Life

Life

By Jean Lee

Tossed into the light

Loved by parents in delight

Learn to walk and talk

Sometimes stop and balk

Grow up and live

Find some ways and gather much to give

Make a lot of mistakes and hope for pardon

Reached midlife, feel blessed to be in my sunny garden

Pray for another day with ailing mom and pop

Realize that the end doesn’t prepare you for a teardrop

Come back to your good old chair

Breathe in the age-old air

Sing a song of lamentation from yesterday

and of faint memories that are not so gray

Ready to patiently sit

Reading the words of wit

Feel alright looking back

Grateful that I’ve been on the right track

Holding nothing much left in my pocket

But relieved to survive this lunatic world of sprocket

Not defined with one simple word

Because my life has many a side unheard

Learn to say with silence

Still sometimes roar in defiance

Hoping to be remembered as a good friend

Even long after my days end

'To err is language learner; to forgive, teachers?!!'

Students make a lot of sentences either in the form of speaking or writing or sometimes body language, and the teacher is busy spotting the wrongful use of grammar, inaccurate pronunciation, or awkward collocations in the students’ output created in the target language they learn. It is not an uncommon scene in a language learning class. However, there is not one best way for teachers to find their students’ errors and correct them throughout the course.

When I first became an instructor for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students, one of the major foci in my class was to point out my students’ errors or mistakes. What is the difference between errors and mistakes? Errors are the results from students’ lack of knowledge of the correct norms of target language. Burt (1975) explains that errors interfere with communication and affects overall sentence organization, whereas mistakes are the deviation or processing problem in learner language that happens when they fail to perform their competence. It was always difficult to tell the students’ errors from mistakes in class. In order to help improve the learners’ errors, the method of my pendulum had swung back and forth between Contrastive Analysis (CA) and Error Analysis (EA). CA is the basis for identifying differences between the learners’ first language and the target language to learn. This method was effective in predicting areas of possible or potential errors. On the other hand, EA does not predict errors, but discovers, identifies, and describes or explains errors in learner language to find out what learners really know about the target language.

I believe bilingual language teachers are assets, because the shared knowledge of the learner language truly helps teachers identify the learner errors and explain them psycholinguistically as well. They can make the best use of CA through which the errors are effectively predicted. I have seen quite a lot of Korean students misunderstood by native English speaking teachers because the learner errors (both global and local errors) did not make sense at all to those teachers, and in the end the students were even viewed as rude or clueless to the teachers. Frustrating.

Alexander Pope said “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” Well, “To err is every language learner; to help, teacher!”  Making mistakes and errors in language learning should never be seen as a sin or something to be criticized. It is a natural phase through which one can improve their fun-filled journey of language learning!

Expressions

Target Language: (noun) a foreign language that a person intends to learn

pendulum: (noun) used to refer to the tendency of a situation to oscillate between one extreme and another

Contrastive Analysis (CA): (noun) Method of identifying differences between learner’s first language and the target language they learn. According to Contrastive Analysis hypothesis, learner errors are bidirectional between their first language and target language.

Error Analysis (EA): (noun) Error analysis discovers and describes (NOT predict) the errors. Teachers use EA to find out what learners know about target language.

global errors: (noun) According to Burt (1975), global errors affect overall sentence organization. These errors interfere with communication or comprehensibility of a text.

local errors: (noun) According to Burt (1975), local errors are errors affect single elements in a sentence. These errors do not hinder communication.

e.g., “I angry”

Money Idioms

Some may say money is the root of all evil, while others argue that money talks. Some would agree that money can’t buy happiness, whereas others’ ultimate goal in life is to become a multi-millionaire. Regardless of what your take on moolah might be like, living in a capitalistic society – especially in the States where consumption is encouraged more than any other countries in the world – keeps us think about the value or worth of money in life. 

This week, let us work on some interesting idiomatic expressions which contain or are related to money.

(*source from https://www.learnenglish.de/vocabulary/moneyidioms.html and http://www.learn-english-today.com/idioms/idiom-categories/money/money2_deep-house.html )

Fill in the blanks to complete the following sentences with a proper expression for each (using the clues given below the questions)

1.   I love this house because it gives me a sense of coziness, but the other _________________________ is that it is very old.

2.   Roger had already been in deep debt, but took another loan to pay his employees, robbing __________________________________.

3.   Due to the recent crisis in this town, there are more people __________________________ than ever before.

4.   Jody got a part time job at a candy store, but it was just ____________________________.

5.   You can bet ______________________________ that Ted will be come to the party tonight. He NEVER EVER goes even to a small ice cream social on campus.

6.   Laura has recently been given a _____________________________ from the company where she’s worked all her life. She will use some of the money to travel abroad.

