[ESP] Crítica de los Cursos de Idiomas

En esta oportunidad me dirijo a todas aquellas personas que de alguna manera tienen alguna relación con un curso de idiomas, sea porque participen como profesores, estudiantes, coordinadores, etc. Este artículo no tiene por objeto ofender a nadie, por el contrario, mi intención es la de hacer algunas críticas constructivas para que los cursos se desenvuelvan en un mejor ambiente y redunde en mejores resultados para los estudiantes, profesores, coordinadores, etc. Termino con una serie de recomendaciones que considero pertinentes, pero éstas no deben ser tomadas como la norma, porque puede ser que las ideas que voy a exponer sean totalmente erróneas y deba ser yo quien deba cambiar.

Las observaciones que hago nacen principalmente de cuatro módulos de un curso de francés que tomé en 2009. Tenía muchas expectativas, sobre todo porque es una institución de la cual siempre había recibido buenos comentarios, pero desde el primer módulo me di cuenta de una falla: El avance de la clase se dejaba en el libro de “teoría”, llamado método y no en el instructor. Si bien es cierto que este tipo de libros está diseñado por pedagogos y/o por personas que tienen una alta formación en enseñanza de lenguas extranjeras, son ellos mismos quienes dicen en el prólogo de los libros que publican, un mensaje muy importante parecido a “este libro debe ser utilizado con flexibilidad, constituir una ayuda, un instrumento de trabajo por el profesor quien queda como el maestro del juego”. Adicionalmente los métodos muestran una información muy limitada respecto al tema que está bajo estudio y no permiten un análisis de las excepciones, que en el caso del francés están a la orden del día.

La segunda falla que observé fue que los instructores no preparaban la información que debían dar en las sesiones de clase. Esto puede ser debido a que como el método guiaba la clase, los instructores no consideraban necesario estudiar o repasar los puntos clave del contenido programático. Resultado: Ante una pregunta que se salía de la información mostrada en el método pero que al mismo tiempo tenía relación con el tema bajo estudio las respuestas eran de poca calidad. Esto se evidenciaba fácilmente al momento de estudiar los pronombres y al estudiar el passé – composé, tiempo equivalente al pasado participio en español. A veces los temas que parecen simples no lo son, y es mejor darse cuenta de eso antes de la clase que durante ella.

Las dos fallas que acabo de exponer salieron en una conversación que tuve con alguien, quién fue estudiante en la misma institución. Me comentó como eran las cosas antes, y debo decir que en los cuatro niveles que hice, yo no vi ni la décima parte de lo que escuché. Una de las cosas que le dije a esta persona fue que yo no consideraba que los instructores que he tenido tengan las competencias necesarias para dar clases, a lo que me replicó argumentando que los estudiantes que daban clases son en su mayoría estudiantes de Idiomas Modernos y ellos reciben una sólida formación, no sólo en cuanto a la lengua, sino también a la historia, geografía, economía y otros aspectos de los países francófonos. Pero el único detalle es que yo no estaba evaluando las competencias de los instructores como estudiantes, sino las competencias de los instructores como facilitadores de información.

La última crítica está asociada con la falta de motivación en la búsqueda activa de información. Las reglas gramaticales de cada idioma son numerosas y creo prácticamente imposible enseñarlas durante el horario de clases. Sin embargo este problema se podría mitigar motivando a los estudiantes a buscar la información por nosotros mismos, motivándonos a contrastar ideas sobre un mismo sujeto. Sin embargo, hacemos lo que podemos y es por eso que algunas veces formulamos las preguntas difíciles a las cuales hice referencia en el tercer párrafo.

