conglomeration of the words -- and their spelling -- from eight languages, the language of every conqueror who occupied the British Isles prior to 1755. Since that time, English has adopted words -- and usually their spelling -- from about 350 other languages. See Henry Hitching's book The Secret Life of Words.
The pronunciation of words changes with time, so what was bad in 1755 is even worse today. Professor Julius Nyikos of Washington and Jefferson College found that there are at least 1768 ways of spelling forty sounds in English. See The Fourteenth LACUS Forum 1987, published by Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States, P.O. Box 101, Lake Bluff, Illinois in 1988. There is not even one invariable spelling rule in English -- some of the exceptions have exceptions! The eyes of fluent readers skip easily over a multitude of traps for the beginner. As a result, every word in a person's vocabulary must be learned, one at a time, either by rote memory or by repeated use.
Why didn't YOU know the seriousness of the functional illiteracy problem?
What is the obvious solution to English functional illiteracy?
The obvious solution is to return English to the principle upon which an alphabetic language should be based -- spelling words as they sound, the way the rest of the world does! That is the way for teaching students reading and for teaching reading fluency. All other attempts at improving the English literacy rate -- such as new reading books, better teacher training, and similar changes -- are nothing more than fighting the symptoms of the problem, similar to taking aspirin to combat the symptoms of pneumonia rather than taking penicillin to cure it. It is natural to resist change -- even change for the better! People often prefer the disadvantages of the familiar to the advantages of the unfamiliar. But when a person researches and finds that absolutely nothing done in American public schools in the last eighty years has made any statistically significant improvement in our true literacy rate (as opposed to the optimistic assessments of politicians and educational leaders who have a vested interest in reporting our literacy level as being higher than it really is) and honestly examines the ease of teaching reading to students possible with a spelling system that is extremely easy to learn (as opposed to the present illogical, inconsistent, and chaotic English spelling), common sense is certain to cause people honestly to evaluate this spelling reform proposal.
Unlike any previous proposed spelling system, the proposed spelling system NuEnglish is scientifically designed to use the spelling of every sound (1) as it is most often spelled in English -- as are 82% of the NuEnglish spellings of the sounds -- or (2) using the spelling people expect to represent a certain sound -- as in all of the other spellings. (For example people expect the letter F to have the sound as in the word fan, but more often it has the sound of the letter V entirely because of the very common word of, and people expect the letter S to have the sound as in sat, but more often it has the sound of the letter Z because of the very common words is and was and plurals such as bags.) (3) NuEnglish spelling uses a perfect one-to-one ratio of the letters-to-sounds. Students only need to learn the spelling of 38 sounds instead of all 20,000 or more words in their reading vocabulary. Many people have a reading vocabulary of more than 70,000 words. It is so simple that present readers of English can learn NuEnglish spelling in ten minutes or less. See the Wikipedia article on NuEnglish to see the details of the spelling system.
In addition to the simplicity of NuEnglish, the change to NuEnglish spelling will be extremely simple because of the Respeller computer program, which is readily available to anyone on the internet, anywhere in the world. Simply go to the nuenglish website, click on "Respeller" at the top left, enter up to about 25 pages of English reading material, and click the "Convert to NuEnglish" button. It will respell in NuEnglish in only a few seconds. The use of NuEnglish spelling will enable beginning students to learn to fluently read and write in less than three months -- perhaps much less. Frank Laubach, founder of Laubach Literacy International, taught thousands of adults to read in over 300 languages around the world. Laubach found that he could teach students to read fluently in from one to twenty days in some languages and in less than three months in 98 percent of these languages. Laubach stated that if English were spelled phonetically, students could learn to read in one week! Adoption of NuEnglish will enable hundreds of millions of people around the world who speak English but cannot read it very well -- over 93 million in the U.S. alone -- to be able to read English who otherwise never would.
How do we know that spelling reform can cure world illiteracy in English?
Consider these facts about spelling reform:
Rudolph Flesch stated in Why Johnny Can't Read, pages 76-77 (this book is available for free reading or download from the Internet Archive wewbsite),
Generally speaking, students in our schools are about two years behind students of the same age in other countries. This is not a wild accusation of the American education system; it is an established, generally known fact....
Usually the assumption seems to be that in other countries children and adolescents are forced to study harder ... I think the explanation is much simpler and more reasonable: Americans take two years longer to learn how to read -- and reading, of course, is the basis for achievement in all other subjects.
Let's End Our Literacy Crisis details a proposed method for implementing NuEnglish into use. School curricula can then be revised to begin most courses of study two years earlier because students learn to read two years earlier. Our students will no longer have to enter international competition and careers with, in effect, one hand tied behind their backs; their education will -- at long last -- be equivalent to that of education in other alphabetic languages. See http://nuenglish.org and http://nuenglish.com.
A front page report in the New York Times on September 9, 1993 and a shorter article in the Washington Post on the same date, the day of release of the above-mentioned study, listed some of the details of the report, but did not mention the most serious problems found in the body of the report. These reports were evidently based upon the short "Executive Summary" of the report. Even though a follow-up report issued in 2006 showed no statistically significant improvement, there have been no other known references to this report in any known media source. Jonathan Kozol, in Illiterate America, explained why the official U.S. Census Bureau reports on literacy rate are inaccurate and explains that it is in the short-term best interests of political and educational authorities to downplay the seriousness of the English literacy problem.
It is in YOUR best interest, however, to understand the seriousness of the problem and to take action because illiteracy has human suffering costs for the illiterates (at least 34 types of serious physical, mental, emotional, medical, and financial problems that we would consider catastrophes if they happened to us) and monetary costs for every American: (1) for the cost of government programs that illiterates use (from our taxes) and for the cost of truancy, juvenile delinquency, and crime directly related to illiteracy, and (2) for the increased cost of consumer goods as a result of functional illiterates in the workplace.
How does functional illiteracy cause serious problems for illiterates?
Here are four brief examples. Janitors have been fired because they cannot read an after-hours note with special clean-up instructions. Families have been evicted from their apartment -- even in the coldest part of winter -- when the apartment owner (who wants to raise the rent, but knows the present renters cannot afford the higher rent) falsely claimed that the rental contract allows eviction if a crying baby disturbs other tenants; evicted tenants who cannot read the contract will not challenge the apartment owner fearing their illiteracy will be exposed. The taking of medicines poses a danger to those who cannot read the instructions on the medicine bottles. Children who have medical emergencies, such as asthma, are in grave danger if the illiterate parents become lost because they cannot read the street signs; even if they have cell-phones they cannot tell the 911 operator their location when they visit a remote place if they cannot describe their location sufficiently to allow ambulance personnel to find them.
These and hundreds of similar "horror stories" occur all around us every day -- most of them without our knowledge because functional illiterates are extremely good at hiding their illiteracy. About HALF of adult Americans are now functionally illiterate and must constantly endure permanent SHAME, ANGER AND DESPAIR, unable to lift themselves out of privation.
Although nearly every American can at least read a few words, if someone can only read 1200 to 1500 simple words they learned by sight, they are functionally illiterate. They cannot get by in our complex society as well as they should and must constantly endure at least thirty-four different kinds of serious physical, mental, emotional, medical, and financial problems. Many simple tasks we take for granted are impossible for illiterates. Most of us would consider some of the problems that functional illiterates must constantly endure a catastrophe if they happened to us. See Jonathan Kozol's 1985 book, Illiterate America and Chapter 1 of Bob Cleckler's new (2009) book, Let's End Our Literacy Crisis. The .com website in the resource box allows you to read the first chapter titled "Illiteracy Hurts."
America's Dirty Little Secret: How many Americans are now functionally illiterate?
The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) reported in 2006 that 44% of adults in the study were in the two lowest of four reading levels (below basic and basic) and that 51% of those in the below basic level had given up looking for a job and 5% were unemployed, looking for work. The percentages of employed adults increased with each increase in reading ability. The 2006 report was a follow-up to the much more thorough 1993 NCES report, the most extensive study of illiteracy ever commissioned by the U.S. government. Employment statistics from the 1993 report were about the same as the 2006 report.
