Communication and Globalization

History of English

Who Speaks English Today?
ENL - English as Native Language
ESL - English as Second Language
EFL - English as a Foreign Language

World English refers to the English language as a lingua franca used in business, trade, diplomacy and other spheres of global activity.
World Englishes (by Braj Kachru) refers to the different varieties of English and English-based creoles developed in different regions of the world.
Global Englishes has been used by scholars in the field to emphasize the more recent spread of English due to globalization, which has resulted in increased usage of English as a lingua franca.

Globalization is the spread of products, technology, information, and jobs across national borders and cultures. In economic terms, it describes an interdependence of nations around the globe fostered through free trade.

   The emergence of globalization paved the way for the gravitational need for visual literacy among learners. Learn more about visual literacy and the different design elements that one must muster in this PDF FILE.

How to Write a Precis

The précis (pronounced pray-see) is a type of summary that insists on exact reproduction of the logic, organization, and emphasis of the original texts. It is a precisely crafted miniature of the whole document.

 An effective précis retains the logic, development, and argument of the original in much shorter form.  A good precis cannot be long and complicated.

A précis is useful when you are dealing with long passages that demand careful attention to the logic and organization of an argument.

***The goal of your precis is to guide people through unfamiliar reading. It means that the voice, opinions of your text must reflect the author’s voice, his thoughts and be understandable for those people who have not read the original text.

Characteristics of a good precis:

1. It is written in a writer's own words and mood.

2. It is always written in the third person.

3. It logically ordered, with all parts of it being connected to each other.

4. It does not contain any additional information or details not mentioned in the original text even if it supports the main idea if the author.

Key steps in writing a précis:

1. Read the passage several times for a full understanding.

2. Note key points. It may, in fact, be helpful to underline these words.

3.Restate each paragraph in one-to-three sentences. In cases where there are very short paragraphs, combine them in your restatement.

4. Make sure that you retain the precise order of the original points, combine the sentences into one or more smooth paragraphs.

5. Check your précis against the original to be sure that it is exact and retains the order, proportions, and relationships of the original.

Goals in Writing a precis:

I. to summarize the authors’ work efficiently and faithfully 

a. so that the authors would agree that you have fairly represented their work (imagine that you were required to send your précis to the authors)

b. using the authors’ terms/words/concepts (if the authors write about, say, “caste as a moral calculus” and both “caste” and “moral calculus” are important concepts for the authors, you should introduce—and credit—them precisely, not rephrase them as ‘social hierarchy like class’ or ‘way of comparing the worth of people arithmetically’.)

c. and keeping the balance in your presentation proportional to the authors’ (for example, the author has three equally important main points, then the summarizing portion of your précis should also have three)

A precis follows a structure:
Introduction: here you can give information about the analyzed work and its author;
Text body: this part contains the main ideas and concepts;
Conclusion: explains why the original article is important.

Precis Examples:
a.
In his essay published back in 1936, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" J.R.R. Tolkien condemns scholars of his age for mining Beowulf merely for a historical certificate of Anglo-Saxon epoch, instead of valuing the piece as one of the greatest and most inspiring poetry works of all time.
Another good introduction of the rhetorical precis example may be the following.
b.

John Doe's work known as "How to Write a Precis" (2015), argues that any person can learn how to compose a rhetorical precis. He supports this position by outlining the structure, drawing the details of the efficient writing procedure, and offering extra considerations on the shape of precis work. Taking into account the language and voice of the author in this article, John Doe's target reading audience consists of the students and academic staff.
Precis Writing Rubrics

From the lengthy introduction of the article entitled, The Beauty of Japanese Gardens in Kyoto by Roxana Robinson comes this precis:
Roxana Robinson begins her article The Beauty of Japanese Gardens with a story of how she was observing Kyoto, the Kamo River and Mountain Daimonji from the hotel room. She noticed that the city is located on the lower slopes of the mountain, the rest was covered by forest. The goal of her visit was to study gardens and landscape as a part of the Japanese culture. According to Japan's religion Shinto, mountains, rocks, and trees are sacred, this is why building on mountains is prohibited.

