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Issues Future and Issue Supporting

The blog may be ending but the issue hasn't stopped. The way I see WVU's foreign languages they will differently be increasing. It is a slow process as it is hard to find teachers and enough staff to get everything going but its not impossible. Arabic might see a minor in the future at WVU sometime soon in the future. WVU has been searching for a Arabic coordinator and they may have found their lady. If this is true then she will be able to start working on building more classes and getting more student teachers to help. After getting the language classes going and maybe even a few culture classes she maybe able to work for a minor. I hope to see more languages be like Arabic be able to grow at WVU to provide our students with more knowledge for the future. The world of different languages is a growing community won't you join it. To help support WVU's Foreign Language Department please visit here to get more information on what all the department does. If you want to contact the department or if you want to send a check or money order to help support please send it to:
Department of Foreign Languages
West Virginia Universtiy
Chitwood Hall
P.O. Box 6298
Morgantown, WVU 26506-6298
USA
Telephone: (304) 293-5121
Fax: (304) 293-7653
Email: Forlanginfor@mail.wvu.edu

Japanese, Korean, and Chinese

Growing up I have always wanted to learn Japanese, Korean, and Chinese languages. I have always had an interest in their cultures and origins. They are so different in language and cultural backgrounds from the US its hard not to have an interest. When it comes to learning a language it helps to have an interest in their languages. I am going to list and show some of my interests so maybe it can help you decided what language or languages are right for you. First off I like to read manga which is a Japanese form of a comic book. Their stories help you learn some of the language and a lot about their culture. There are a bunch of manga sites you can go to read online for free or you can support your favorites by buying them at your local book store. One manga site to read for free is linked here. To read manga you read it from right to left but the book opens to the beginning on the opposite side of our books in America. Here is an example of a manga page. The Title of this Manga is Bleach, which is widely popular in Japan and America. 

Most mangas will have a cartoon made after it called anime. Some animes are made even with out being a manga but a lot of stories are both a manga and an anime. You can watch an anime dubbed or subbed which ever you prefer. If you want to learn the language it is best to watch it in the subbed version but in either one you can lean the culture. Like the mangas there are plenty of sites for you to go and view them but you can also buy them at some stores in American or online. Go here if you want to see one for free. One of the big things I like is to listen to Japanese, Korean, and Chinese music. You can find their music anyone if you know where to look. Of course the best place to find most is on YouTube. Some of the singers even sing whole songs in English but if they are in their own language you can usually find subbed versions on YouTube to understand the true meaning behind the song. Most all of the music have at least some English words mixed in theirs songs. I'm not sure why they do this but all most all of the music I listen to has English words or sentences in them. Also most Chinese, Korean, and Japanese music performers sing in groups,bands, but there are also some that sing by themselves.

This music video is called Rescue by a Japanese group named KAT-TUN. The name KAT_TUN comes from the first letter of the members last names.

This is a Korean band named DBSK and the song is called "O". There are a few different versions of this song and video. There is a Korean, Japanese, and Chinese version of this song.

Finally this a Taiwanese band named Fahrenheit and the song is called (Superb) Chu Shen Re Hua. Side note Mandarin is the main language spoken in Taiwan so that is the language they sing in.

 I also watch Asian drama and movies which is just like an ordinary American TV show but they only have so many episodes and usually only one season. Sometimes the shows and movies are live action shows of anime and/or manga. Asian dramas rather they be spoken in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean the shows and movies themselves are really different then American shows. I guess I could say that they are more pure. I say this because they have very little or no swearing and they focus more on plot instead of sex appeal. There are usually no sex scenes like there are in American stuff and the kiss scenes are usually very innocent as they are no more then just touching lips together instead of being all over the place like American kiss scenes. I'm guess this is like this because of Asian society being more preserved then ours. You can go any where to watch these dramas but when it comes to buying them with subtitles you are mostly out of luck. You can buy them off of Amazon or have them shipped from their home countries but it cost a lot. But there is hope cause you can watch them off line on sites like this one.
In the end I can say from watching these or listening I have learned a lot about their different cultures and a little bit of words, or sentences from their languages. Its great to have the interests but in doing so I actually learn things too. 