The 1993 study used five literacy levels instead of four as in the 2006 report and revealed several devastating facts about functional illiteracy that are not covered in the 2006 report. Most people don't know these facts; there is no known reference to these facts in any national media.
The shocking illiteracy statistics in the NCES 1993 report shows that the average yearly earnings were: Level 1 (least literate), $2105; Level 2, $5225; Level 3, $9090, and Levels 4 and 5 combined, $16,311. The threshold poverty level for an individual in 1993 was $7363 per year. (See the U.S. Census Bureau's Threshold Poverty report for 1993) Shockingly, 22.0 percent of U.S. adults were Level 1 and 26.7 percent were Level 2. This means 48.7 percent of U.S. adults had average annual earnings SIGNIFICANTLY below the poverty level largely because of their functional illiteracy.
We do not see 48 percent or more of U.S. adults in poverty because most households have more than one employed adult and because low-income households receive governmental assistance (from our taxes) and from family, friends, and charities. Even so, the 1993 NAAL report showed that 31.2 percent of the adults in the two lowest literacy levels were in poverty (the report only showed poverty in each literacy level, but the combination of levels 1 and 2 can be easily calculated).
Although the 1993 NAAL report did not show the combined poverty rate for literacy levels 3 through 5, it is easily calculated to be 10.1 percent. The 1993 NAAL report chose 26,049 interviewees for lengthy interviews according to strict statistical balancing of age, gender, ethnicity, and location (urban, suburban, and rural locations in a dozen states across the U.S. and from several prisons) to accurately represent the entire U.S. population. Since there are no provable differences in the interviewees except their literacy rates, this is a strong indication that about twice as many (deducting 10.1 percent which is NOT due to illiteracy from the 31.2 percent total and comparing the resulting 21.1 percent to the 10.1 percent) U.S. adults are in poverty because of their literacy level as for all other reasons combined. See the .com website in the resource box. This website allows you to read Chapter 2, titled "How Widespread is United States Illiteracy?"
How Will YOU Benefit From Ending Illiteracy?
- You will benefit emotionally if you are concerned that people you know and love are -- or will be --functionally illiterate. The problems and suffering of illiterates is almost certainly much worse than you realize. Many people you know are -- unknown to you -- functionally illiterate.
- You will benefit if you object to the average personal cost to U.S. adults of $5186 each year as a result of illiteracy for (1) taxes for government programs that illiterates use and for the truancy, juvenile delinquency, and crime directly related to illiteracy, and (2) higher prices for consumer goods due to illiterates in the workplace. See chapter 3 of Let's End Our Literacy Crisis.
- You will benefit if you are employed or if you have financial interests in a business or organization in which you invest time or money. Illiteracy affects all organizations to some extent, some of them seriously. Illiteracy cuts the potential customers for written materials almost in half and hurts businesses and organizations because of competition with more literate workers in foreign companies. The monthly U.S. trade deficit has grown steadily worse for many years.
- You will benefit if our nation improves the trade balance, national relationships, and our national employment by improving communication between nations. Over 1.3 billion people worldwide speak english -- more than the dialect of any other language. Many of them use English to communicate with those who do not speak their native language, but hundreds of millions of people who speak english cannot read it very well.
What is the primary cause of English illiteracy?
Although there are many causes of illiteracy, most people are not functional illiterates because of any failing of their own but because of a defect in the English language. In 1755 an English dictionary was prepared by Dr. Samuel Johnson. Linguists will tell you that Dr. Johnson made a very serious linguistic error in his dictionary. Instead of freezing the spelling of the sounds of the English language, as linguistic logic demands of an alphabetic language, Dr. Johnson froze the spelling of words. In effect, English words are now logograms -- certain letters, in a certain order, combine to represent a word, in the same way that strokes of various kinds combine to represent a Chinese character or word. Present day English is a conglomeration of the words -- and their spelling -- from eight languages, the language of every conqueror who occupied the British Isles prior to 1755. Since that time, English has adopted words -- and usually their spelling -- from about 350 other languages. See Henry Hitching's book The Secret Life of Words.
The pronunciation of words changes with time, so what was bad in 1755 is even worse today. Professor Julius Nyikos of Washington and Jefferson College found that there are at least 1768 ways of spelling forty sounds in English. See The Fourteenth LACUS Forum 1987, published by Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States, P.O. Box 101, Lake Bluff, Illinois in 1988. There is not even one invariable spelling rule in English -- some of the exceptions have exceptions! The eyes of fluent readers skip easily over a multitude of traps for the beginner. As a result, every word in a person's vocabulary must be learned, one at a time, either by rote memory or by repeated use.
Why didn't YOU know the seriousness of the functional illiteracy problem?
- You May Not Have Seen the Report or It Was Not Covered. The results of even important and extensive studies of literacy do not appear in all of the media for these reasons. (a) The literacy study may not be covered if there are too many "more important" stories to be covered. By the time all the more important stories have been covered, the results of the study are no longer "news." (b) Some media executives have their reporters cover studies showing results they disagree with. Many will not; and (c) media executives are sometimes afraid that reporting unfavorable results from a study will alienate them from groups from whom they desire support. Obviously not all studies fit all three items. As a result, literacy and learning to read may -- for example -- be front page newspaper stories in some newspapers. It may be totally ignored in others.
- You May Have Seen a Report, But the Way It Was Written Hid the Seriousness of the Problem.
- Anne C. Lewis, a freelance writer on education concerns, says there are "two big problems" the press makes in its coverage of illiteracy. The first mistake is confusing adult illiteracy problems with problems in the public schools. It is typical to blame the adult literacy problems on the schools and then go no further -- as if fixing the blame will somehow result in solving the problem. Blaming the schools accomplishes nothing because, she pointed out, roughly 70 percent of the workforce in the year 2000 was already in the workforce and therefore permanently out of public schools. Furthermore, she says, thirty million or more Americans read so poorly they could "bring the whole economy crashing down. With the rapidly accelerating technology in the workplace and its demands, for example, for reading the operating manuals and for retraining, previous levels of illiteracy are no longer acceptable. She says the press rarely makes this known. The second mistake in illiteracy coverage in the press is that it is far too often only concerned with boring stories of an occasional adult illiterate who can now read thanks to the efforts of some selfless volunteer. This type of coverage too often lulls the public into believing that is all there is to the problem of adult illiteracy.
- A big part of the reason people do not realize the seriousness of the literacy problem is the way the media handles the reporting of scientific or statistical studies. Since reporters are journalists, not statisticians or mathematicians, and since the reporters are almost always under time pressures to get their report out (before someone else reports it and it is no longer "news"), reporters often read only the Executive Summary of lengthy reports. In any case, journalists seldom do a careful study of the entire report, much less a serious mathematical analysis of data in a study. The 1993 study mentioned above was a 150 page report. The April 2002 version of the report was even longer: 199 pages. In the case of this study, a simple mathematical analysis of the data was required to understand the true seriousness of the findings of the study.
- The New York Times article about the 1993 study gave an explanation of why increasing our literacy rate is important: "The overall education level of Americans has increased in terms of schooling and even in fundamental literacy. But the demands of the workplace simultaneously have vastly increased. We simply are not keeping pace with the kinds of skills required in today's economy." The article also gave an explanation of why literacy is a problem for so many people: "Insufficient education and a growing number of adults whose first language is not English were important reasons that the scores were so low." They failed to mention, however, that the interviewees were carefully chosen to be an accurate representation of the entire U.S. population at the time of the study. The article also misquoted the study as saying it indicated that there were 40 to 44 million adults in Level 1 literacy (the lowest literacy level), "an 40 million" [sic] in Level 2, 61 million in Level 3, 11 million in Level 4, and "up to 40 million" in Level 5. Page 17 of the 2002 version of the study shows the true figures to be, Level 1: 42.0 million (22.0% of the 191 million U.S. adults in 1993), Level 2: 50.9 million (26.7%), Level 3: 60.5 million (31.7%), Level 4: 31.2 million (16.3%), and Level 5: 6.4 million (3.3%). The most serious failing of the article is that it did not quantify the seriousness of the literacy problem. It merely began the article by stating: "Nearly half of the nation's 191 million adult citizens are not proficient enough in English to write a letter about a billing error or to calculate the length of a bus trip from a published schedule."