Para mejorar las competencias de enseñanza de los instructores, quienes son los directores de orquesta dentro del aula de clases, propongo algunas recomendaciones. La primera es que los instructores participen en los clubes de conversación en francés, nuevamente con la finalidad de ver como se desenvuelve cada sesión y no para mejorar la producción / comprensión oral, aunque esto último no estaría de más. Observen como el moderador anima a los participantes a que expongan sus ideas, cómo se lleva el hilo de la conversación, cómo y cuándo se improvisa, qué hacer en esos momentos muertos cuando nadie habla y queda más de media hora para que se acabe la sesión. Esto es recomendable sobre todo para los instructores de los niveles que demandan mayor exigencia: Los conversacionales.

También es recomendable asistir a otras clases en calidad de oyente, no con la finalidad de aprender el contenido programático de esa otra clase, sino más bien con el objeto de ver otras dinámicas, otros grupos de estudiantes con un instructor diferente y ver como es la interacción entre ellos. Actualmente tengo la oportunidad de entrar como oyente en una clase de francés y puedo decir el nivel de exigencia es superior al que yo tuve en mi curso, el grupo de estudiantes toma más riesgos al momento de expresarse y los resultados se ven claramente. Tengo que agregar que en este curso es donde conocí a una PROFESORA de francés.

En este curso que está próximo a terminarse, la profesora asignó como tarea asistir a un foro en español sobre el caso del Sr. Franklin Brito, para luego hacer un ensayo sobre como los derechos de ese señor fueron violados, a partir de la información recopilada en el foro y otra que se puede conseguir en Internet y en bibliotecas. Esta actividad me pareció exigente en el sentido de que fue necesario redactar un artículo en una lengua extranjera de un hecho real, estando éste relacionado con los Derechos del Hombre, un tema donde la lengua e historia francesa tienen mucha participación.

Tengo que agregar que escribir un ensayo no es tarea fácil independientemente del idioma, puesto que hay que estar pendiente de conservar el hilo del texto, es decir, el orden de las ideas. Al escribir en una lengua extranjera, se presenta la dificultad adicional de emplear un vocabulario acorde al nivel de estudio que en este caso se trata de estudiantes próximos a terminar su formación universitaria. En consecuencia, es necesario usar diccionarios, y la profesora ha previsto esta situación desde el principio al recomendar el uso de un diccionario monolingüe en francés. Un diccionario de sinónimos no cae mal, pero conseguir uno en Venezuela depende de dos factores: Conseguir un buen diccionario de sinónimos o conseguir los euros para poder comprarlo por Internet.
 

Internet también ofrece otros recursos además de poder comprar libros. Son muchos los sitios dedicados al estudio de esta lengua muy variados. Se pueden conseguir diccionarios monolingües, bilingües, de sinónimos, conjugadores, ejercicios de preparación para los exámenes de suficiencia de la lengua, noticieros, emisiones de radio de temas variados, artículos de enciclopedia, páginas de instituciones y academias francesas, periódicos que muestran la realidad del día a día, etc. Sin embargo, hay que estar pendiente que no todas las páginas escritas en francés están bien hechas y es por eso que hay que ser un lector atento para poder identificar errores y evitar cometerlos en el futuro.

Para concluir, tengo que decir que enseñar no es lo mismo que aprender. Espero que las críticas que he mencionado sean consideradas como constructivas y que las recomendaciones que hago sirvan para que los instructores de hoy se conviertan en los profesores del mañana. No se debe dejar la responsabilidad el avance de la clase en manos del método, son los instructores quienes deben tenerla. Nosotros los estudiantes queremos aprender y es por eso que hacemos los cursos y les hacemos las preguntas difíciles.  

Gustavo.

[ENG] IDE143 Essay on The Caribbean

The first unit of my English course was called The Caribbean. In this unit I’ve read three texts of Caribbean writers: A play called “Return to Paradise” by Cicely Waite-Smith, a short story titled “The two Grand Mothers” by Olive Senior and a poem called “A Far Cry from Africa” by Derek Walcott. Something important about today’s Caribbean society is its origin, because it is characterized by a clash of three cultures: The natives, the Europeans and the Africans and the consequences of this cultural mixture can be seen to date. The texts I’ve read show how black and white coexists and others images of the black Caribbean. Heather took advantage of that situation to propose one question as a title for an essay, the first one I did by the way. I answered it as follows: (The number between brackets [ ] indicates the references to avoid plagiarism):

What images of the black Caribbean are depicted in the examples we have read of Caribbean Literature? What problems do they face?