Original text from the article:
I was having breakfast on the 17th floor of the Hotel Okura. One long wall of the restaurant is window, so I was overlooking half of Kyoto. Below was the Kamo River, flowing between old stone terraced banks. Beyond this was a patchwork of single-story buildings, interspersed with a few swooping orange temple roofs. The city spreads on to climb the lower slopes of Mount Daimonji, then stops abruptly, giving way to forest. This rises to an elegant skyline: a long, wooded mountain ridge, lightly brushed with soft clouds, drifting silver mist.


I was in Kyoto to look at gardens. I’m interested in the way different cultures respond to landscape, and in the fundamental question of what a garden is. In Japan, a deep connection to landscape is part of the culture. Shinto, Japan’s oldest religion, considers certain natural forms—rocks, trees, groves, or mountains—to be sacred, representing the kami, ancestral spirits or deities, who inhabit them. Shinto is still widely practiced, coexisting peacefully with Buddhism; a profound engagement with nature is central to both religions. Mountains are sacred spaces, and building on them was long prohibited, except for shrines or temples. That’s why this beautiful forested mountain, scarved with clouds, was still untouched, dreaming silently above the city.

WRITING OUTPUT
Directions:
Write a precis based on the transcript of Angela Lee Duckworth's speech for TED Talk Education. Refer to the criteria below as your guide. Your precis must be printed in a short bond paper following the standard format (font: Arial/ Times New Roman, font-size: 12, justified). 

Precis Writing Criteria:
40- Content
30 - Relevance (to the author's purpose)
20 - Organization
10- Mechanics
100/100 - total score

Sources:

https://writemyessay4me.org/blog/critical-precis

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pr%C3%A9cis
https://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/the-beauty-of-japanese-gardens-in-kyoto

Angela Lee Duckworth's TEDTalk (Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance)

     Below is a transcript of Angela Lee-Duckworth's TED Talk entitled Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. It was delivered in April 2013 and has since been one of the most-viewed videos from TED Talks Education.

    When I was 27 years old, I left a very demanding job in management consulting for a job that was even more demanding: teaching. I went to teach seventh graders math in the New York City public schools. And like any teacher, I made quizzes and tests. I gave out homework assignments. When the work came back, I calculated grades. 

     What struck me was that IQ was not the only difference between my best and my worst students. Some of my strongest performers did not have stratospheric IQ scores. Some of my smartest kids weren't doing so well. And that got me thinking. The kinds of things you need to learn in seventh-grade math, sure, they're hard: ratios, decimals, the area of a parallelogram. But these concepts are not impossible, and I was firmly convinced that every one of my students could learn the material if they worked hard and long enough. 

    After several more years of teaching, I came to the conclusion that what we need in education is a much better understanding of students and learning from a motivational perspective, from a psychological perspective. In education, the one thing we know how to measure best is IQ. But what if doing well in school and in life depends on much more than your ability to learn quickly and easily? 

     So I left the classroom, and I went to graduate school to become a psychologist. I started studying kids and adults in all kinds of super challenging settings, and in every study, my question was, who is successful here and why? My research team and I went to West Point Military Academy. We tried to predict which cadets would stay in military training and which would drop out. We went to the National Spelling Bee and tried to predict which children would advance farthest in competition. We studied rookie teachers working in really tough neighborhoods, asking which teachers are still going to be here in teaching by the end of the school year, and of those, who will be the most effective at improving learning outcomes for their students? We partnered with private companies, asking, which of these salespeople is going to keep their jobs? And who's going to earn the most money? In all those very different contexts, one characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success. And it wasn't social intelligence. It wasn't good looks, physical health, and it wasn't IQ. It was grit. 

     Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint. 

     A few years ago, I started studying grit in Chicago public schools. I asked thousands of high school juniors to take grit questionnaires and then waited around more than a year to see who would graduate. Turns out that grittier kids were significantly more likely to graduate, even when I matched them on every characteristic I could measure, things like family income, standardized achievement test scores, even how safe kids felt when they were at school. So it's not just at West Point or the National Spelling Bee that grit matters. It's also in school, especially for kids at risk for dropping out. 