- The article by the Washington Post writer began the article by stating: "Nearly half of all adult Americans read and write so poorly that it is difficult for them to hold a decent job, according to the most comprehensive literacy study ever done by the U.S. government." This raised questions of what constitutes a "decent job," exactly how many people are affected, how accurate was the study, and what were the statistical procedures to ensure accuracy, leading to the author's "engineering study" of the report. It was found that although the Washington Post writer's statement was true, in effect it minimized the seriousness of the problem.
- Illiterates Are Exceptionally Good At Hiding. The number of U.S. adults who cannot read at all is very small. But if they only know 1200-1600 simple words they learned by sight in the first four grades in school, they are functionally illiterate. They can't read and write well enough to hold an above-poverty-level-wage job. They have developed many coping skills for their inability to read over the years. Chances are very good that many of your acquaintances are functional illiterates. They may be very knowledgeable. They may even be eloquent speakers. They just didn't get their knowledge or eloquence from reading.
- Grade-Level Completion Does NOT equal Grade-Level Competence. Many people assume that after several years of school the students know how to read. Every teacher knows, however -- even though they may be in denial of the fact -- that this is not necessarily true. Having sat out several years of schooling does not guarantee an outcome. The students may not know even a small fraction of what they have been "taught."
- Illiterates Are a Silent Minority. Out of embarrassment, illiterates are a silent minority. Community and cultural leaders of groups with a large number of illiterates do not want that fact publicized. They fear it will give their "enemies" (racists and class-conscious persons) ammunition against those who cannot read.
- Self-Esteem Teaching in School Is Very Effective. Perhaps today's most successful teaching in U.S. elementary schools is the teaching of self-esteem. Studies have shown that U.S. students often over-estimate their scholastic abilities. The U.S. scored worse than all but two nations in a recent math and science competition with about twenty other nations. Some of the U.S. students in that competition bragged that they were "good at math." Some of them were not only not "good at math," they may also have difficulty reading their math books.
- The U.S. Census Reports Greatly Over-Estimate Literacy. Many believe the U.S. is a highly literate nation because of census statistics. The last two or three census reports claimed a U.S. is literacy rate of 99%. It is in the short-term interest of politicians and education officials to believe these figures. This is not to say that there was necessarily any conscious deception. Jonathan Kozol's shocking book, Illiterate America, pages 37-38, explained how these figures were decided upon. Once we understand how the census bureau did the studies, we will be likely to agree with Jonathan Kozol. He thought the accuracy of the census reports was open to serious doubt. The Adult Literacy in America study, in fact, proves the census bureau figures on literacy rate are wrong.
- Sensory Overload. We are constantly bombarded with information, much of it bad news. The world seems to go on with little effect despite the bad news about literacy. We soon learn to ignore much of it. This is because we often do not want to believe it. Sometimes we have seen a later report denying the validity of the bad news. After a few years we have forgotten most of the bad news even if we initially thought it was significant.
- We Do Not See Large Portions of Our Population in Poverty. In most cases, more than one family member is employed. If all workers in the family are functionally illiterate, the family may be at or below the poverty line. If one or more of the workers in the family are literate, they bring the family above the poverty line.
What is the obvious solution to English functional illiteracy?
The obvious solution is to return English to the principle upon which an alphabetic language should be based -- spelling words as they sound, the way the rest of the world does! That is the way for teaching students reading and for teaching reading fluency. All other attempts at improving the English literacy rate -- such as new reading books, better teacher training, and similar changes -- are nothing more than fighting the symptoms of the problem, similar to taking aspirin to combat the symptoms of pneumonia rather than taking penicillin to cure it. It is natural to resist change -- even change for the better! People often prefer the disadvantages of the familiar to the advantages of the unfamiliar. But when a person researches and finds that absolutely nothing done in American public schools in the last eighty years has made any statistically significant improvement in our true literacy rate (as opposed to the optimistic assessments of politicians and educational leaders who have a vested interest in reporting our literacy level as being higher than it really is) and honestly examines the ease of teaching reading to students possible with a spelling system that is extremely easy to learn (as opposed to the present illogical, inconsistent, and chaotic English spelling), common sense is certain to cause people honestly to evaluate this spelling reform proposal.
Unlike any previous proposed spelling system, the proposed spelling system NuEnglish is scientifically designed to use the spelling of every sound (1) as it is most often spelled in English -- as are 82% of the NuEnglish spellings of the sounds -- or (2) using the spelling people expect to represent a certain sound -- as in all of the other spellings. (For example people expect the letter F to have the sound as in the word fan, but more often it has the sound of the letter V entirely because of the very common word of, and people expect the letter S to have the sound as in sat, but more often it has the sound of the letter Z because of the very common words is and was and plurals such as bags.) (3) NuEnglish spelling uses a perfect one-to-one ratio of the letters-to-sounds. Students only need to learn the spelling of 38 sounds instead of all 20,000 or more words in their reading vocabulary. Many people have a reading vocabulary of more than 70,000 words. It is so simple that present readers of English can learn NuEnglish spelling in ten minutes or less. See the Wikipedia article on NuEnglish to see the details of the spelling system.
In addition to the simplicity of NuEnglish, the change to NuEnglish spelling will be extremely simple because of the Respeller computer program, which is readily available to anyone on the internet, anywhere in the world. Simply go to the nuenglish website, click on "Respeller" at the top left, enter up to about 25 pages of English reading material, and click the "Convert to NuEnglish" button. It will respell in NuEnglish in only a few seconds. The use of NuEnglish spelling will enable beginning students to learn to fluently read and write in less than three months -- perhaps much less. Frank Laubach, founder of Laubach Literacy International, taught thousands of adults to read in over 300 languages around the world. Laubach found that he could teach students to read fluently in from one to twenty days in some languages and in less than three months in 98 percent of these languages. Laubach stated that if English were spelled phonetically, students could learn to read in one week! Adoption of NuEnglish will enable hundreds of millions of people around the world who speak English but cannot read it very well -- over 93 million in the U.S. alone -- to be able to read English who otherwise never would.
How do we know that spelling reform can cure world illiteracy in English?
Consider these facts about spelling reform:
- Dozens of scholars for over 250 years have recommended it. For over a hundred years their have been simplified spelling societies in the U.K. and U.S. by various names. The present names are The Spelling Society in the U.K. and American Literacy Council in the U.S. Both organizations have very informative websites, spellingsociety and americanliteracy, .org and .com, respectively.
- Several nations, smaller and larger than the U.S., both advanced and third-world, have simplified their spelling.
- A simpler spelling system has been proven effective for making learning to read easier in more than 300 alphabetic languages but never tried in English. In 295 languages (at least 98% of them) students became fluent readers in less than three months. Most of the 52.2 percent of U.S. adults who presently become functionally literate require two to four YEARS.
- All reasonable objections to spelling reform have been thoroughly debunked by distinguished linguists and educators. To see a very scholarly debunking of objections to spelling reform from 1909 (!) -- at a time when the need was not nearly as great as it is today and when the changeover to a logical spelling system would have been much more difficult, without our present computer programs and printing capabilities -- see the last chapter of English Spelling and Spelling Reform by Thomas Lounsbury, LL.D, L.H.D, professor emeritus of Yale University. This is a book ready to read or download at the Internet Archive website.
- The need is greater than ever in our increasingly complex world. Although spelling reform is easier than ever due to computer technology, it has never been tried in English.
