My experience: Computers and Languages

Dear all,

This week’s blog entry is regarding my experience doing the Computers and Languages module at university and what I have learned. First of all, I would like to comment that the course is very well organised, with informative and intriguing sessions on using computers for language learning. The module organisers: Martin Barge and Eli Vilar are both extremely helpful and welcoming. This has encouraged me to try and do my best in the course, not only to boost my grades but also to let my tutors know that their teaching has been effective and their efforts and methods successful. 

In this course, I have learned about the complexity of websites in regards to their structure, navigation and the type of content they use. I have understood that the design of a website and the types of activities found on the website complement its purpose. Learning about the history and characteristics of the three concepts of CALL: Behavioursitic, Communicative, and Integrative have further enriched my knowledge of website analysis in relation to language learning.  

At the moment, we are learning to make our own websites using the resources provided by the World Wide Web such as the program Hot Potatoes. This allows you to create interactive pages through the design of multiple-choice exercises, jumbled-sentence exercises, and crosswords. I am looking forward to making my own website keeping the CALL criteria in mind and hope to successfully design a useful website for language learning.

I know that this course will allow me to gain technical skills which will be valuable to me in the future.

Pauline Melville, Eating Air

Pauline Melville, Eating Air, (London: Telegram, 2009), pp. 476. £7.99

ISBN: 978-1-84659-081-8

A Satirical Exploration of Socio-political Impotence

A fascinating and controversial idea – a diverse group of 1970s revolutionaries link up with Islamist militants of the 2000s. In this amalgamation of the old with the new, with a thirty year narrative gap in-between, Melville raises a number of thought-provoking questions relevant to the paranoid post September-11 political scene. The style is comic; the language is poetic and original with many moments of descriptive excellence. Flitting back and forth between London, Brazil, Italy and Surinam, interlinked by the theme of terrorism, the novel uses a kaleidoscope of characters to develop the plot.

The characters include the playwright Victor Skynnard, a utopian architect who never builds anything, representing the fading left-wingers and another two seventies radicals: Hector Rossi and Mark Scobie. Islamic terrorists Shahid and Massoud manifest contemporary religious fanaticism: 'Communism didn't work. Capitalism doesn’t work. The only solution left is Islam'. Melville exposes the wide range of intentions and beliefs that lead to 'terrorist acts'. The author controversially questions the operations and judgements of the secret services by presenting them as the instigator of terrorist attacks. 

The link between the two revolutionary groups is Khaled, Hector’s Palestinian comrade on the Paris barricades in the 1970s. Hector’s friendship with Khaled makes him nostalgic for his rebellious past; gambling freely with his life made him feel almost ‘skyborne’. The danger and adrenaline of his past life has since been replaced with domestic thrall. Losing his political motivation as he realises how anachronistic today’s political situation has become, he feels the need to acquiesce to a normal life. Melville satirises the earlier generation of revolutionaries by showing that the radicals in the present day are the Islamists. The promise of the 1970s radicalism is now somewhat exhausted and is eradicating with it the hope for change.

The book focuses in on the sensual Surinam-born Ella de Vries, a young ballet dancer who brings exoticism into the novel. Attracted to danger, Ella falls in love with Donny Mcleod, an itinerant labourer who is ‘too anarchistic even to be in the group of anarchists’. The intertwining of their lives draws Ella into radical circles and she becomes a catalyst for a succession of events that lead to an audacious ending. Melville’s view is that extremism not only exists in politics but in religion and in love as well.

Despite the clever conglomeration of characters, their characterisation is arguably underdeveloped, provoking less empathy than could have been achieved. The shocking impact the end intends to create is resultantly less effective. Also, switching from chapters about MI5 to the chronicles of Donny and Ella detracts from the atmosphere of political tension. Other books such as the Noughts and Crosses series by Malorie Blackman manage this difficult balance between a love story and a political allegory by allowing more insight into the characters and the society.

Overall, Melville’s ability to mesh a wide-set of characters and keep them distinctive from one another is impressive. A multiplicity of themes is skilfully set up: political anxieties, terrorism, anarchism and a love story at the heart of it all. Eating Air in its fusion of love and politics proves to be an intriguing read that appeals on an intellectual and sensual dimension.

