This blog will ALSO be moving to Wordpress: fundamentalskillsmaterials.wordpress.com. Thanks for reading and hope to interact much more in future!
Thursday 14 February 2013
Wednesday 13 February 2013
Food for All
As those who follows us will have noticed, we have moved the production of materials for FUNDAmental Skills to this blog, while the original one is reserved for commentary and dealing with a range of issues, from communication to education approaches and management. All news relating to the MONEYmental videos will also shift, from now on, to this blog.
MONEYmental inches forward, as our committed volunteers have time and money to come and have the materials videographed and the voice-overs done. In the mean time, there is the very worrying issue of food security. A visit to a Pick'nPay after eight on Sunday night drove the reality home harshly, again: A dazed and confused little boy of about 8 was standing around the entrance of the store, and was herded away by security personnel. Not too kindly, either. The car guard, not a South African, commented that these kids were naughty, they were from ---- township near Kuilsrivier, and this one was lost and didn't know how to get back. But the kid is HUNGRY, I pointed out to the car guard - surely he wouldn't have walked all the way from there to the supermarket if he didn't think there might be someone kind enough to give him something? Why, asked the car guard, do these people keep on having children if they can't feed them?
Of course, the usual high horsemen can point out that this guy was not a South African and he shouldn't have anything to say about the matter. But whatever one's feelings about THAT issue, the fact remains: too many of our children are hungry, and cannot use their few educational opportunities to the maximum if their brains are not operating properly for lack of food.
If we educate, we must also make sure that part is taken care of. That is why we are producing, over the next two weeks, the little video: "How to Produce your own food in small spaces". The size of the space will vary from a discarded chip packet (we are big on recycling and limiting waste at FUNDAmental Skills!) to broken oil containers to discarded and un-recyclable tyres.
As always, we intend producing the clip in all South African languages, so we are urging speakers to come forward and helping with the translation and voice-over of the clip. It will entail coming to our premises to put the voice down, and we are happy to discuss reward with interested parties. DM us!
MONEYmental inches forward, as our committed volunteers have time and money to come and have the materials videographed and the voice-overs done. In the mean time, there is the very worrying issue of food security. A visit to a Pick'nPay after eight on Sunday night drove the reality home harshly, again: A dazed and confused little boy of about 8 was standing around the entrance of the store, and was herded away by security personnel. Not too kindly, either. The car guard, not a South African, commented that these kids were naughty, they were from ---- township near Kuilsrivier, and this one was lost and didn't know how to get back. But the kid is HUNGRY, I pointed out to the car guard - surely he wouldn't have walked all the way from there to the supermarket if he didn't think there might be someone kind enough to give him something? Why, asked the car guard, do these people keep on having children if they can't feed them?
Of course, the usual high horsemen can point out that this guy was not a South African and he shouldn't have anything to say about the matter. But whatever one's feelings about THAT issue, the fact remains: too many of our children are hungry, and cannot use their few educational opportunities to the maximum if their brains are not operating properly for lack of food.
If we educate, we must also make sure that part is taken care of. That is why we are producing, over the next two weeks, the little video: "How to Produce your own food in small spaces". The size of the space will vary from a discarded chip packet (we are big on recycling and limiting waste at FUNDAmental Skills!) to broken oil containers to discarded and un-recyclable tyres.
As always, we intend producing the clip in all South African languages, so we are urging speakers to come forward and helping with the translation and voice-over of the clip. It will entail coming to our premises to put the voice down, and we are happy to discuss reward with interested parties. DM us!
Thursday 31 January 2013
Wednesday 23 January 2013
ENGLISH IN SITUATIONS (for second language speakers) 1
Test your powers of expression! This is trickier than it looks at first, as you suddenly need to start thinking about different situations and what you would say in each.
Reply leaving your contributions and they will be discussed and suggestions for style improvement and effective usage will be made. Please feel free to use these in classroom situations or adapt them for any other use.
Exercise: Propose as many different types of ... as you know:
1. good wishes
2. invitations
3. advice
Example: propose as many types of congratulations as you know. When would you CONGRATULATE someone? The list would include birthdays, wedding anniversaries, birth of a child, graduation...think of what you would say, and how, on each occasion.
Reply leaving your contributions and they will be discussed and suggestions for style improvement and effective usage will be made. Please feel free to use these in classroom situations or adapt them for any other use.
Exercise: Propose as many different types of ... as you know:
1. good wishes
2. invitations
3. advice
Example: propose as many types of congratulations as you know. When would you CONGRATULATE someone? The list would include birthdays, wedding anniversaries, birth of a child, graduation...think of what you would say, and how, on each occasion.
Tuesday 15 January 2013
HOW TO STUDY 1
Part of our mission at FUNDAmental SKILLS is to equip learners of all ages with some very basic skills that have far-reaching implications and results. One of these skills is EFFECTIVE STUDYING, in other words, methods and tips and techniques that, once tried out, you will want to use again and again until studying becomes something you love and not dread.