Rudolph Flesch stated in Why Johnny Can't Read, pages 76-77 (this book is available for free reading or download from the Internet Archive wewbsite),
Generally speaking, students in our schools are about two years behind students of the same age in other countries. This is not a wild accusation of the American education system; it is an established, generally known fact....
Usually the assumption seems to be that in other countries children and adolescents are forced to study harder ... I think the explanation is much simpler and more reasonable: Americans take two years longer to learn how to read -- and reading, of course, is the basis for achievement in all other subjects.
Let's End Our Literacy Crisis details a proposed method for implementing NuEnglish into use. School curricula can then be revised to begin most courses of study two years earlier because students learn to read two years earlier. Our students will no longer have to enter international competition and careers with, in effect, one hand tied behind their backs; their education will -- at long last -- be equivalent to that of education in other alphabetic languages. See http://nuenglish.org and http://nuenglish.com.
English is a difficult language. It does not sound the way it looks. Learners are often frustrated trying to understand what others are saying and too self-conscious about their accents to speak. The good news for ESL students is that one tiny piece of information takes the mystery out of the spoken language: English is a stress-based language. What that means and how that impacts students is easy and fun to explore.
Learners are tragically misinformed about the significance of individual sounds in conversation. It is important to know that native speakers find accents charming and communication does not break down because of them. The seat of miscommunication in English is not in mispronounced letters, but in absent or misplaced word stress. If the boss called for a meeting on 'VENS day', everyone would show up the day after Tuesday, but if he said the meeting was on 'vensDAY,' no one would know when the meeting was, and they couldn't guess. The truth is, native English speakers have tremendous latitude for accommodating sound variations, and do not rely on perfect pronunciation for understanding.
The Impact of Word Stress in ESL - Maria's Story
Maria is Latino, plucky and gorgeous. Her warmth and charm transcend any language or cultural barriers. She moved to Canada from Central America many years ago with her husband and four small children. As is often the case, she was extremely isolated in her new country. Her children learned English in school and her husband learned it at work. Thirteen years after leaving El Salvador, she spoke no English and had no friends. Fortunately, Maria did understand that domestic violence is not tolerated in Canada. When she had finally had enough, she left her abusive husband and started a new life for herself and her children.
Maria rented an apartment, applied for social assistance, and enrolled in school. Her kind, effervescent personality was an asset to our ESL classroom. But one day she arrived sad and depressed. Everyone noticed. "What is the matter?" they wanted to know. Maria told a story every student could relate to. It was her eldest son's sixteenth birthday and she wanted to take her family out to celebrate. She couldn't afford to take everyone to dinner, so she took them out for breakfast. When it was her turn to order, the server asked what she wanted and she said, "Coffee an pekundaneesh." The server asked her to repeat her order. Beginning to feel uncomfortable, Maria repeated, "Coffee an pekundaneesh." The server turned on her heel and walked away, scoffing, "Why doncha speak english?"
Maria was devastated. The celebration was ruined. She told the class she was never going to a restaurant again. After we talked about her disappointment, we resumed our lesson on Word Stress. Maria learned that there is one and only one 'stressed' syllable in any word. She learned that the stressed syllables are higher, longer and louder than other syllables, and if the word stress is missing or in the wrong place, native speakers cannot understand what is being said no matter how perfectly the individual sounds are pronounced. At the end of the day Maria stood up and shouted, "PE can DA nish!" She understood the lesson - and the breakdown that happened in the restaurant the day before.
Monday morning Maria bounced into the classroom, her cheerful, energetic self again. Everyone noticed. How was your weekend? In her adorable Spanish accent, with her hand on her hip and her index finger wagging, Maria filled us in. "Yesta day, I go back to dat restrant, I see dat lady and I say to she - I wanna PEcan Danish! An she bring me."
The crowd went wild. When her classmates' clapping and cheering died down, she made a graceful curtsy before taking her seat. I have only an inkling of the courage it took for her to go back and face that waitress, but her triumph over word stress and restaurants was a triumph for us all.
The Lesson: English is a Stress-based Language
Most languages are sound-based, where each letter represents a different sound and every syllable is equally important. When East Indians, Arabs or Asians speak, they sound like sewing machines to native English speakers. Native speakers can't hear the 'stress' because there isn't any (apart from the anxiety everyone feels about not being able to understand what is going on). Word stress works differently in Spanish, French and German than in English. "Ze frENCH have ze acCENT on ze deffeRENT syllaBLE" - again charming.
Word stress is so important in English that if the stress gets moved around, the word changes meaning.
PROduce is a noun meaning fruit and vegetables, and proDUCE is a verb that means to manufacture. CONtent is a noun for what is inside something and conTENT means happy.
There is virtually no indication how a word is going to sound from its spelling, but its context, or the words around it, can often give a clue.
Rule of Thumb
80% of two-syllable nouns have the stress on the first syllable.
TEAcher, STUdent, DOCtor, RUler, COffee, ANgel, PEOple, PAper, PENcil, SUgar, ORange...
Conversely, most two-syllable verbs have the stress on the second syllable.
enJOY, beLIEVE, surPRISE, deLAY, emPLOY, reLAX, conSERVE, emBRACE, suPPORT...
For words longer than two syllables, sorry, you are on your own.
HOspital, TRIangle, baNAna, poSItion, tangeRINE, engiNEER
Summary
The meaning in English is not in the production of individual sounds but in finding the correct syllable to pronounce higher, longer and louder than the rest of the word.
ESL students can stop worrying about their accents. Accents don't prevent ESL students from being understood, and native English speakers find them charming.
LEARners must GEnerate EMphasis to be sucCESSfully underSTOOD.
English is Stupid is the definitive resource guide for spoken English in both the academic and corporate speaking world.
Whether you are learning it, teaching it, or English is your first language, English is Stupid provides a fascinating expose on the mechanics of how Spoken English works. Six rules of spoken English are simple and absolute. English is Stupid is fascinating to those who are native speakers of English and critical to those who aren't.
Do Certain Subjects Require Specific Hours Of Attention While Teaching My Kid At Home?
With Home school concepts parents have the benefit of enhancing and complementing the traditional ways of teaching, with better ones aided by technology.
Lots of educational software and teaching packages are available which help develop a curriculum for such type of studies. One such useful means is the internet, which has plenty of educational resources like encyclopedias and museums, online dictionaries, libraries, etc.
Depending on state to state home schooling law, the following may be applicable:
1. School officials may inquire about the qualifications of the parents’ teaching their child; however its not really necessary that parents who instruct their children have any particular qualification. Parents who are high school graduates or lesser can instruct their child, if they have a sound mind and the capability to do so.
2. Students in the elementary level should be taught: English, including, spelling, reading and writing; math, science, civics, history, geography, health and physiology, music, physical education and art as basic subjects.
3. High school level children are to be taught the following: English that includes language, speech, literature and composition. Science should include biology and chemistry. Geography, social studies, economics, world history and history of the U.S.A. are a part of the curriculum. Mathematics would include geometry, algebra and statistics; music, art, physiology and health, physical and safety education are also to be taught.
4. At times school officials might enquire about the subjects that the child should study, demand the length of home school year, as well as provide subject wise instructions.
It is they who determine instruction hours for each subject, yet the method of teaching should depend on each parent’s individual style.
Home schooling parents can evaluate and determine the hours of instruction based on their individual style, they need not imitate the public school, rather it’s more important to match and equal it keeping in mind the systematic approach and efficiency levels.
While home schooling, the parent has to gauge the child’s intellectual needs. The subjects do not actually require particular hours of teaching, even though each subject needs a specific time, so that whatever is taught is easier for the child to grab.
Also, keeping schedules is not a significant factor in home schooling, since understanding of time and usage are different from that of a normal school.
5. School officials should recognize and classify instructional materials, which might help determine the child’s grade or level and the subject. The right to demand should not be misused or try to affect the style of teaching, in which subjects are handled.
If a child has difficulty with a particular subject, for instance in reading, then the parent should allot longer hours for reading, emphasizing on that subject so that the child finds it easier.
