#3 Discuss how the topics in sociolinguistics will affect your practice in TESL and other relationships.
This Sociolinguistics class covered a variety of topics, and has proven very enlightening about communication styles and political attitudes in the United States concerning language education and very practical in how to deal with communications between cultures and genders. Continue reading
Definitely a book worthy to be in the hand of every language teacher — Keep Talking by Freiderike Klippel. Klippel brings together a wonderful culmination of exercises and teaching techniques and ideas which should be practiced in many a classroom.
This book contains 123 activities all organized and categorized to be of maximum use for the teacher. For convenience, the activities are listed so a teacher can look up an activity which will fit her classroom needs specifically. There are three major headings for the activities: Questions and answers, Discussions and decisions, and Stories and scenes. Each activity is categorized by topic, language level, type of student organization needed whether from groups to individuals, amount of preparation involved, and time in minutes for the exercise to be completed.
Learning about Carl Learning English
April 28, 1999
The subject of this case study is a male Vietnamese student at Oral Roberts University. For the sake of anonymity I will refer to the subject as “Carl”. Carl is 40 years of age and has been in the United States for 23 years although he has been studying and practicing English over a period of 26 years. His English studies began in seventh grade while still in Vietnam. Carl is right handed and worked very intently on the tests I asked him to take. He seemed very systematic and patient with the material even when he did not understand part of it. At the time of our interview, he had his watch set 10 minutes faster than real time. Yet, despite his apparent attempt to be on schedule he arrived about that many minutes late to our meeting. In this case study I will discuss Carl’s learning styles and strategies, his personality factors contributing to learning, and sociocultural factors involved in learning. Continue reading
Michael P. Shead
Senior Paper
International Community Development
Oral Roberts University
Tulsa, Oklahoma
December 7, 1999
A comprehensive documentation of the needs and suggested solutions for any people group would probably fill volumes. This document is not, by any means, an attempt to address all the needs of the Navajo people but to identify specific leadership issues and present a possible solution in this area.
This project is an effort to contribute an organized leadership training program for young Navajo men. Its purpose is to train up young leaders who know Jesus Christ as Savior and friend and who will be able, honest, and wise leaders in every area of Navajo life. This project will take on several stages before completion: analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation and empowerment.
Michael Shead
Tulsa, 1999
Michael P. Shead
Senior Paper
International Community Development
Oral Roberts University
Tulsa, Oklahoma
December 7, 1999
Community development is a process. Development is a long-term process of helping people to help themselves. It is said, “Give a man a fish and you will have fed him for a day, but teach him how to fish and you will have fed him for a lifetime”. This is the concept of community development–to empower people to care for and improve themselves.
In his book, Two Ears of Corn, Roland Bunch
Community development includes many different areas: agriculture, economics, literacy, hygiene, and others. No matter what area in which the development is taking place it is important to remember that the purpose is to empower the people within their own society and culture so that changes are coming from within the culture and from the people, not merely because an outside influence is changing them.
In 1973 Dale Kietzman presented a definition of community development to the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). He said, “Community Development is the process of helping to strengthen a community (and its leadership) so that it can resolve, through its own initiative, the problems which face it” (Yost & Yost, 1999). Continue reading
Fall 1996
I have enjoyed my experience as a staff photographer for Oral Roberts University’s The Oracle. This semester provided an opportunity for me to gain experience in diverse photojournalism techniques and situations from close-up shots at dinner to impersonal parking lots. My time spent as a staff photographer has been well spent. When I joined the staff, my purpose was to gain a reason to be continually involved in photography and learn any new photojournalism techniques that would present themselves over the semester.
Toward the end of this semester, I was asked to go to The Oracle offices on Monday mornings and read over the headlines. This may be a small job, but I am now able to take a part in making The Oracle just a little better. Besides, I am gaining experience that will assist me later if I turn in a job application to my hometown newspaper over the summer. I had previously written and taken pictures freelance for The Fort Scott Tribune, but now I have a semester of experience which I can put in my resume`. Continue reading
September 23, 1998
Some students go to a museum of art or a symphony to “get cultured.” But, in a much different way, I have already been cultured and continue to experience the affects of what my culture is in nearly everything I think, say, and do.
An individualized work ethic and desire for purpose in the things I do has been ingrained into me. I gathered a purpose-oriented mind-set from the individualized learning and studying I did at the Christian school I attended and the farm where I was raised. With this mind-set, I get many things accomplished, but sometimes I wonder if I am not merely doing “things” for the sake of doing them. While I enjoy people and working with them very much, if I’m not doing something or going somewhere with a purpose I feel uncomfortable and out of my “cultural zone.” Continue reading
School has been an issue which the Amish have come into conflict not with each other but with state and local governments.
In Elmer Schwieder and Dorothy Schwieder’s book A Peculiar People: Iowa’s Old Order Amish, the Schwieders document the conflicts between state officials and Amish families over the compulsory education issue. The 1960’s began a series of fines, jail terms, and court cases. In Iowa’s Buchanan County the school superintendent, J. J. Jorgensen, filed complaints against the Amish school leaders for sending their children to unapproved schools.
After a series of fines and the October 28, 1963 judgment of District Judge George Heath that the Amish are not exempt from such school requirements, the conflict rose to a rapid climax. It was the fall of 1965 when the Amish defendants refused to pay the $24 fines and it became obvious the soon Amish land would have to be confiscated and sold which would eventually ruin the area economy. Continue reading