     To me, the most shocking thing about grit is how little we know, how little science knows, about building it. Every day, parents and teachers ask me, "How do I build grit in kids? What do I do to teach kids a solid work ethic? How do I keep them motivated for the long run?" The honest answer is, I don't know. 

     What I do know is that talent doesn't make you gritty. Our data show very clearly that there are many talented individuals who simply do not follow through on their commitments. In fact, in our data, grit is usually unrelated or even inversely related to measures of talent. 

     So far, the best idea I've heard about building grit in kids is something called "growth mindset." This is an idea developed at Stanford University by Carol Dweck, and it is the belief that the ability to learn is not fixed, that it can change with your effort. Dr. Dweck has shown that when kids read and learn about the brain and how it changes and grows in response to challenge, they're much more likely to persevere when they fail because they don't believe that failure is a permanent condition. 

     So a growth mindset is a great idea for building grit. But we need more. And that's where I'm going to end my remarks because that's where we are. That's the work that stands before us. We need to take our best ideas, our strongest intuitions, and we need to test them. We need to measure whether we've been successful, and we have to be willing to fail, to be wrong, to start over again with lessons learned. 

     In other words, we need to be gritty about getting our kids grittier. 

     Thank you. 

About Angela Lee-Duckworth:

In her late 20s, Angela Lee Duckworth left a demanding job as a management consultant at McKinsey to teach math in public schools in San Francisco, Philadelphia and New York.

After five years of teaching seventh graders, she went back to grad school to complete her Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is now an assistant professor in the psychology department. Her research subjects include students, West Point cadets, and corporate salespeople, all of whom she studies to determine how "grit" is a better indicator of success than factors such as IQ or family income.

(https://www.ted.com/speakers/angela_lee_duckworth)

Find out how much grit you have by taking part in this online survey conducted by the University of Pennsylvania.
Watch Angela Lee-Duckworth's video HERE.

*All rights go to TED.com
This post is intended for educational purposes only.

Junior Senior Promenade Script

    Junior-Senior Promenade is one of the most highly-anticipated events of high schoolers. Typically held in February, it is a form of semi-formal event wherein students get to socialize and be acquainted with each other. It is a time where students get to put into practice how to act on formal occasions such as observing proper table etiquette.  

     Despite the emergence of anti-JS promenades movement, it cannot be denied that it remains as one of the most momentous events for young people.  

Download my sample script for Junior-Senior Promenade HERE. *I have omitted the name of the school where I was previously connected as well the name of the emcees for privacy purposes.

How to Write a Well-Written Text

    Writing an academic paper entails providing an intelligible set of concepts into a well-rounded argument. Writing is one of the macro skills that must be developed by all students regardless of their specialization. Because of that, they must be able to scribe their ideas in the most logical way possible. This week’s lesson shall focus on developing the existing writing skills of the students. It will include a recollection of the parts of a critical paper, the different classifications of writing, and what constitutes a good writing material worth reading.

I. Organization

- how ideas are presented

-  the arrangement of the larger units of meaning in a paper

- the flow of a piece of writing affects how readers interpret ideas

*All types of texts have their own patterns of organization, all of which are acceptable in specific disciplines.

📚1. Chronological Order

Example:

In the relatively short span of sixty years, there has been an incredible evolution in the size and capabilities of a computer. Today, computer chips smaller than the tip of your fingernail have the same capabilities as the room-sized machines of years ago. The first computer was developed around 1945. They were so large that they required special air-conditioned rooms. About twenty years later, in the 1960s, desk-sized computers were developed. This represented a gigantic advance. Before the end of that same decade, however, the third generation of computer, which used simple integrated circuits and which were even smaller and faster, had appeared. In 1971, the first microprocessor, less than one square centimeter in size, was developed. Today modern microprocessors contain as many as 10 million microprocessors doubles every eighteen months.

📚2. Spatial Order

Examples:

a.

To the left of me is a laptop, and to its right is the mouse. Below is the cubby at my center is a pen cup. On the left-hand side of my desk is a consoling phone, and in front of it lies a notebook. There are several knickknacks scattered around the top of my desk, and a wrist pad directly in front of me. The coffee bar across the room from my location is well stocked with coffee, cups, and syrups. The television mounted high on the wall to the left is on low volume.

b.