A parent may shorten the time spent on that subject which the child willingly and easily learns and grasps. Extra hours should then be allocated for subjects which the child finds difficult, this system can effectively asses the child’s development.
During home schooling, a child can take the time to learn and understand each subject at their own speed, and capacity. Also, the parent can find creative ways so that teaching is fun and learning interesting.
Few helpful and efficient teaching materials that are not tangible, such as community service, visits to parks, travel and museums, etc. will provide significant learning skills and knowledge aside from those who learn through books.
6. School officials and parents should reach an agreement about a system of assessment or evaluation for the child; either periodic reports or standardized testing, on the child’s dated samples of work and progress.
Access your child's learning ability and style so that:
1. Awareness about the approach to be used or how to be better equipped in teaching them. Some parents have a wrong notion that their kids should learn the way they had. For example, if the parents are visual learners, they expect their children to be the same. Remember, that children are different as individuals; with distinct learning styles as compared to their siblings and even parents. You can effectively teach your child, as soon as you learn and comprehend the child’s individual style.
2.You should be prepared to chalk out a curriculum for home schooling. Unfamiliarity with your child’s learning style, might lead you to select a curriculum that can is not an effective tool to bring out the best in your child.
3. One has to identify and understand their child’s educational needs better. Most parents get upset and discouraged when their children fail to effectively communicate. If you try to understand your child’s learning styles, you might be able to help your child to understand themselves better. This enables them to interact and correspond better with their elders as well as friends.
A proper understanding of the children’s their capabilities and learning styles will enable you to understand how many hours they have to put in for each subject. Home schooling does not necessitate strict hours of teaching for your child in any subject. Everything depends on progresses of your child; if he can do math in lesser time than allotted to him in the curriculum then good. If the child needs to spend more time in reading, then he should be doing exactly that.
You can find additional info at the following links:
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Why he clams up, and why that's actually a good thing
When you hear about men being from Mars and women being from Venus, what you're often hearing is that women like to talk and communicate while men prefer not to. It's one of the most fundamental differences between the sexes -- and it's the one that drives the most people crazy.
"All she wants to do is talk about our 'feelings'!" men will complain to their friends. Meanwhile, women complain to their friends, "He won't talk to me about his feelings!" Is there no middle ground here?
To women, it seems obvious that you'd want to discuss emotional issues. How else will you know what the other person is thinking? Besides, talking about things helps you understand them and feel better about them. So why would anyone want to clam up?
That line of reasoning makes sense -- for women. But men's minds work differently. They're just not hardwired the same way as women.
Many studies have shown that men react to strong emotion more physically than women do. Their blood pressure goes up, their hearts race, and it takes much longer for their bodies to return to normal once the crisis has passed than it does for women. Because of this, men's brains subconsciously urge them to stay away from strong emotion -- because it's physically dangerous.
One study among young boys and girls showed that the boys were faster to turn off a tape recording of a baby crying than the girls were. Why? Not because the boys were insensitive, but because they were more bothered by it. The boys were actually MORE sensitive to strong feelings, not less. And that's why they avoid it.
It's been shown that old men are far more likely to die soon after losing a spouse -- to "die of grief," as they say -- than old women are after losing theirs. Physically speaking, emotional problems hit men harder.
Women often want to ask a man, "What are you thinking?" when he's quiet. They assume that because they get quiet when they're troubled, it's the same way with men. But it isn't, at least not necessarily. Men also get quiet when they're pondering a problem, devising a solution to something. It doesn't mean anything is "wrong." It just means they're working something out, often something non-earth-shattering and non-traumatic. Women talk their way through problems; men think their way through.
Men do talk, of course. Get them with their buddies and they talk all the time -- about sports, cars, movies, video games, TV shows, you name it. Just not their feelings. They get their pent-up feelings and aggressions out through games and camaraderie, not through cathartic chat sessions.
But even strong, stoic men understand (or should understand) that communication is vital in any relationship. They should be willing to talk about things that need to be talked about. The key for you in getting him to open up is to let go at his own pace.
Women's minds focus on feelings, while men's focus on problem-solving. Therefore, if there's an emotional issue that needs discussion, rather than saying, "How do you feel?" or telling him how you feel, you might do better to phrase it as a solution: "Let's figure out a way to deal with this" or "What if we did such-and-such about this situation?"
A good time to bring up emotional issues is when he's relaxed and comfortable and not otherwise occupied. That last point is important. He's relaxed and comfortable when he's watching a football game on TV, but that's certainly not the time to interrupt him with this kind of talk. Wait until he's puttering around in the garage, doing nothing in particular, or maybe when you're out together for a casual walk.
As with so many issues in dealing with men, it's important not to pressure him. If he feels like you're manipulating him into talking about his feelings, he'll clam up. So don't set up "meetings." Don't say, "We need to talk." (Ask any man: Those are the four most dreaded words in the English language.) Instead, arrange a situation you both enjoy where talking will be feasible -- going out to dinner, taking a Sunday drive, etc. Then, if the conversation comes around to the issues you want to discuss, it will be a natural progression, not an agenda.
Above all, you should accept that men are different from women -- and that's a good thing. Just because you're inclined to do something one way doesn't mean that's the "right" way. Let men be themselves. When they feel relaxed and safe, you may be surprised at the things they'll tell you.
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When you hear about men being from Mars and women being from Venus, what you're often hearing is that women like to talk and communicate while men prefer not to. It's one of the most fundamental differences between the sexes -- and it's the one that drives the most people crazy.
"All she wants to do is talk about our 'feelings'!" men will complain to their friends. Meanwhile, women complain to their friends, "He won't talk to me about his feelings!" Is there no middle ground here?
To women, it seems obvious that you'd want to discuss emotional issues. How else will you know what the other person is thinking? Besides, talking about things helps you understand them and feel better about them. So why would anyone want to clam up?
That line of reasoning makes sense -- for women. But men's minds work differently. They're just not hardwired the same way as women.
Many studies have shown that men react to strong emotion more physically than women do. Their blood pressure goes up, their hearts race, and it takes much longer for their bodies to return to normal once the crisis has passed than it does for women. Because of this, men's brains subconsciously urge them to stay away from strong emotion -- because it's physically dangerous.
One study among young boys and girls showed that the boys were faster to turn off a tape recording of a baby crying than the girls were. Why? Not because the boys were insensitive, but because they were more bothered by it. The boys were actually MORE sensitive to strong feelings, not less. And that's why they avoid it.
It's been shown that old men are far more likely to die soon after losing a spouse -- to "die of grief," as they say -- than old women are after losing theirs. Physically speaking, emotional problems hit men harder.
Women often want to ask a man, "What are you thinking?" when he's quiet. They assume that because they get quiet when they're troubled, it's the same way with men. But it isn't, at least not necessarily. Men also get quiet when they're pondering a problem, devising a solution to something. It doesn't mean anything is "wrong." It just means they're working something out, often something non-earth-shattering and non-traumatic. Women talk their way through problems; men think their way through.
Men do talk, of course. Get them with their buddies and they talk all the time -- about sports, cars, movies, video games, TV shows, you name it. Just not their feelings. They get their pent-up feelings and aggressions out through games and camaraderie, not through cathartic chat sessions.
But even strong, stoic men understand (or should understand) that communication is vital in any relationship. They should be willing to talk about things that need to be talked about. The key for you in getting him to open up is to let go at his own pace.
Women's minds focus on feelings, while men's focus on problem-solving. Therefore, if there's an emotional issue that needs discussion, rather than saying, "How do you feel?" or telling him how you feel, you might do better to phrase it as a solution: "Let's figure out a way to deal with this" or "What if we did such-and-such about this situation?"
A good time to bring up emotional issues is when he's relaxed and comfortable and not otherwise occupied. That last point is important. He's relaxed and comfortable when he's watching a football game on TV, but that's certainly not the time to interrupt him with this kind of talk. Wait until he's puttering around in the garage, doing nothing in particular, or maybe when you're out together for a casual walk.
