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Cultural diversity addressed in the classroom
Cultural diversity addressed in the classroom
Why it is important to learn another language
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CHEEMIDI!” Is an Indian saying for excuse me as I shrieked from a sneeze. Mucus dripped down my nose and so this is how I embarrassingly started my first day of school. Neither the teacher nor the other students could understand what I said because they spoke Marathi and I only spoke Telugu. I had just turned 4, and my parents decided to put me in pre-school. The cycle of being an outsider repeated 6 months later, but this time in Hsinchu, Taiwan. It was like being “out to sea” when trying to communicating with people who spoke Mandrin. I splashed around in the waves of the Chinese language and learned enough to be able to make some nice friends. My ship again left port. This time venturing through Sunnyvale, California and the English language. At the age of 5, I was not a fluent English speaker, but I was seasoned enough in several languages ranging from Mandrin, to Hindi, and now from Telugu to English. The story does not end here though; we took a brief journey and docked our boat in native India where I was forced again to learn Hindi. Only this time I was expected to lea...
Growing up around those who had just emigrated from the former Soviet Union helped me become aware of how important the process of acquiring language can be – both for my parents and for myself. My family, speaking both Russian and Bukharian, barely spoke any English, but they were still determined to learn the language as soon as possible. As my mom sat in front of a television, pausing every few seconds to test her pronunciation, my fascination for the adaptation of speech and language began. I became further fascinated when watching old home videos of myself struggling between the three languages that I grew up surrounded by.
Language is an important part of who we are. It influences the way we think and behave on a great scale. However, sometimes it is forced upon us to go in different directions just so we can physically and mentally feel as if we belong to the society in which we live in. Just as we see in Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and Richard Rodriguez’s “A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, both authors faced some challenges along the way by coping with two different languages, while still trying to achieve the social position which they desired.
In the story “Mother Tongue,” by Amy Tan, Mrs. Tan talks about (in the book) her life and how she grew up with different Englishes was very hard and how it has affected her today. The setting of the book goes from being at lecture to the past of Amy Tan and her mother along with the different Englishes she had to come accustomed to. In “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, the author’s attitude towards the “different Englishes” she grew up with is fascinated. Amy Tan conveys this attitude through wanting to learn all different kinds of Englishes, her use of Englishes in her novel, and the acceptance she developed of her mother’s broken English.
According to Joseph Boyden, "They lived in the mud like rats and lived only to think of new ways to kill one another. No one is safe in such times, not even the Cree of Mushkegowuk. War touches everyone, and windigos spring from the earth"(49). For those who think that joining a war is an opportunity for adventure and excitement, they are wrong. In reality, it is the opposite with life and death on the line due to unnecessary slaughter between human beings because they cannot solve their own conflicts. This devastating topic is told by Joseph Boyden’s novel "Three Day Road" by two different protagonists sharing their own adventures and their conflicts. The protagonist Xavier and antagonist Elijah experience bloody warfare ability to cause havoc. They begin to understand that bloody warfare can make them physically and mentally draining over time because how it changes a person personality making them corrupt with intent to become a windigo themselves like Elijah did, striving to kill another human being as their only goal for survival. As humans, Joseph Boyden is reflecting that if the readers were Xavier or Elijah themselves place in that unstable environment filled with diseases and distraught. We would experience the same kind of suffering Elijah and Xavier had to go through.
Hesiod’s Theogony and the Babylonian Enuma Elish are both myths that begin as creation myths, explaining how the universe and, later on, humans came to be. These types of myths exist in every culture and, while the account of creation in Hesiod’s Theogony and the Enuma Elish share many similarities, the two myths differ in many ways as well. Both myths begin creation from where the universe is a formless state, from which the primordial gods emerge. The idea of the earth and sky beginning as one and then being separated is also expressed in both myths.
Despite growing up amidst a language deemed as “broken” and “fractured”, Amy Tan’s love for language allowed her to embrace the variations of English that surrounded her. In her short essay “Mother Tongue”, Tan discusses the internal conflict she had with the English learned from her mother to that of the English in her education. Sharing her experiences as an adolescent posing to be her mother for respect, Tan develops a frustration at the difficulty of not being taken seriously due to one’s inability to speak the way society expects. Disallowing others to prove their misconceptions of her, Tan exerted herself in excelling at English throughout school. She felt a need to rebel against the proverbial view that writing is not a strong suit of someone who grew up learning English in an immigrant family. Attempting to prove her mastery of the English language, Tan discovered her writing did not show who she truly was. She was an Asian-American, not just Asian, not just American, but that she belonged in both demographics. Disregarding the idea that her mother’s English could be something of a social deficit, a learning limitation, Tan expanded and cultivated her writing style to incorporate both the language she learned in school, as well as the variation of it spoken by her mother. Tan learned that in order to satisfy herself, she needed to acknowledge both of her “Englishes” (Tan 128).
The Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) was established to provide employees with ability to take a leave from work for personal or family health issues. The Act lays out specific circumstance in which an employee may take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave within a 12 month period. Under the law, employees may request a leave for personal health issues, to care for a child, spouse or parent with serious health issues, birth or care of a child during the first year or for newly placed adoptions within one year. Employees are covered under FMLA if the employer has 50 or more employees and the employee has worked for the employer for at least 12 months. The employee must submit a written request for FMLA and provide documentation supporting their request. Once approved, the employee may take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Upon return the employee is guaranteed a job, if the employer had to fill their position out of business necessity, the employer must provide the employee with a position with equal responsibility and pay.
The first and second year after moving from China to the United States, I was afraid to talk to strangers because my English was not very well. I had to depend on my husband for dealing with my personal business, such as making a doctor’s appointment, calling to the bank, or questioning to DMV officers. Douglass says, “being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart” (62). For myself, being a dependent and helpless adult is a shame. Moreover, I lacked of extra money to go to school to improve my English. Thus, I stayed home all the time to avoid embarrassment of talking to strangers. After a while, I realized that improving English speaking skills are the essential to gain my self-confidence. So, I spent time to read various articles on the internet and watched English dialogues’ videos on YouTube. As a non-English speaking immigrant living in the U.S., I inevitably encountered a series of difficulties to integrate myself into a new
The author of the story was born in 1967 in London, and soon after she moved to Rhode Island in the United States. Although Lahiri was born in England and raised in the United States and her parent’s still carried an Indian cultural background and held their believes, as her father and mother were a librarian and teacher. Author’s Indian heritage is a strong basis of her stories, stories where she questions the identity and the plot of the different cultural displaced. Lahiri always interactive with her parents in Bengali every time which shows she respected her parents and culture. As the author was growing up she never felt that she was a full American, as her parents deep ties with India as they often visited the country. Most of Lahiri’s work focused on the Indian American culture and the story “Interpreter in Maladies” is a set of India and part of United States.
In this essay I will compare person-Centred counselling with cognitive-Behavioural counselling and their different approaches and why the counselling relationship is so important. There will be a brief outline of what Person Centred and Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy.
In Maxine Hong Kingston’s autobiographical piece “Silence”, she describes her inability to speak English when she was in grade school. Kindergarten was the birthplace of her silence because she was a Chinese girl attending an American school. She was very embarrassed of her inability, and when moments came up where she had to speak, “self-disgust” filled her day because of that squeaky voice she possessed (422). Kingston notes that she never talked to anyone at school for her first year of silence, except for one or two other Chinese kids in her class. Maxine’s sister, who was even worse than she was, stayed almost completely silent for three years. Both went to the same school and were in the same second grade class because Maxine had flunked kindergarten.
The book “Women: Images and Realities a Multicultural Anthology,” by Suzanne Kelly, has many impactful essays, poems, and stories. The essay which I found to be the signal most impactful essay is entitled “ Fence Sitters, Switch Hitters, and Bi-Bi Girls: An Exploration of Hapa and Bisexual Identities,” by Beverly Yuen Thompson. Thompson, a biracial woman of Asian and Anglo heritage wrote this essay in 2000. In the essay Thompson addresses several aspects of her identity but the part of the essay that affected me the most was her explanation of what it was like growing up as a biracial child and how that affected her later on in life. The reason this essay resonates so deeply with me is because my children are biracial and it is heart wrenching to read this essay and think about some of the experiences that Thompson describes. I found myself thinking of experiences my children have experienced or may experience in their lives and I can’t help but to wonder if they have shared or will share Thompson’s thoughts and emotions.
To obtain and understanding of the current state of American Architecture and its development, we must first briefly establish the origin of architecture in America. Much of the 17th-century English colonial architecture resembled late medieval forms that had survived throughout much of rural England. The first American architecture houses were built in a wide range of sizes, gables, and overhangs. They also had a lack of symmetry that was reflected in the late medieval style throughout Europe. However, unlike rural England’s architecture, in Virginia and Maryland; brick construction and a symmetrical facade were preferred for one story homes. Upon the idea of domestic homes, cities began to be founded in the 17th century. Cities such as Boston, were chaotic in plan and with the turn of the 18th century, colonies began to take on a more permanent role, often establishing individual character. Newly founded cities, such as: Williamsburg, Virginia; Annapolis, Maryland, and especially Philadelphia began to be laid out in a logical organization of regular grids. This eluded planners in London during the same period and thus the diverse seed of American architecture was planned. Continuing the development of unique American architecture, American in the early 1890s began to value their own heritage and architectural language featuring larger neighborhood tracts. In the 19th century, the Colonial Revival style took a more eclectic style, and columns were often seen.
As we all know, life reflects Poetry, poetry nurture each soul, poetic beauty of salvation. That is the unchanging values seem to never change in the lives of each of us. When I was young, my mom put me to sleep by the soothing poem. So, I was familiar with the verse. Last week, I read two poems “As I Walked out one evening” and the “The more loving one”, which were written by W.H. Auden. English is m second language, so it is hard to understand the English’s poem by form or theme. However, that is an interesting experience for me anyway. After read, I really like both of them, but I prefer the “As I walked out one evening”, because it relates to human condition such as the lovers and the clocks.