Choosing A Language Thats Right For You

Picking a Foreign language to learn for the first time is a very hard and difficult choice. You should take your time deciding on one to learn. Since learning another language takes a lot of time and dedication it is important you choose one that you will be able to learn with the time and willpower you have available. If you are learning a seconded language for the first time do not try to lean two different languages at the same time. Even if the languages are closely related to one another it is still a bad idea. You will probably never end up speaking either of them correctly. There are some that can learn more then one language at a time but that’s only a select view and most of them wait to do so after they learned their first second language. A good thing to do to choose a language is to find out how you can use the language after you learned it. This will help you practice and remember it easier. Also it will help motivate you in learning the language. If you have special interest in a countries culture then that language may be a good idea to lean. To find any thing to get you motivated to learn a language is a good strategy to use. As a general advice, a language that will be both useful and easy to practice is advisable for first time learners. Beware of difficult languages that you can hardly practice. Difficult languages such as Mandarin, Japanese, Georgian, Finnish, Hungarian, etc. take years to be able to say you are fluent in the language. If you have interest in those languages to keep you motivate and will help you from stopping half way then go for it. Mandarin is immensely difficult, be it in its maddening writing or most tricky pronunciation. It is very difficult to learn, because of the tonal system, and complex ideographic writing. Learning it is the language achievement par excellence. One could argue that this is one of the languages of the future, with huge untapped markets for so many things that the need for Western people speaking Chinese can only go up. Korean is a very difficult language - one of the most difficult there is. At first Korean looks simpler than Japanese and Mandarin, since it uses no tones and has an alphabet. But as you progress you enter a maze of grammatical complexity and discover that the alphabet is supplemented by an ideographic character system of Chinese origin. Good use if traveling and business purposes. Finnish is probably the most difficult European language to be learned, but rather fascinating. With soft consonants and a fine range of vowels, Finnish can be a nicely melodic language. But since it is so difficult to learn its usefulness is very little. People in Finnish usually will automatically will start speaking to you in English cause they don’t expect people to learn their language. It is a beautiful language to learn but unless you plan to move to Finland there isn’t much use.

WVU Study Abroad Club

West Virginia University's Study Abroad Club is helping students reach their dreams of learning different languages and cultures. The Study Abroad Club officially began in August 2009 but was organized two years before. The club is made up of students who have studied abroad or wish to in the future, plus current and former exchange students at WVU. The study abroad club aims to bridge cultural gaps at WVU. The students get to meet up and hang with people from all over the world and learn about up coming trips. The group meets every other Wednesday from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Mountainlair. "I think that it's a great opportunity to reach out to the exchange students, and you also become more sensitive to intercultural issues," Devan Smith, member and business major, said. The members wants to allow students to have the opportunity to talk to current exchange students, to find out about their home institutions and what they can offer WVU students. The Study Abroad Club also provides information about scholarship opportunities and a chance for students to practice speaking in foreign languages. Recently the number of students studying abroad has increased  the club likes to think that they had something to do with the numbers. "There's some degree programs that are requiring students to study abroad, some are encouraging it more, and I think there's just a general knowledge of the world that students didn't have before," said Tara George-Jones, study abroad program coordinator for the WVU Office of International Programs. Some students like Michelle Kinslev study abroad to a multiple places not just one. Michelle Kinslev studied at Otto-Friedrich-Universität (WVU's Exchange partner) in Bamberg, Germany during 2002-2003. After taking a few years off to live and work in Bamberg, she returned to WVU in 2006 then participated in the ten-week faculty-led study/internship program to Fulda, Germany during summer 2006. During summer 2007, she studied a month in Florence, Italy at the Lorenzo de'Medici school. Michelle will be returned to Italy for Spring Break and may start learning Turkish this summer for two months in Turkey. I am giving studying abroad a try this summer. I am going to Osaka, Japan for a faculty led trip with my Japanese language instructor Asaka Noo. It will be a  4 week trip to learn the Japanese Culture. I will be receiving 6 credit hours in the process. Also for one of the four weeks we will be traveling to a bunch of different places in Japan like Tokyo and we will visit shrines. I am very excited that I get to experience this thanks to WVU.