As with so many issues in dealing with men, it's important not to pressure him. If he feels like you're manipulating him into talking about his feelings, he'll clam up. So don't set up "meetings." Don't say, "We need to talk." (Ask any man: Those are the four most dreaded words in the English language.) Instead, arrange a situation you both enjoy where talking will be feasible -- going out to dinner, taking a Sunday drive, etc. Then, if the conversation comes around to the issues you want to discuss, it will be a natural progression, not an agenda.
Above all, you should accept that men are different from women -- and that's a good thing. Just because you're inclined to do something one way doesn't mean that's the "right" way. Let men be themselves. When they feel relaxed and safe, you may be surprised at the things they'll tell you.
------
Discover how you can stop your competitors DEAD in their tracks and how to attract Men and win his heart from this FREE video tutorial (VAlue $67!). Learn all you can about the ultimate ways to defeat romantic competitors with my BREAKTHROUGH resource and learn how to get an ex back using the strategies I teach you in this FREE video tutorial (Value $67!) which you can sign up for! This is ONE RESOURCE which you wish your rivals would NEVER find out!
Other than the obvious benefits of learning a new language (visiting another country, business reasons) there are many others. Learning a new language is a personally rewarding experience in terms of functionality and self confidence. Many people are under the assumption that the easiest way to learn a new language is when you are a child. This assumption is based on the Critical Period Hypothesis. This hypothesis states that the ability to learn language is biologically linked to age, thus, making language acquisition as adults impossible. Although there are many differing hypothesis and theories that challenge this "cut off period." (Genesee, 1981; Harley, 1989; Newport, 1990). What scientists and researchers declare not withstanding, there are many adults learning new languages every day. Common sense tells us that obviously it is, in fact, possible to learn another language as an adult.
Perhaps the optimal time is to learn language when you are young, however, it does not mean that learning language for an adult is any more frustrating as it is for a child. In today's world it is becoming increasingly easy to learn another language. In years past the only ways to learn an additional language would have been through a school, sometimes special schools and possibly through LP and phonograph recordings. Today, in our modern technological era, the possibilities of learning a new language are virtually limitless. Maybe you'd like to learn chinese. You can do it online! While many more languages are being offered not only in secondary schools but grammar schools as well are adding more languages. There are also schools that specialize in specific languages as in the past; however these schools are becoming more and more prolific. Language learning from recordings is also still available and offering more languages than ever to learn.
Also, there is a wide variety of language learning software that is very comprehensive, there is a large number of online language courses, and allows the student to take their study at their own pace instead of having to "keep up with the class." These programs are ideal for people that may not have a lot of extra time to devote to a standard classroom, the money to attend a special college or class and it allows them to go over each language lesson as many times as they need to. Not to mention that everyone in the household young and old can benefit from the software. There are also many free sites available on the internet that offer language learning tools for free. By using these you are able to actually "test out" a language that you would like to learn before investing in software or a class.
--
www.rosettastone.com
You can find additional info at the following links:
Click Here for more information
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Perhaps the optimal time is to learn language when you are young, however, it does not mean that learning language for an adult is any more frustrating as it is for a child. In today's world it is becoming increasingly easy to learn another language. In years past the only ways to learn an additional language would have been through a school, sometimes special schools and possibly through LP and phonograph recordings. Today, in our modern technological era, the possibilities of learning a new language are virtually limitless. Maybe you'd like to learn chinese. You can do it online! While many more languages are being offered not only in secondary schools but grammar schools as well are adding more languages. There are also schools that specialize in specific languages as in the past; however these schools are becoming more and more prolific. Language learning from recordings is also still available and offering more languages than ever to learn.
Also, there is a wide variety of language learning software that is very comprehensive, there is a large number of online language courses, and allows the student to take their study at their own pace instead of having to "keep up with the class." These programs are ideal for people that may not have a lot of extra time to devote to a standard classroom, the money to attend a special college or class and it allows them to go over each language lesson as many times as they need to. Not to mention that everyone in the household young and old can benefit from the software. There are also many free sites available on the internet that offer language learning tools for free. By using these you are able to actually "test out" a language that you would like to learn before investing in software or a class.
--
www.rosettastone.com
You can find additional info at the following links:
Click Here for more information
Click Here for more information
Are you considering learning a second language? Why not make it Spanish? Here are six compelling reasons you should consider Spanish as your second language.
1. The Spanish speaking population is huge and growing, especially in the United States.
Spanish is spoken by almost 400 million people worldwide making it the fourth most commonly spoken language in the world. The last census shows that it is the primary language for 34 million people in the US. And half of the Western Hemisphere speaks Spanish. This includes South America (except Brazil), Central America, Mexico, and some areas of the United States, especially California, Florida, Texas, and New York. Spanish is the second most popular language after English by a long shot. States like California requires bilingual legislated notices and official documents. In Puerto Rico, a US Commonwealth, Spanish is the official and most commonly used language.
2. Spanish is one of the easiest foreign languages to learn.
Much of its vocabulary is similar to English and there are thousands of cognates. Cognates are words that are basically the same in two languages, such as "abrupt" in English is "abrupto" in Spanish. It is the number one foreign language being taught to children in elementary and high school. Plus there are many easy ways to learn beginners Spanish. You can take Spanish courses at your community college. Or you can check out one of the many learn Spanish sites were you can purchase Spanish CDs or on line Spanish lessons.
3. Spanish is almost completely phonetic.
Once you learn a few pronunciation rules, you will be able to pronounce any Spanish word correctly. The basic grammar rules are pretty straightforward. You can learn to carry on a basic conversation after only a few lessons.
4. The Spanish language can help you learn additional languages.
Once you learn Spanish, you'll have a head start in learning the other Latin-based languages such as French or Italian, and can even help you learn Russian and German.
5. Business opportunities abound for those who are fluent in both Spanish and English.
The ability to speak both Spanish and English will continue to become more and more valuable for people who live in the U.S. with each passing year as our Spanish speaking population grows. If you work in a service industry such as health care or education, you'll find your career options expand by knowing Spanish. If you're in any occupation that involves international trade, communications, or tourism, you'll similarly find opportunities to use Spanish for business.
Economic globalization has been the big push behind the increasing importance of being able to communicate with those from other countries. For obvious reasons, the second language US citizens choose to learn is Spanish.
6. Learn Spanish for cultural expansion.
Learning Spanish will give you the opportunity to learn how other people think and see the world. Spanish also offers a wealth of literature, both modern and traditional.
You just read some excellent reasons to consider learning to speak Spanish. However, there are as many good reasons as there are individuals. What is your main interest in learning Spanish?
Whatever your reason is, know that you are in good company. It's estimated that 6 million people in the US are learning Spanish right now. So what are you waiting for? Start learning Spanish today!
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Want to learn to speak Spanish? At SpanishLessons101.com we give you unbiased, honest reports on the best, most popular online and audio Spanish courses that making learning Spanish fun and easy. You can find the perfect "learn Spanish" program for you...and some great articles, too...Stop by SpanishLessons101.com today!
You can find additional info at the following links:
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1. The Spanish speaking population is huge and growing, especially in the United States.
Spanish is spoken by almost 400 million people worldwide making it the fourth most commonly spoken language in the world. The last census shows that it is the primary language for 34 million people in the US. And half of the Western Hemisphere speaks Spanish. This includes South America (except Brazil), Central America, Mexico, and some areas of the United States, especially California, Florida, Texas, and New York. Spanish is the second most popular language after English by a long shot. States like California requires bilingual legislated notices and official documents. In Puerto Rico, a US Commonwealth, Spanish is the official and most commonly used language.
2. Spanish is one of the easiest foreign languages to learn.
Much of its vocabulary is similar to English and there are thousands of cognates. Cognates are words that are basically the same in two languages, such as "abrupt" in English is "abrupto" in Spanish. It is the number one foreign language being taught to children in elementary and high school. Plus there are many easy ways to learn beginners Spanish. You can take Spanish courses at your community college. Or you can check out one of the many learn Spanish sites were you can purchase Spanish CDs or on line Spanish lessons.