There is a certain store that I must admit is my favorite place to shop. When I enter, I find the flowers on my right, followed by fresh fruit and vegetables in a long bin. After this, I love to get a sample of the taste of the day at the end of the aisle. Moving along to the left is a wonderful array of meats and packaged dinners. Up ahead to the left is a dairy section of yogurt, milk, and butter. Moving on is the wine on my right and snacks galore on the left. At the end of this path is a convenient check-out area! Love this store!

📚3. Deductive Order

Examples:

a. 

Ancient Greece gave us the first philosophers, whose names have been placed among those of the enlightened elders. One of these figures is Aristotle, the disciple of the great teacher Plato, who in turn was a disciple of Socrates.

Socrates is considered the first great philosopher. The theories of Aristotle are still valid and are the basis of many of the postulates of current thought.

His studies on art and empirical sciences in many cases renewed the thinking of later eras and established new paths of investigation.

b.

Many foreign aid projects fail because of poor planning, thereby wasting huge amounts of money. Years ago in a remote part of a Pacific island nation, an international aid agency donated a hospital. This was a brand new purpose-built facility that would serve a large community that at that point had no health care. The architecture was of the highest modern standards and the hospital was built on land well away from the river to avoid seasonal flooding. It was constructed of materials which were able to withstand the extremes of temperature and climate in the region. The opening was a great occasion. Officials and important people came from far and wide for the event. There were politicians who made speeches to praise the project. They said that it was a major development for the area and would radically change the lives of the people. Sadly, however, it was never used. The government lacked the funds to equip or staff the hospital. Moreover, the building itself was located far away from the river, which was the main means of transport for local people, so access was almost impossible. This health facility remained empty and unused.

📚4. Inductive Order

Examples:

a.

Years ago in a remote part of a Pacific island nation, an international aid agency donated a hospital. This was a brand new purpose-built facility that would serve a large community that at that point had no health care. The architecture was of the highest modern standards and the hospital was built on land well away from the river to avoid seasonal flooding. It was constructed of materials which were able to withstand the extremes of temperature and climate in the region. The opening was a great occasion. Officials and important people came from far and wide for the event. There were politicians who made speeches to praise the project. They said that it was a major development for the area and would radically change the lives of the people. Sadly, however, it was never used. The government lacked the funds to equip or staff the hospital. Moreover, the building itself was located far away from the river, which was the main means of transport for local people, so access was almost impossible. This health facility remained empty and unused. Many foreign aid projects fail because of poor planning, thereby wasting huge amounts of money.

b.

My dog Max wants to chase every non-human living creature he sees, whether it is the cats in the house or rabbits and squirrels in the backyard. Sources indicate that this is a behavior typical of Jack Russell terriers. While Max is a mixed breed dog, he is approximately the same size and has many of the typical markings of a Jack Russell. From these facts along with his behaviors, we surmise that Max is indeed at least part Jack Russell terrier.

***Inductive reasoning presents facts and then wraps them up with a conclusion.

***Deductive reasoning presents a thesis statement and then provides supportive facts or examples.

📚5. Climactic Order

Consider the potential effect of just a small increase in the earth's atmospheric temperature. A rise of only a few degrees could melt the polar ice caps. Rainfall patterns would change. Some deserts might bloom, but lands now fertile might turn to desert, and many hot climates could become uninhabitable. If the sea level rose only a few feet, dozens of coastal cities would be destroyed, and life as we know it would be changed utterly.

II. Coherence

- the logical bridge between words, sentences, and paragraphs

- unity or consistency to connect the words, sentences, and paragraphs

- created when correct vocabulary and grammar are used

Coherence may be achieved through the following:

1. Parallelism (words and sentences)

2. The use of transitional words

3. Repetition 

4. Synonyms

5. Pronouns

Non-cohesive sample: Dogs are canines that people domesticated a long time ago. Wolves are predecessors of dogs and they help people in a variety of ways. There are various reasons for owning a dog, and the most important is companionship.