The texts “Return to Paradise”, “The Two Grandmothers” and “A far Cry from Africa” present five main issues which are the following ones: education, access to basic services like electricity, economical status, the problem of identity and the carelessness associated to the concept of family. In addition we can observe in each text that there is some level of disagreement between blacks and whites and the poem “A far Cry from Africa” shows us how violent the human being can be in the attempt to solve these kind of differences.

Concerning education, the characters that represent the black Caribbean have a low level. One of the most obvious examples is given in the play “Return to Paradise” because the character Annie, who represents the black Caribbean, talks with many errors, a great numbers of them associated with the concordance of tenses and others parts of speech, for example when she says “Him nine year old. Him give plenty trouble, Miss Jean”. She also offers her services as a maid as she didn’t have sufficient education to do anything else.

At the end of the play we can read that Annie’s grandson Carlton is nine years old and spends all his time “with the sailors on the wharf and in the brothel them”. He is not at school where he should be and hence is not getting an instruction either.

In the text “The two Grandmothers” the problem related to education is shown directly when the main character says “They don’t speak properly the way we do (…) Eulalie and Ermandine don’t go to church or school anymore”.

Another image depicted is the lack of electricity, shown in the text “The Two Grandmothers”. At the beginning of it the author describes a very rural community with no electricity. According to the United Nations this situation entrenches poverty, constrains the delivery of social services, limits opportunities for women, and erodes environmental sustainability [1].

Another image is related to the economical status. In the three texts we’ve read, the black Caribbean society is shown in a difficult economical situation in relation to the white community. In “Return to Paradise” Annie was looking for a job as a maid because she was unemployed and she also had the responsibility of a child with no parents. In the same play Annie’s Grandson Carlton had to work as well.

O. Senior shows that the black people lived in a rural environment. She shows that Pearlie lives in a “tiny house” and “all the children sleep together in one room on the floor”. The element of large families without the parent(s) is also presented. Both aspects are associated with poverty in every region around the world.

Walcott’s poem shows in its first stanza a war situation in Kenya in the attempt to achieve liberty from British rule. We can infer that the Africans lived an economic depression due to the war.

Another image depicted in the texts we’ve read is the problem of identity, presented principally in the text “The Two Grandmothers” and in Walcott’s poem “A Far Cry from Africa”. At the beginning of the first text Grandma Del tells her granddaughter that her skin is “beautiful like honey” that she is “a fine brown lady and must make sure to grow as beautiful inside as (she is) outside”. But after being in contact with her maternal family she feels uncomfortable in her own skin because she realized about all the enjoyments and developments of the white society in relation with the black one.

Walcott reveals his inner identity problem with a non rhetorical question in the third stanza of his poem “I who am poisoned with the blood of both / (…) how choose / between this Africa and the English tongue I love?” He doesn’t like the fact of having both bloods inside his veins because he cannot be part of one side, and both of them are inhuman in the war.

The final image depicted is addressed to the family. In the play “Return to Paradise” we can see that Carlton has no parents. His mother died but there are no references about is father: The problem of the irresponsible parenthood in the black Caribbean is shown. In contrast Jean Rogers lives with her mother and father in the same house.

In the text “The Two Grandmothers” we can appreciate that the parental ascendance of the main character doesn’t exist: When she goes to visit Grandma Del she spends her time with the neighbors and when she asks something about her grandfather there’s no answer, and her grandmother’s reaction is not pleasant at all: “I didn’t see a picture of Daddy’s father and when I asked Grandma she got mad and shooed me away”.