Xenophobia and Racism in Spain

Dear all,

This week’s blog entry is on the problem of racism or xenophobia in Spain. My interest in this topic has been stimulated by a discussion of the attitude of the Spaniards towards other races in my Spanish oral class. I am going to be using an article which was published in the Spanish newspaper, El Pais to shed light on the present situation in Spain, which can be accessed here:

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/racismo/cala/aulas/elpepusoc/20080718elpepisoc_2/Tes

The article is titled ‘Racism enters classrooms’.  The main focus of this piece is on the integration of foreign children in Spanish schools. In summary, the writer describes the intolerant behaviour that Spanish children show towards other races, particularly Moroccans and gypsies. In a survey of 23, 100 secondary school students, conducted by Spain’s Ministry of Education, it was found that two-thirds of Spanish students in secondary schools would not be willing to work with Moroccans or gypsies in the classroom. More than half of these students said that they would have a problem having a Jewish person as a classmate. When it comes to working with Latin Americans, there seems to be a bit more tolerance but 46% of the students said that they would not want to be involved with them, even for minor tasks. The only foreigners they said they could see themselves interacting with were other Europeans and people from the U.S. Funnily, these Spaniards do not realise that one third of the U.S population is classified as a racial minority with many of them being Hispanic immigrants from Latin America.

From my own experience of working in Spain, I did not notice any actual racism from students towards other students. Nevertheless, it was easy to observe how some teachers treated Moroccan children differently to Spanish ones. In one instance, a teacher took a Moroccan boy of eight by the arm and swung him out of the room. To someone from Britain, this kind of physical contact is nothing but violent and inappropriate. To this 55 years old Spanish teacher, there did not seem to be anything wrong in the way he treated the child. Observing things like this makes one inevitably wonder what fuels their behaviour and whether it will ever change. If a teacher is treating one child differently from the others then surely the children will observe and learn from their teacher and adopt the same attitudes.

I would like to end this entry by raising a few relevant questions: Where do these children acquire the attitude to be xenophobic or racist? If children learn from others then are they simply reflecting the attitude of their parents acquired at home or the attitude of their teachers? Is xenophobia in the classroom representative of a bigger problem in Spain?

Janet Cardiff Walk, 'The Missing Voice'

Hello all,

This week’s blog entry is regarding the Janet Cardiff walk ‘The Missing Voice’ which I had to do last week for one of my modules for English literature.  

The Janet Cardiff walk, ‘The Missing Voice’ concentrates on a fictional narration of the East End while providing a close description of the area, starting at Whitechapel library and ending at Liverpool Street station. The listener is expected to allow a ‘voice’ to direct and guide them through the East End and experience the area from a different perspective. I found the walk to be an unforgettable experience where you are obliged to commit yourself to getting lost. 

As I was listening to the audio tape, I realised how suddenly I admitted myself to the instructions provided by the artist, regardless of the people around, as if only what she was saying was true, giving her all the control over me. This made me think about how much I actually participated in this walk as the intended audience and how much control I had. It seems that in fact I did not participate that actively. My role was only to follow the instructions. However, if I had not trusted in what the instructions were telling me to do, in the ‘voice’ , the walk would not have had the same effect. Therefore total submission to the voice is required and so allowing the artist to take over and rule you. 

Whilst walking around, it felt as if the world was set up as a show and I was being shown around the set, whilst knowing that this in fact was the real world. 

I thought the most interesting experience was the way sounds were used in the audio tape. For example, whilst passing through brick lane, I could hear the sound of a band playing music, and it was really effective as it felt that it had grasped the cultural atmosphere of the street and it seemed as if the sounds were really there. It seems surreal the way fictional sounds correspond to reality, and how the artist manages to get inside the listener’s mind, making them believe that something unreal is real. A point came where I became unsure as to whether something was taking place inside the track or outside it, and so felt obliged to let the tape control and guide me. This highlights the way the artist has the power to take over somebody entirely. The artist introduces the listener to the real world as if it is in fact an art work  and the listener explores the world and makes their own judgements. 

Also in a way you are really connected with the world, in that you get a chance to examine the world closely, whilst at the same time being completely disconnected from it through an audio tape. Through the different sounds that are used in the audio, it feels that you are connected intimately with the city yet paradoxically isolated from it. The audio tape separates you from the real sounds around and makes you sensitive to the sounds in the tape and therefore prone to the judgements and emotions provoked by it.

I really enjoyed doing this walk as by simply walking through the streets listening to the ‘voice’, I learned a lot about East End history just by comparing what it used to be to what it is now.