Cohesive sample: Dogs are canines that people domesticated a long time ago, primarily for practical reasons. Even though dogs descended from wolves, they are tame and can be kept in households. Since they are tame, people have various reasons for owning a dog, such as a companionship.

                                                                     III. Language Use

🖊️1. Concise Language

-avoid redundancy 
- use least words possible to convey the most meaning while still maintaining clarity

Example:
At this point in time, as we, group of students who are leaders discuss this important issue, we have to be objective and observe seriousness in coming up with concrete solutions.

- Now, as we, student leaders discuss this important issue, we have to be objective and serious in coming up with possible solutions.

*** Some longer expressions that can be replaced with shorter ones
1. a number of: some, many
2. afford an opportunity: allow, let
3. an appreciable number of: many
4. as a means of: to
5. as prescribed by: in, under
6. at the present time: now
7. by means of: by, with
8. comply with: follow
9. due to the fact that: because, due to, since
10. during the period of: during
11. for a period of: for
12. has a requirement for: needs, requires
13. have an adverse effect on: hurt, set back
14. in a timely manner: on time, promptly
15. in accordance with: by, following, per, under

🖊️2. Concrete Language

- using specific, precise language to paint a picture for your readers so that they can more easily understand your ideas

Example:
A young woman will open her business in the near future.

- A 25-year-old enterprising woman will open a bakeshop two years from now.

IV. Mechanics

1. Spelling

2. Capitalization

3. Punctuation Marks

✍️✍️✍️Things to Avoid When Writing for General Readers ✍️✍️✍️

❌Cliches 

- Cliches are phrases or expressions which have become too common due to overuse. Although clichés were creative and popular ideas before, the long excessive application of these passages lost their impact, originality, and meaning.

Ex. To be honest, At the end of the day, For your information, First of all

❌Jargons 

- Jargon refers to the language or technical phrase/term used by a particular group of people whose meanings are understandable within the group’s context such as medical, politics, media, and business. 

Ex. Left wing for liberal viewpoint, Beat for a subject assigned to a reporter, DUI for driving under the influence, Code red for emergency

❌Slang

-Slang is an informal non-standard variety that is more appropriate in speech than in writing and is used by a particular group of people particularly barkadas and social media users.

Ex. Joe for Americans, Chick for young and pretty girl, Nosebleed for difficulty in speaking, Shrink for psychiatrist, Nigga for a black man, Gotta for I got to, Wanna for want to

❌Redundant Words

- Some terms that are redundantly used. Double negatives, etc.

Ex. First and foremost, Revised changes, Free gift, Repeat again, Combined together, Like for example, Basic fundamentals, Future plan

❌Fillers

Fillers are meaningless words word or phrase intended to fill in a sentence gap.

Ex. Uhm, Like, You know, Ahh, Hmm

Sources:

Tips for Good Writing. (2009) englishshared.blogspot.com

Deductive an inductive paragraph organization. (2012) writeenglish.org

What is an inductive-deductive paragraph? enotes.com

Organizing Paragraphs Inductively and Deductively. ln.edu.hk

 Inductive and deductive writing styles. https://warwick.ac.uk

Informative normal paragraphs and functional paragraphs. (2017) curn.edu.co

Summary and synthesis of academic texts. (2013) erasmus.ufm.edu

Deductive paragraph. (2017) academia.edu

Outlining

Outlining is one way to organize ideas. It will allow you to process what you have understood out of a selection that you've just read, or structuralized your own writing output. Outlines may be created using sentences or phrases. 

Below are sample sentence and phrase outline based on a short selection.

Practice your skills in outlining by answering this worksheet. 

Bloom's Revised Taxonomy

Benjamin Bloom created a taxonomy of measurable verbs to help us describe and classify observable
knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviors, and abilities. The theory is based upon the idea that there are levels of observable actions that indicate something is happening in the brain (cognitive activity.) By creating learning objectives using measurable verbs, you indicate explicitly what the student must do in order to demonstrate learning. (utica.edu)

Benjamin Samuel Bloom (February 21, 1913 – September 13, 1999) was an American educational psychologist who made contributions to the classification of educational objectives and to the theory of mastery learning. (wikipedia)

There are six levels of cognitive learning according to the revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Each level is conceptually different. The six levels are remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.