3. Spanish is almost completely phonetic.
Once you learn a few pronunciation rules, you will be able to pronounce any Spanish word correctly. The basic grammar rules are pretty straightforward. You can learn to carry on a basic conversation after only a few lessons.
4. The Spanish language can help you learn additional languages.
Once you learn Spanish, you'll have a head start in learning the other Latin-based languages such as French or Italian, and can even help you learn Russian and German.
5. Business opportunities abound for those who are fluent in both Spanish and English.
The ability to speak both Spanish and English will continue to become more and more valuable for people who live in the U.S. with each passing year as our Spanish speaking population grows. If you work in a service industry such as health care or education, you'll find your career options expand by knowing Spanish. If you're in any occupation that involves international trade, communications, or tourism, you'll similarly find opportunities to use Spanish for business.
Economic globalization has been the big push behind the increasing importance of being able to communicate with those from other countries. For obvious reasons, the second language US citizens choose to learn is Spanish.
6. Learn Spanish for cultural expansion.
Learning Spanish will give you the opportunity to learn how other people think and see the world. Spanish also offers a wealth of literature, both modern and traditional.
You just read some excellent reasons to consider learning to speak Spanish. However, there are as many good reasons as there are individuals. What is your main interest in learning Spanish?
Whatever your reason is, know that you are in good company. It's estimated that 6 million people in the US are learning Spanish right now. So what are you waiting for? Start learning Spanish today!
------
Want to learn to speak Spanish? At SpanishLessons101.com we give you unbiased, honest reports on the best, most popular online and audio Spanish courses that making learning Spanish fun and easy. You can find the perfect "learn Spanish" program for you...and some great articles, too...Stop by SpanishLessons101.com today!
You can find additional info at the following links:
Click Here for more information
Click Here for more information
Michael P. Gerace
Though difficult, study abroad is a promising area for finding a job in Italy. There are over 100 American schools in Italy, all of which hire people to teach courses and administer their programs. Working in study abroad can be exiting, but it can also offer more stability and (possibly) better pay than other types of jobs open to foreigners in Italy.
How does one find such a job? Unfortunately, there is no standard road to follow. There are a few strategies that can lead to success, but persistence and patience are key.
1. First, know the outlets for job postings. While many openings are never advertised because they are filled quickly, the best place to look is Wanted in Rome (www.wantedinrome.com), which is an English-language magazine appealing to the ex-pat community in Italy. You can freely view job postings on their web site. Another good prospect is the NAFSA web site (the Association of International Educators) (www.nafsa.org), which posts many jobs in study abroad generally. The Chronicle of Higher Education’s (chronicle.com) job section occasionally posts something for Italy as well.
2. Mine the AACUPI web site (the Association of American College and University Programs in Italy) at www.aacupi.org. AACUPI represents American study abroad programs in Italy and is recognized by the Italian Government. It has about 90 members, most in Florence and Rome, though many American schools in Italy do not belong to AACUPI. The AACUPI web site lists all of its member schools and most of the names and email addresses of the directors of these schools. Write a cover letter explaining your interest in working at a school, attach a resume and email it to a director. You might be ignored, but you may also get some interesting responses.
3. You might get your foot in the door by starting as an intern, which could lead to a paying job. These positions may not pay, but could offer housing. The best way to find an internship is to email program directors and ask. Even if a school does not have an internship program, you could offer yourself as one. Study abroad programs in Italy are just coming around to the idea. It is free labor and it is legally easier to have an intern than to hire someone who may not yet have the legal right to work in Italy.
4. The single best strategy to land a job in study abroad in Italy is to take the risk and go there and seek a job after you have arrived. Once you are there you can visit schools in person. Why is this the best strategy? For one, it proves to a prospective employer that you are willing to leave the comforts of home and show up at a job site in a foreign country. Finding reliable people is often difficult for a school, especially for those located outside of Florence and Rome. Also by meeting people in study abroad, you will discover things that you cannot learn from afar—such as job openings that are not advertised or how to navigate the local bureaucracy. If you make yourself familiar and available to a school, you might get hired temporarily, which could lead to a full-time job.
Some Legal Considerations
Like all countries, Italy has legal requirements for foreigners who want to work and live there. Yet many articles on finding a job in Italy make no mention of this. To merely reside in Italy for any period of time longer than 7 days, foreigners are required to obtain official permission to stay (called a permesso di soggiorno). If you are traveling around the country as a tourist, you do not need a permesso. This is only for someone who will reside at a specific address for a period of time. The permesso is obtained from the local questura (police department) in the city that you will live in. If you are staying in Rome, for example, you will need to register with the questura there. A permesso can be granted to you as a tourist (the easiest), as a student (requires a study visa), or as a person allowed to work (requires a work visa).
Many Americans tend to stay in Italy without getting the permesso and Italian enforcement of this is sporadic-to-non-existent. Ignoring the law, however, might put you at a disadvantage. The rental agency or landlord who owns the apartment that you want may require that you get one. You will also need it if you go to the hospital or deal with the government or police for any reason. If it is your first time in Italy, then get a permesso as a tourist. You will only need your passport for this and, if you are an American, you will be granted an automatic 90 day stay in Italy. People from other EU countries also need permessi if they want to reside in Italy.
The biggest legal issue is the right to work in Italy as a foreigner, which requires a work visa. The hassle involved in getting one is a story in its own right, but the major hurdle is getting sponsored by the school that will hire you. It is an open secret in study abroad that many Americans work there “under-the-table” without a visa. The usual story is that you get hired first and then, sometime later, apply for a visa. The trick is finding a school that will hire you this way. It would be rare to find a school that would sponsor you for a visa without you first having a track record of employment there. There is already an army of people in Italy with the desire and ability to work in study abroad.
Useful Assets to Have
If you already have Italian language ability, this will help you. Programs in Italy always need people who can speak both Italian and English. If you are working in student services and have to escort a 20 year-old American student to a local hospital, you might have to assist the student in speaking to the doctors. If you do not have good Italian skills, then acquire them.
If you have an advanced degree, then you could teach courses. Courses offered at these schools span the disciplines and are mostly in English. While art history, Italian literature and Italian cinema are always in demand, there are also many people with these degrees who are seeking these jobs. If you have a degree in business, psychology, economics or writing, for example, you may find it easier to obtain a position. Visit the web sites of the schools listed in AACUPI and look at their course offerings to get an idea of their needs. It is less likely that a study abroad school would hire you to teach Italian, however, because there are countless Italians who fill these jobs. They have the home school advantage on language.
If you do land a teaching job in Italy, pay is by the course and can vary from $2500 to $5000, depending on where and what you teach. Once you learn the ropes, however, you can find additional opportunities. You could end up teaching 3 or more courses per term at one or more schools. This might be a lot of work, but it will allow you to survive.
If teaching is not an option, then there are administrative positions that do not require any special education. The upside to these jobs is that they are usually full time and offer a salary, though the pay can vary greatly. Most non-teaching jobs involve office work, housing and student services. There are the coveted directors positions, but these are much harder to get and usually require a Ph.D. and experience. Some of these jobs require significant language ability and a lot of local knowledge, but you can learn. You might get a job leading students on trips around Italy, for example. You would have to know how to charter buses, contact hotels and create itineraries for the students.
Any experience in American higher education is a plus. Programs need people who can function effectively in Italy, but also need people who understand American-style academic or student service standards. Italians who work for American study abroad programs, for example, frequently have to undergo a learning process because their understanding of higher education is dramatically different than that of an American.
Do you have dual citizenship or can you qualify for it? If so, you have a huge advantage over those who don’t or can‘t. If you can get Italian citizenship or citizenship with any other EU country, then you have no need of a visa (nor for a permesso if you have Italian citizenship). If you have Italian ancestors, you might want to visit www.myitaliancitizenship.com, which covers all of the cases where a person could qualify. If your ancestry is that of another EU country, visit their consulate and embassy web sites in the US for information on qualification.
