6 JUN 2006

 

 

Good Morning, Karen, at al.

 

Here are a few basics that will help clarify the E:P:N classroom study:

1.     On the classroom layout at http://clozeonline.us/EPN_classroom.ppt#3, there are the T & t symbols. They are to represent the class’s conventional teacher (T) (who is welcome to leave the room ) and the trained specialists (t) in the use of E:P:N. During the pilot, I will, of course, take the role of that (t) teacher. If we get one of the local universities (PEK or BFSU) to join the pilot, then I would recommend that my original China contact, Ms. Crystal Wang of Beijing (13911026357), be that (t) teacher. She is fluent in English, energetic, and has done a lot of private tutoring through one of the Embassies. Since E:P:N will implement the craft of personalized coaching, she would be a fine asset to the project. (She agreed to train and then contract her help until a school/facility has someone to do that job internally.)

2.     In addition to the task of restoring team-selected grade-level texts (during the middle portion of a class’s session in the E:P:N classroom, using C-tests), the class has the task of translating (each week) three of the 1000+ sayings at http://clozeonline.us/cgi-bin/cheesearch5u.cgi into Chinese.  Here, with the teacher’s help (using the seating arrangement at http://clozeonline.us/EPN_classroom.ppt#5), each of the three E:P:N categories selects a typical saying that supports their point of view. (A search feature facilitates the finding of topical selections.)

The learning magic will occur during the various negotiations of meaning between their chosen category, their own group, and then through feedback from family and friends. If the ten groups cannot reach a consensus of what the saying should sound like in Chinese, they are asked to rate the contrasting versions and then report to the class why they found that necessary, before printing/posting all versions in contention. (These negotiations may be done in a bilingual fashion, of course.)

In essence, during the first portion of each session, the class needs to settle on some E:P:N-rated “Best” interpretations. When a saying applies to everyone, the rating (on that day by that class) would be ‘EPN’. When it is deemed to apply more to some than to others, a single or double rating is negotiated, presented, and then posted (outside the E:P:N classroom or some other conspicuous common bulletin board). Once other groups are invited into the study, they may challenge the ratings and translations of the posted sayings. After remaining unchallenged for about a month, they are digitized and then added to the ClozeOnline.cn Website (including voice). 

During the last 10 minutes of each session, new selections are discussed, selected, and then printed to facilitate the soliciting of additional feedback from family and friends. Unless the ten groups duplicate selections, there will be ten bilingual sayings on each learner’s paper to take home for discussion and feedback on translations. However, each group is responsible for translating only their own selection.

3.     Last, I recommend that, since we will need many scholarly (t) teachers for as little cost as possible, we leave the Esperanto translations as the first translation (especially on your new .cn version of the site). Esperantists are usually linguists and idealists and generally glad to help wherever they can. Mr. WEN Jingen, a long-time editor of English magazines, here in Beijing, will be an excellent source of pertinent information on this aspect of the project. My .us site will remain bilingual; however, countries adopting the China model will copy their tri-lingual format, to permit each to preserve their own culture while learning international communication tools . . . English for business and net-Esperanto for fun (for those of us too old for learning another’s native language).

Karen, I leave it to your discretion as to how much of this should be translated into Chinese characters at this time. Call me to set a time for Q&As. Also, if you haven’t as yet looked at the summary of Esperanto grammar, you should. It is at http://blumenterprise.org/Net-Eo-Quickie.html. Even a brief scrutiny convinces most that it could be helpful in the teaching of language construction to a newcomer.

Thank you again for helping with this. I am sure that FLTRP will be well rewarded one day for having offered your talents to the formation of this study.

 

Cordially,

 

Joe

 

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