7.   If you got some ______________ in your savings, just save it for rainy days.

8.   Well, you may not have thought much of this actor at first, but he ________________________________________ with his latest film! He even won the award for the best actor of the year at the Oscar!

9.   Oil prices are the biggest of all ________________________.

10. Frank had ___________________________________ and got caught at the international airport before he came to flee. He was eventually sent to prison on charges of embezzlement.

<Clues>

dough: (noun) slang for money

to laugh all the way to the bank: (verb) to be amused and gratified by a victory where a defeat was predicted   or    to make a lot of money very easily, often because someone else has been stupid

a cash cow: (noun) a business or a part of a business that always makes a lot of profit

the other side of the coin: (noun) the opposite view of something

(to be) on the breadline: (phrase) to have a very low income or barely enough money to survive.

to rob Peter to pay Paul: (verb) to borrow money from one person to pay back money you borrowed from someone else

to have hand (or one’s fingers) in the till: (verb) to steal money from the place where you work/ to embezzle

to bet your bottom dollar: (verb) to be absolutely certain of something

chicken feed: (noun) an amount of money considered small or unimportant

golden handshake: (noun) a generous sum of money given to a person when they leave a company or retire (sometimes given to encourage early retirement)

<Answer Key>

1.   side of the coin

2.   Peter to pay Paul

3.   on the breadline

4.   chicken feed

5.   your bottom dollar

6.   golden handshake

7.   dough

8.   laughed all the way to the bank

9.   cash cows

10. hand in the till/ or his fingers in the till

What It Means to Bid Farewell to the Loved Ones in This World. Is It the End of Life or the Transitional Point of life?

There are some topics that have been tabooed to talk about in public. Depending on cultures, it could be religion, political inclination, prostitution, some diseases like AIDS, and asking women’s age in public to name a few. Above all, the subject of “death” makes most people feel emotionally charged and frustrated. If anyone (who is in the right mind or does not have a totally aberrant idea about life or death) happened to learn about someone’s death, they would stop for a second and feel their heart welling up with sorrow. What makes people get serious or uncomfortable about death? How should we respond to the end of one’s life? Are we supposed to prepare for the finale in a somber mood? Otherwise, could it possibly be somewhat festive or convivial?

I have personally seen deaths of my close family and friends both in my home country and here in the States as well. As most of you may already know, when the family says their final farewells at the funeral home, the pallbearers will be asked to wait outside until the family has exited. When the family leaves, the pallbearers will be ushered in to lift the casket onto a wheeled device called a “church truck” and roll the casket out of the building to the hearse. This is the very moment when everyone present are surrounded by the unbearable feelings of deep sorrow and congested with complicated emotions. How would you describe the way you feel or respond facing the death of someone in your life? I was lost for words in that bleak moment. Empty. Blank. Consumed. Feared. Depleted. Lonely. ……..and totally separated from the ones I was saying goodbye to. However, as times went by, I found myself in the process of reminiscing the good old memories that I had shared with the ones I lost. It was more of celebrating and reconnecting with their past lives rather than of painfully grieving the loss of my precious people. The beautiful moments shared at some points in my and their lives would remain unperturbed even by many a vicissitudes after they left me for good.

It would probably take forever for us to let all the miscellaneous things in our lives fill the void caused by the absence of our beloved family members or friends. With hopes that someday we will reunite with them elsewhere, I would like to view their demise not as the tragic, frustrating end of life. It could be seen as the transitional point of one’s life, which is leading them to another world that we have yet to know. It is true that death physically do us part, but cannot easily get us emotionally separated with one another, because our time with them has not been over yet.

Expressions

be tabooed to do…: be prohibited to do…/ to urge us to avoid …. resulting from social custom or belief

aberrant: deviating from accepted standard

well up with…: to rise/ spring/ gush ….

somber: dark and depressing or dismal

convivial: related to feasting or lively

funeral home: a ​place where a ​dead ​person is ​prepared to be ​buried or ​creamated, and where ​relatives and ​friends can ​see the ​body

pallbearers: a ​person who ​helps to ​carry a ​coffin at a ​funeral or who ​walks at the ​side of the ​people ​carrying it

hearse: a ​vehicle used to ​carry a ​body in a ​coffin to a ​funeral

congested with: too ​blocked or ​crowded and ​causing difficulties

bleak: cold and empty/ unpleasant

unperturbed: not ​worried about something, ​especially when this is ​slightly ​surprising  

e.g., It is hard to stay unperturbed when you have to make a speech in front of hundreds of thousands of people.

vicissitudes: ​changes that ​happen at different ​times during the ​life or ​development of someone or something, ​especially those that ​result in ​conditions being ​worse

for good: forever

demise: the death of a person

do us part: make us separated