Literacy, like most skills in life, is developed through practice. When one sees a talented basketball player, they assume he amassed his skills via practice. It is the same concept with reading, the more you practice, the better you get. Yet, when someone sees an avid reader, they assume he is just [...]

Before embarking on the journey that is Education 140, I’ve always been taught that literacy stemmed from one’s ability to able to understandably read and write, and be able to communicate one’s reading and writing to others. However, as I’ve learned in the past 3 weeks in the class, the forms [...]

In my education 140 class we have encountered the issues of language translations programs for immigrants in an article called “English for the Children” by Gutierrez, K (2000). It had occurred to me that the article only focused on the issues of language accommodation [...]

My path to literacy has been a relatively smooth one, if you define literacy by the Western notion of being able to read and write. I was born into a family speaking primarily English, and it is no surprise that my English is virtually flawless. You would never be able to tell if I was [...]

I am a first generation Chinese American, or in other words, an “ABC” (American born Chinese). Even though I can speak English fluently, my first words were in Cantonese. Before I entered the public school system, I spoke only Cantonese. However, by the time I started kindergarten, my parents encouraged me to [...]

Literacy shapes the path to our world. Our interpersonal communication with others is shaped through the mechanics of literacy. Language, verbal influence, and engaged pedagogy are all formulated through sharing knowledge as critical thinkers in the transgression of equal education, and opportunities provided through the mechanics of literary education. The world is filled with different [...]

4,158,720 seconds have transpired since my last Facebook post, and I am guessing at least a few hundred thousand of those have been spent in the networked realm of Facebooking. When I penned (or rather, typed) the previous post, it was when the madness of finals season had just recently come to a close; [...]

A few days ago, I was flipping channels when I came upon a new Target ad:

Ordinarily, I have no patience to watch TV commercials; I usually watch two shows at a time so I can watch something else when a commercial is playing (yes, I know that’s a little extreme, but I am [...]

Ferdinand de Saussure‘s distinction between three interrelated domains of language–langue, parole, and langage–was foundational in my language studies at Berkeley, as it is undoubtedly in programs across the country and around the world. Yet now, after having spent 6 months off and and on (more off than on unfortunately) studying French, I wonder [...]

“Did you grow up here? You don’t sound like an Indian!” I’ve been told, not once, not twice, but too many times to recount. Usually, I stammer out some apologetic answer-I’ve lived in the States for the past four years, I spent a couple of years in NY as a child, or that as a [...]

The Train à Grande Vitesse speeds through the countryside: fields of green and brown, hills rising in the distance, rows of grapes, houses and farms dotting the spaces in between. Chapter 7, page 183. “Ou etes-vous allé(e)?” (Where did you go?) The perfect way to frame a chapter introducing the use of “le passée composé [...]