At the end of the story “The Two Grandmothers” the main character shows her concern because “everybody is just having babies without being married like Pearlie’s mother and they are not ashamed”. In Walcott’s poem the idea of family doesn’t exist at all. When he writes “The violence of beast is read / as natural law, but upright man / Seek his divinity by inflicting pain” he shows the human been as a race incapable of establishing any social relation no matter what. Moreover he describes a time of war and everyone has to fight to stay alive, this is not a time for inculcating family values.

In conclusion all the three texts show negative aspects of the black Caribbean society. All the characters that represent this society live in a very difficult situation but they take measures only to solve the problem associated with their economical status because they need money to survive. They don’t care about an improvement in their education because they abandon the system like Eulalie and Ermandine did. They are not concerned due to the lack of electricity and other basic services. In the three texts the concept of family as a fundamental cell of the society is not taken into consideration at all, and the fact that “everybody is just having babies without being married like Pearlie’s mother and they are not ashamed” makes me believe that this situation will continue. The reactions concerning the identity problem are presented. In the text “The two Grandmothers” the main character tries to live her life in a way that allows her to be comfortable with herself. In Walcott’s poem the question is formulated but he doesn’t have the answer he’s looking for.

REFERENCES

[1] UN ENERGY PUBLICATION “The Energy Challenge for Achieving the Millennium Development Goals”. 2005.

[2] SENIOR, Olive. “The Two Grandmothers”

[3] WAITE-SMITH, Cicely. “Return to Paradise”.

[4] WALCOTT, Derek. “A far Cry from Africa”. 1962.

[FRA] Roland Garros

Bonsoir!

L’un de choses qu’il faut faire pour améliorer et faciliter l’apprentissage d’une langue étrangère, c’est la pratiquer tout le temps ! Alors, je vais profiter ce blog pour pratiquer mon expression écrite, en français et en anglais bien sûr, comme vous l’avez vu pendant les derniers deux articles concernant un course de cette langue-là, le fameux IDE143.

Aujourd’hui je voulais écrire sur le tournoi de tennis que j’aime le plus : L’Internationaux de France de Roland Garros. Il s’agit d’un tournoi spécial parce qu’en 1999 j’ai eu l’opportunité d’entendre la parole de Steffi Graf et d’André Agassi sur ESPN, après que chacun d’eux ont eu remporté 7 matchs pour gagner la Coupe Suzanne Lenglen et la Coupe des Mousquetaires respectivement. Il est évident qu’à cette époque-là je n’ai rien compris parce que je ne savais pas m’exprimer en français, mais je crois que c’est un moment qui m’a encouragé à étudier cette langue.

Aujourd’hui j’ai dépensé toute la journée en écrivant mon profile professionnel sur plusieurs sites web, et malheureusement je n’ai pas eu le temps d’écrire sur Roland Garros comme je voulais. Néanmoins, l’édition 2010 de ce tournoi est un peu particulière et je veux vous écrire sur ces singularités. Le retour de la belge Justin Henin qui a perdu un seul match face à Serena Williams en la finale de l’Open d’Australie 2010 et Kim Clisjters gagnante de l’US OPEN 2009 à New York, la confiance montrée par Roger Federer en 2009, les surprises données par Soderling l’an dernier en RG et Ivan Ljubičić il y a quelque semaines à Indian Wells, sont des aspects auxquels il faut faire attention.

On se tient au courant, Gustavo.

[ENG] IDE143 Essay on India

One of the texts I’ve read in the course called The World of Literature in English was Train to Pakistan, written by Kushwant Singh and published in 1956. The actions take place in a village called Mano Majra. After the respective lecture and exposition of Singh’s work, Heather gave us one question as a title for an essay and I answered it as follows: (The number between brackets [ ] indicates the source of information to avoid plagiarism)

In what way can the village of Mano Majra be considered a microcosm of India as a whole at the time the story was set?