To future linguists at Queen Mary, University of London

This blog entry is essentially about my experiences as a language student at QM. I have to say that at the beginning of my degree referring to the first year of my studies, I was quite petrified by the high level of Spanish which was expected of us. But thankfully, through hard work, I got through the first year and I was rewarded at the end of all the stress as I won a two-week trip to Salamanca, Spain in a grant raffle that was hosted at QM. My trip to Salamanca really boosted by Spanish and for the first time ever, I realised that if I were in a Spanish speaking country, I would actually be able to express myself. Of course, during the year abroad, everything we had learned had to be put into practice and although at first, I felt as if my vocabulary was not wide enough to communicate properly in Spanish, with time I began to feel less intimidated by the native speakers and understood that language learning is all about making mistakes so I was no longer embarrassed by my accent or the frequent mistakes. Fortunately with time my Spanish improved and I was not making as many mistakes as I was at the beginning of my year abroad. But all good things come to an end so I returned to London and the exposure to Spanish speakers or Spanish in general is no longer very high so I feel that I have lost some of what I gained during my year abroad and some of the tasks we are asking to do make me feel like I am in first year again. But I do not think of this as something negative. I use it to motivate myself to always keep up with the Spanish speaking world by watching films, listening to Spanish music and reading books.

Overall, if I were to describe my language experience at Queen Mary, I would say it was definitely a positive one and the year abroad a year that I will never forget. I have brought back the Madrid slang with me and I can only thank my degree in languages for giving me the opportunity to both experience and acquire this type of linguistic originality.

The Spare Room by Helen Garner

Hello everyone,

For this week’s blog entry, I would like to discuss one of my favourite contemporary books that I have just finished reading, contextualising it and saying something about the book’s main themes. The book is written by Helen Garner and is called The Spare Room.

In her home country of Australia, Helen Garner is known for using her life experience as the bedrock of her novels. Her first appearance on the literary scene was in 1977, with Monkey Grip, a novel about a hippie generation exploring new ways to love and live in Seventies Melbourne, which she revealed was a partial adaptation of her own personal life stories. In The Spare Room, her first novel in sixteen years, she narrates the story of two ‘old bohemians’ obliged to deal with the indignities of suffering and the shadow of death upon their friendship. Based on the darker side of her personal experience, namely nursing a terminally sick friend, Garner’s narrator Helen is named for her. But The Spare Room is not simply a fictionalised memoir. It is a story about truth, about the pressure upon those around the dying and the struggle that is coming to terms with a death sentence.

The story opens with Helen organising the spare room in her house for the arrival of her old friend Nicola. She is unaware of what lies ahead. Nicola is in the final excruciating stages of bowel cancer and has travelled to Melbourne to undertake punishing alternative treatments at the dubious Theodore Institute that she fervently wants to believe will cure her. She replaces chemotherapy with expensive intravenous Vitamin C treatments that ‘sort of scoop out the cancer cells out of your body’ but leave her shaking uncontrollably, peroxide drips and ‘ozone sauna treatments’. Helen’s life is at once turned upside down. Her family, social and professional life are all put on hold whilst she nurses her friend – ‘new life is pushed away’ as death enters her house, casting a shadow over every move the characters make. In Nicola’s three-week stay that Helen feels as keenly as a lifetime, their friendship is pushed to the limits as Helen is driven to despair.

Garner deals with dark themes but always with a characteristic levity and a mixture of mild wit and lyricism which is immensely satisfying. This frank and beautiful book is an acknowledgement of the limitations of human nature; nothing is more natural than fearing death and succumbing to emotions.

If you are looking for a book that deals with the dark sides of life but regards them with a fine sense of humour then I definitely recommend this book.

Higher grades needed to acquire entry into top universities

Yesterday the Guardian ran an interesting article about entry requirements for university. The article can be read here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/25/universities-insist-top-grades

It reveals that top universities, whereas previously required straight A’s at A-levels, will now only allow entry to those who achieve the elite A* grade for certain courses. Universities that are based in London such as University College London (UCL) and Imperial College London have increased the number of courses requiring the top grade.

The A* grade requirement was introduced last year in order to allow universities to be even more academically selective. It is used to pick out exceptional students who achieve A* as more than a quarter of A-level entries receive A grades. For a student to obtain A*, he/she must achieve 90% in the second year of their A-level studies.

The introduction and requirement of the new grade has provoked considerable controversy, with critics claiming that students from private schools have an advantage over students from comprehensive schools. Last year’s A-level results show that the percentage of pupils attending private schools who achieved the A* grade was 17.9% while only 5.8% from comprehensive schools did so. The universities offer a conditional placement to students who have been predicted A* grades only. In private schools, it is said that teachers deal with ‘hot-house’ students whereas in comprehensive schools, the students’ academic abilities vary. In this sense, students in private schools are more likely to be offered a placement than those in comprehensive schools as their chances of being predicted A* grades are higher.

As the fees are going to rise in 2012, there are more applicants this year than previous years. UCAS applications for 2011 have increased by 2.5% with 335, 795 applicants therefore the only way for universities to deal with this increase is to introduce an even more competitive process of selection. However with the fees rising and entry into university becoming more difficult, it is inevitable to wonder whether these changes will have a negative impact on the number of people going to university in the future.