If you are thinking about studying overseas in an English speaking country or an European University, then you will probably need to take an English proficiency test. But which one should you choose?
The two most common English tests for university admission are the IELTS and TOEFL tests. This article will compare both so students can choose the one that suits them.
Basic Information about the exams
The IELTS exam, or International English Language Testing System, is developed by UCLES, University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES and delivered by the British Council and IDP Education Australia. The test is available in an Academic and General Training Module (only the writing and reading are different). Here, we are talking about the Academic module.
The TOEFL Test, or Test of English as a Foreign Language, is developed and delivered by ETS, the Educational Testing Service, a non-profit American company that has a virtual monopoly. The test is available in a paper-based version (PBT), a computer-based version (CBT) and an Internet-Based Version (IBT). Here, we only look at the Internet-Based Test.
All are non-profit organizations – but do occasionally make money.
Cost
The cost of the IELTS test can vary depending on whether the provider is IDP or The British Council, but currently it is NT$5,100 in Taiwan (around US$160) while the TOEFL is US$160.
How many times I can take the tests?
IELTS test is available on 48 fixed dates a year – for specifically available dates you need to contact your local center while the TOEFL is available in any 7-day period. There is no limit to the number of times you can take the test
Acceptance
It used to be the case that IELTS tests were only accepted by British, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian schools while TOEFL dominated in the US. How things have changed! Now, the two tests are literally competing with each other and nearly any school you wish to go to will accept both.
Here is a list of Universities in the States that accept IELTS
Here is a list of all the places that accept TOEFL scores.
Difficulty
Students often ask which is more difficult. Unfortunately, the answer really depends on your individual situation and your learning experience. It can also depend on your learning style and how you think. In many cases, difficulty depends on the type of tasks in each test. Take a look at the summary below:
How are IELTS and TOEFL different?
Speaking
In the IELTS exam, the speaking test is divided into three parts: (1) general topics, (2) the individual Long turn, and (3) discussion. Part one involves answering common English type questions on up to three or four topics such as flowers, the Internet, and your hometown. In part two, you are given a topic to talk about for two minutes and one minute to prepare for it. In part three, the examiner will discuss with you a variety of issues and ideas with you related to the topic. So, if you had to talk about a famous person you admired in part two, you may end up discussing the idea of fame, and whether or not famous people should consider how they influence society.
In the TOEFL iBT things are quite different. To begin with, you are facing a computer, not an examiner. You begin with 2 questions where you have to report and comment on what you hear. You then have integrated questions that require you to read some information and then listen to something. For example, you may read about library opening times, and then listen to someone talking about what they have to do that day. There is also a task that requires you to listen to someone talking about a problem and the test-taker has to summarize the situation, the problem and what they think the speaker ought to do.
Overall, many English learners prefer the Face-to-Face Interview in IELTS. You are able to ask the interviewer to clarify, explain words or repeat the question, which makes it easier to make sure that you answer the question properly. In the IELTS test, asking questions does NOT reduce your score. On the other hand the TOEFL test environment can be noisy and uncomfortable since you listen to pre-recorded questions and speak into a microphone in a room filled with other people. You also have a fixed time limit while the IELTS is more flexible.
The other thing to consider is the type of questions themselves. The biggest problem with the TOEFL speaking for some people is that it may be difficult to catch the ideas in the integrated speaking questions. That said, the TOEFL speaking questions are not as complex. IELTS questions can become quite sophisticated in part 3.
Listening
IELTS and the TOEFL iBT differ in question types, format, content, length and accent. First, in the iBT all questions are multi-choice format, checking or matching. IELTS, on the other hand, has a wider range of question types and it often asks you to write exactly the words you hear. Spelling is critical.
In the iBT test, apart from the first part, all are lectures or mini-lectures. While IELTS has a conversation in Part 1, a monologue on a topic of general interest in Part 2, a 2-4 person discussion in an academic context in Part 3 and a simplified lecture in Part 4.
As for accents, IELTS prides itself on the fact that it has a real range including British, Australian, and North American, while in the iBT students will hear British, American, and Canadian. Length also differs with the IELTS being considerably shorter at 30-40 minutes + 10 minutes transfer time while the iBT will be between 60-90 minutes since ETS (the test developer) may try out a new test on the tester.
Regarding content, TOEFL listenings tend to be more academically specialized. They are more likely to ask questions about cells, and molecular biology. Although IELTS listenings are also academic, they tend to be more general. The main reason why people find IELTS listenings difficult is that they require you to write down words and phrases, which is difficult because usually the keywords are synonyms or paraphrased AND you have to spell correctly! Finally, if you are used to American English, you will find the IELTS test to be a little more challenging just because of the wider range of accents.
Free IELTS Listening
Free TOEFL Listening
Reading
Interestingly, the IELTS and iBT reading sections are fairly similar. You will face 3 readings in the IELTS and 3-5 in the iBT - again because of ETS' testing policy. this also means the iBT is longer at 60-90 minutes compared to the IELTS' 60. There are a greater range of question types in IELTS including multi-choice, writing words, matching, summarizing, Yes / No / Not Given and others. The iBT tends to have more multi-choice questions. It also has checking and matching questions along with some questions that test a students awareness of a passage's organization.
Again, the main difference is in the format of the questions. Again, the IELTS requires a much better control over your language. Some of the tasks require you to understand what types of words (verb, noun, adjective etc) could possibly fit in a space. There are also some challenging tasks – especially the Yes / No / Not Given questions! In other words, if you have a very strong passive vocabulary (you can understand the basic meanings of many words) and are good at eliminating options then TOEFL will be better for you. That said, if you have a wider general awareness of language and reading then you will understand more of the IELTS reading as the TOEFL iBT is more subject specific.
Writing
This is the part where the two exams differ the most. The TOEFL iBt requires an integrated writing task and a simple (independent) essay task while IELTS requires students to write one essay and one report based on visual information. Both are challenging and difficult in different ways.
Looking at the standard essay types first, in both cases, students are asked to write a formal essay in response to a prompt.
IELTS prompt types
· Present and support an opinion (agree/disagree)
· Discuss problems/solutions
· Weigh two arguments
· Compare advantages and disadvantages
TOEFL prompt types
· Present and support an opinion (agree/disagree)
· Explain a preference
· Comparison and contrast
· Description and evaluation
· If / Imaginary
Generally, TOEFL questions are much easier to understand than IELTS questions. TOEFL questions need to be a little longer at 300 words to IELTS 250.
The IELTS (Academic) Task 1 question type is the one that gives many students trouble. Here, they are asked to describe a piece of factual information such as a table, chart, or process in 150 words. Students often find it difficult to work out exactly what they are supposed to be writing.
The iBT Integrated Essay is very different. Students need to listen to a speaker and read a short article that either supports or contradicts the speaker. They then need to write a short report summarizing the key points presented
The TOEFL integrated task is difficult since you need to read and listen and make notes about what you hear before writing. This can be difficult for students. However, it is balanced by the second writing task which is often much easier to understand than IELTS writing topics! In fact, the writing is nearly always the most challenging section for IELTS students, Not only do you have to master a wide range of writing styles for Task 1 where you have to describe data, you also lose marks in IELTS if you do not directly answer the question. This is a common problem!
It is also important to think about some practical matters. You currently need to handwrite your writing in IELTS while you use a computer in the iBT. Timing is also important. In the IELTS test, you have longer and the time is more flexible. You have 60 minutes and the student is able to divide the time as they wish. In contrast, in the iBT you only have 20 minutes to complete the first task and then 30 minutes to complete the second task.
So which is better?
It really depends, both are very widely accepted and they cost about the same. The real issue is if you feel that you will do better in one format or the other. For example, if you have terrible spelling, you WILL score lower in the IELTS Listening test. On the other hand, if you are a weak speaker and need a bit of help, then the IELTS speaking format will help. So, it is up to you!
What ever your decision, good luck with your test!
Video Source: Youtube
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