In the text Train to Pakistan several aspects that reflect the reality of the former British Indian Empire are shown. These aspects are associated with the migration of people towards Pakistan after the partition, the existence of the Chundunnugger refugee camp, the haste of the Muslims to evacuate the village, the conception of Pakistan as a “heaven of refuge” and the division of families composed by both Muslims and Hindus. The characteristic violence of the migration movements after the partition is also presented.

The partition of India in 1947 was followed by “the largest mass migration in human history” [1]. Based on 1951 Census of displaced persons, 7 226 000 Muslims went to Pakistan from India while 7 249 000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan immediately after the partition [6]. These migration movements towards one of the two new nations were caused by religious differences between Hindus and Muslims and also by the fear of staying in a country belonging to a minority.

The migration from the Indian village Mano Majra to Pakistan was caused by the arrival of a train full of corpses and the assassination of the Hindu Ram Lal by a Muslim called Malli, although this village is presented as one of the last where tolerance existed between Hindus and Muslims. Due to the murder of Ram Lal a group of police investigators arrived at that location. According to the Head constable “the situation is serious” and he demanded the commandant of the Pakistan military unit “send his trucks and soldiers to evacuate the Muslims as early as possible. At once”.

The displacement of the Muslims from the village towards Pakistan wasn’t direct, because they passed first to a refugee camp called Chundunugger “and from there by train to Lahore”. This was a standard situation in the region because “both Governments constructed large relief camps for incoming and leaving refugees” [4].

One of the characteristics of the migration movement is its rapidity because it took place right after the announcement of the partition, nonetheless, the idea of the creation of Pakistan was thought of since 1930. This hurry was provoked in part by the haste of Lord Louis Mountbatten “in his attempt to transfer power as quickly and efficiently as possible”, one situation that is considered by contemporaries and subsequent historians “as a major contributory factor in the chaos that accompanied partition” [2].

We can see this haste in the text Train to Pakistan in the part where Imam Baksh and other Muslims attended a gathering to decide their future. They left the meeting and immediately Mr. Baksh went to his home and woke up his daughter to tell her that they, “have to go away tomorrow morning (because) those who stay behind are killed” [3]. Another reference of the celerity of the migration is shown by the Muslim officer who is leading the convoy to the refugee camp when he said, “We have a dozen trucks and all you people who are going to Pakistan must get on them in ten minutes. We have other villages to evacuate later on. (…) I give you ten minutes to settle your affaires. Then the convoy will move” [3].

This swiftness caused a lot of Muslims to take the decision to leave all their possessions behind. In the text Train to Pakistan “The Muslims left their bullock carts” [3] and other possessions because the only luggage they could take with them was what they could carry. We can assume that this situation happened in all India because the Muslims and Hindus wanted to be in their country as soon as possible with their equals.

Another reason exposed in the text Train to Pakistan to leave Mano Majra is that Pakistan was considered “a heaven of refugee”. In real life the idea to create a separate homeland for Muslims was advocated by the Muslim League in its annual session in 1930 and proposed once more by Muhammad Ali Jinnah in 1940 [2]. Pakistan represented a place where the Muslims would not be suspicious of the Hindu majority in the Indian National Congress, a place where the Muslims interests would not be taken into consideration by mainstream parties such as the Congress [6] and represented an opportunity to escape from the moneylenders – often Hindus [1].

Another characteristic presented in the text that reflects the reality in India is that “communities, families and farms were cut in two” [1]. In the text we can see that Nooran (Muslim) were carrying Jugga’s baby (Sikh). Because of her religion, she left the village and she had only had the opportunity to talk with Jugga’s mother. In addition Jugga was run over by the train headed to Pakistan that Nooan took, in the attempt to save her from a terrorist act plotted by Hindu fanatics.