1. Remember 
Definition: retrieve, recall, or recognize relevant knowledge from long-term memory
2. Understand
Definition: demonstrate comprehension through one or more forms of explanation
3. Apply
Definition: use information or skill in a new situation
4. Analyze
Definition: break material into its constituent parts and determine how the parts relate to one another and/or to an overall structure or purpose
5. Evaluate
Definition: make judgments based on criteria and standards
6. Create
Definitions: put elements together to form a new coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure
(https://www.coloradocollege.edu)

Check out some verbs in every category of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy from apu.edu's website here.

Basic Principles in Materials Development

Preparation and Evaluation of Instructional Materials

This generally equips students with skills to evaluate or develop various types of instructional materials in English suitable to the teaching and learning of specific language objectives. 

Instructional materials refer to the human and non-human materials and facilities that can be used to ease, encourage, improved and promote teaching and learning activities. They are whatever materials used in the process of instruction. They are a broad range of resource which can be used to facilitate effective instruction. They indicate a systematic way of designing, carrying out and employing the total process of learning and communication and employing human and non-human resources to bring out a more meaningful and effective instruction. They are human and non-human material that a teacher uses to pass information to the learner in his/her class. (Monsuru Babatunde Muraina (Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, Nigeria) (2015)

Instructional materials are defined as resources that organize and support instruction, such as textbooks, tasks, and supplementary resources (adapted from Remillard & Heck, 2014 ).

Teaching in this modern period is increasingly becoming more complex and technical to be effectively actualized with traditional tools alone (Anyanwu, 2003). The development in modern technology has made available a wide range of instructional materials to supplement teachers’ efforts in the teaching-learning process. More importantly, the curricula of the modern subjects call for extensively and frequently combined the use of traditional with convectional materials in teaching-learning process (Abolade, 2001). Effective teaching and pedagogical delivery depend majorly on the cordial relationship and free flow of communication between the teachers and the students. Verbal instruction, which is seen as the easiest form of the instructional and teaching delivery system apart from real experience is always very abstract (Adeyanju, 2003). Since students in schools are from the varied cultural and socio-cultural background and training, teachers thus need instructional materials or teaching aids to help them communicate and mix effectively and hence cope with students’ needs based on their abilities and potentialities (Edward, 2002).

Here are some basic principles in materials development identified by Tomlinson (1998)

1. The material should achieve impact.
2. The material should help learners feel at ease.
3. What is taught should be perceived by learners as relevant and useful.
4. Materials should require and facilitate learning.
5. Materials should expose the learners to language in authentic use.
6. Materials should provide learners with an opportunity to use the target language.
7. Materials should take into account that learners differ in learning styles.
8. Materials should take into account that learners differ in affective attitudes.
9. Materials must allow learners to acquire points being taught.
10. Materials should provide opportunities for outcome feedback. 

History of Translation

Translation and Editing of Text

This course applies rules of discourse and rhetoric in editing various types of written material and principles and strategies in translating texts various types from English to another language or reform another language to English.

Translation is one of the most demanding and intellectually difficult tasks. It is connected with translation either as an action or as a result of an action. It is an act of transferring meaning from one language to another taking into account a number of constraints. Translation helps students to understand the connection between languages and explores the potential of both of them. In addition, since it is a natural act and because it deals with language, it is a skill that must be developed. Their knowledge about its history will give them an idea about its process and appreciate its significance in the teaching pedagogy. 

Learn more about the history of translation through this file.

Basic Phrase Structure of English

Structures of English
This course develops the ability to use the phonological, lexical, syntactic, and semantic structures of English with ease and explain the form, meaning, and use of their elements.  

Basic Phrase Structure

Learning about the structures of English enables one to become a good educator of the language. A huge chunk of its overall structure includes grammar which has been a long subject study. Although the methods of studying grammar have changed dramatically in recent times, the reasons for studying it have remained essentially the same. Future teachers of English under this course may use what they gain from this lesson as a basis in sentence construction. 

Learn more about the basic phrase structure of English through this file.