Foreign language funding being threaten

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a proposal, HR 1, which con-tains $100 billion in cuts from the President’s FY 2011 budget request. To reach the number the House cut billions through reductions, rescissions, and eliminations. They wanted to pass this to help prevent the government to shut down. In these categories includes the elimination of the For-eign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) within the Department of Education. For K-12 foreign language innovation and best practices FLAP is the only source of federal education funding. FLAP uses 26.9 million dollars in funding to help develop programs in critical lan-guages to help support our economic and national securi-ty interests and prepare our graduates to compete in the 21st century. On average The US Department of Education awards 25-35 FLAP grants each year to state and local education agencies. Friday, March 4th, 2011 the Senate Democratic Leadership introduced their version of a seven-month Continuing Resolution which would maintain FLAP funding at the current levels. In contrast, the House-passed CR would cut $51 billion more than the Senate measure, with the vast majority of House cuts coming from non-defense spending. The Senate will vote on HR 1—the House proposal and the Democratic alternative, on Tuesday March 8th. Although neither is expected to get the 60 votes needed to advance, the votes will set the parameters for the upcoming budget negotiations and determine the final level for FLAP funding this year. In most countries learning a second language is a high priority but in American language education offerings contrast markedly with those coun-tries. In the European Union 21 out of the 31 countries require nine years of language studies. Industrialized coun-tries start teaching the worlds languages in grades K-5. In 2007 a report from the National Academy of Sciences warned, “The pervasive lack of knowledge of foreign cultures and languages threatens the security of the United States as well as its ability to compete in the global marketplace and produce an in-formed citizenry.”

National Standards for Foreign Language Education

An eleven-member task force, representing a variety of languages, levels of instruction, program models, and geographic regions, undertook the task of defining content standards. They did this with the help of a three year grant provided by the US Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The final document they created was first published in 1996 and it was called Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the 21^st Century. The document represented an unprecedented consensus among educators, business leaders, government, and the community on the definition and role of foreign language instruction in American education. This visionary document has been used by teachers, administrators, and curriculum developers at both state and local levels to begin to improve foreign language education in our nation's schools. The NEW 3rd Edition Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century, revised including Arabic standards, is now available. There are five main standards for teaching foreign language and they are: Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities.
Communication:
Students need to communicate in Languages other than English. Students should engage in Conversations and not only speak the language but express their feelings and emotions with it too. Also students should not only speak a language on a variety of topics but also be able to read and write the language.
Cultures:
Students should gain knowledge and understanding of other cultures. Students should understand the practices and perspectives of other cultures.
Connections:
Students should be able to connect with other disciplines and acquire information. They should be able to recognize the distinctive viewpoints that are only available through the foreign language and its cultures.
Comparisons:
Students should develop insights into the nature of the  language and culture. They should demonstrate understanding of the nature of the language and the concept of its culture through the comparisons of the language and culture studied and their own.
Communities:
Students need to participate in multilingual communities at home and around the world. The students need to use the language inside the school and beyond. They show evidence of becoming life-long learners by using the language for personal enjoyment and enrichment.
On the American Council on The Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) website there is a statement of Philosophy posted before the standards of Foreign Language Learning that I though would be good to insert in this blog. Language and communication are at the heart of the human experience. The United States must educate students who are linguistically and culturally equipped to communicate successfully in a pluralistic American society and abroad. This imperative envisions a future in which ALL students will develop and maintain proficiency in English and at least one other language, modern or classical. Children who come to school from non-English backgrounds should also have opportunities to develop further proficiencies in their first language. This statement not only works for this blog but my entire blog’s purpose to spread the joy and benefits of leaning languages.