The final aspect concerns the violence that characterized the displacement of the Muslims from Mano Majra towards Pakistan, shown throughout the text Train to Pakistan. The murder of Ram Lal by a Muslim, the arrival of a train from Pakistan full of corpses, the reference of the killing of those Muslims who stayed behind and the terrorist act plotted by Hindus and Sikhs against Muslims are the main ones [3]. The violence in real life was obvious to the world before and after the partition. On the 16 August 1946, Jinnah called for a Direct Action Day by followers of the Muslim League in support of the demand of Pakistan. The day dissolved into random violence and civil disruption across north India, with thousands of lives lost [1]. Also during the Kashmir conflict to claim control over the princely state of Kashmir [5] where thousands of people were killed. The estimate of the number of deaths caused by partition is approximately 500 000, with low estimates at 200 000 and high estimates at 1000000 [6].

In conclusion we can consider that the village of Mano Majra is a micro version of all India. The village is presented first as a place where Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs lived peacefully but after two violent events this community began to divide. Several aspects addressed to the migration of Muslims from Mano Majra to Pakistan are presented and they can be extrapolated to the rest of the population of the former British Indian Empire.

REFERENCES

[1] BATES, Crispin. “The Hidden Story of the Partition and its Legacies”. www.bbc.co.uk

[2] KAUL, Chandrika. “From Empire to Independence: The British Raj in India”. www.bbc.co.uk

[3] SINGH, Khushwant. “Train to Pakistan”. 1956.

[4] Wikipedia Article. “History of the Republic of India”. www.wikipedia.org.

[5] Wikipedia Article. “Indo-Pakistani War of 1947”. www.wikipedia.org

[6] Wikipedia Article. “Partition of India”. www.wikipedia.org

[7] The image at the beginning of the article was taken on

http://msjillani.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/cid_21419040466web56604mailre3.jpg

Gustavo.

[ENG] IDE143 The World of Literature in English

I’m very happy because I just finished my English course called The World of Literature in English. It began 11 weeks ago, and after one oral presentation, two essays and additional activities, I had the chance to improve mi level of English that was in a terrible shape though, but I know I need to work even more to express myself properly. My participation in this course was possible thanks to Heather Minford, my professor and friend since 2002.

Heather gave me the equivalent of a tennis wildcard, because she allowed me to enter her class as a listener. I have to admit I was a little bit nervous at the beginning because of my English, but with a lot of dedication I could improve the course, one of the best English courses by the way. This was not a typical English course because all the communication was in English and we did not have a class book and a work book. What we did have was a lot of lectures in English and all the information we could obtain on the Internet or in a Library with books written in English.

The subject was divided into five parts: The Caribbean, Africa, India, Canada and Ireland. I had the opportunity to know a little more about those regions like their culture, their history, etc. My favorite one was India, because it concerns the independence and partition of the former British Indian Empire in 1947, we learned something about Gandhi’s political life and also something about the migration movements of Muslims from India towards Pakistan and Hindus in the opposite direction.

Something funny about this course, is that I finally got a 5 with Heather! In our three previous encounters (ID1112 – IDE144 and IDE731) I got a 4. I asked her if we could change one of my fours with this five, but the answer was quite obvious… Nonetheless I prefer to keep closed the chapter called undergraduate studies knowing it is possible to get a 5 with Heather. After this course, I know I can prepare myself aiming the IELTS for 2011, but I think 1 year will be enough.

Gustavo.

[ESP] Primer Cyber-mensaje

Luego de haber varios blogs en la web, donde amigos y allegados publicaban mucha información, tomé la decisión de crear el mio. Tengo muchas cosas que me gustaría publicar, de temas diferentes, y en idiomas diferentes: Tenis, escalada en roca, ingeniería eléctrica, lugares que me gustaría visitar, y pare de contar… Por los momentos estoy empezando es esto de administrar un blog pero espero aprender conforme pase el tiempo para publicar artículos de buena calidad.

Gustavo.