As an introduction, here are some of the barriers to acquiring and retaining knowledge, as identified by the controversial American author L Ron Hubbard:
1. Lack of MASS. Like many of Hubbard's ideas, this one is good and universally applicable but shoots itself in the foot by using a word that no one can really relate to...MASS. What is referred to is of course a lack of REFERENCE for the material being studied. If you are studying tractor mechanics, in the classic Hubbard example, but do not have a tractor in front of you, you will soon run into trouble. Because you cannot related the words in the textbook to anything you have ever seen or experienced, they lose meaning and you either become bored or very anxious because you "don't understand" or you ask yourself what on earth you are doing in the situation you find yourself in. We will explore the merits of the BIG PICTURE, in other words relating new stuff to stuff you already know, and knowing where things fit in order to understand them better.
2. Too steep a GRADIENT. Hubbard's words again...referring to the "learning curve". If what you have to learn goes too fast, and you don't have time to master one concept or fact before moving on to the next one that builds on the previous one, you will soon be lost, not able to do what is expected of you, and feel like a failure. Going back to where you felt secure, in order to pick up from there and work through material thoroughly, slowly and efficiently is not a shame, it is common sense. Working slowly and methodically results in far better understanding and retention of facts. If at the same time you relate new facts to your BIG PICTURE, there is no reason for you ever to forget anything, and the need for exam stress and cramming disappears. We will explore ways of eliminating exam stress once and for all.
3. The misunderstood word. Once again, Hubbard's STUDY TECH has a point, which unfortunately gets laboured completely dead and flat. We will not do that: what is important is that you MUST understand every single word you read. If you skim over words you don't know in order to get to the end of the material, you may well lose out on the whole point of the material, and many connections may be lost to you. So learning how to use a dictionary efficiently is a great and valuable skill and shows that you are serious about understanding what you are learning and don't only do it because it is expected of you. Language underlies all learning. It is good to understand the meaning, origin and areas of employment of every word you encounter, as it increases your comprehension and mental flexibility. And once those two are increased in one area, they operate better in all areas of learning.
So climb on the bus with us as the coastal school year starts tomorrow - we are inviting all secondary and tertiary students to connect with us: state your problem or difficulty, and we will look at ways of approaching it , working through it and taking its sting out in the process.
As an introduction, here are some of the barriers to acquiring and retaining knowledge, as identified by the controversial American author L Ron Hubbard:
1. Lack of MASS. Like many of Hubbard's ideas, this one is good and universally applicable but shoots itself in the foot by using a word that no one can really relate to...MASS. What is referred to is of course a lack of REFERENCE for the material being studied. If you are studying tractor mechanics, in the classic Hubbard example, but do not have a tractor in front of you, you will soon run into trouble. Because you cannot related the words in the textbook to anything you have ever seen or experienced, they lose meaning and you either become bored or very anxious because you "don't understand" or you ask yourself what on earth you are doing in the situation you find yourself in. We will explore the merits of the BIG PICTURE, in other words relating new stuff to stuff you already know, and knowing where things fit in order to understand them better.
2. Too steep a GRADIENT. Hubbard's words again...referring to the "learning curve". If what you have to learn goes too fast, and you don't have time to master one concept or fact before moving on to the next one that builds on the previous one, you will soon be lost, not able to do what is expected of you, and feel like a failure. Going back to where you felt secure, in order to pick up from there and work through material thoroughly, slowly and efficiently is not a shame, it is common sense. Working slowly and methodically results in far better understanding and retention of facts. If at the same time you relate new facts to your BIG PICTURE, there is no reason for you ever to forget anything, and the need for exam stress and cramming disappears. We will explore ways of eliminating exam stress once and for all.
3. The misunderstood word. Once again, Hubbard's STUDY TECH has a point, which unfortunately gets laboured completely dead and flat. We will not do that: what is important is that you MUST understand every single word you read. If you skim over words you don't know in order to get to the end of the material, you may well lose out on the whole point of the material, and many connections may be lost to you. So learning how to use a dictionary efficiently is a great and valuable skill and shows that you are serious about understanding what you are learning and don't only do it because it is expected of you. Language underlies all learning. It is good to understand the meaning, origin and areas of employment of every word you encounter, as it increases your comprehension and mental flexibility. And once those two are increased in one area, they operate better in all areas of learning.
So climb on the bus with us as the coastal school year starts tomorrow - we are inviting all secondary and tertiary students to connect with us: state your problem or difficulty, and we will look at ways of approaching it , working through it and taking its sting out in the process.
Friday 11 January 2013
A very short English lesson on BORROWING
Following @ReadaBook on Twitter has confirmed that many - if not most? - second-language English speakers in South Africa use the word "BORROW" incorrectly. Could it be that they have been taught this way by second-language teachers who also didn't know? Anyway, here is the CORRECT way!
Let's take the subject matter of @ReadaBook as an example: someone said to someone else: "ask so-and-so if they will BORROW you that book". The correct word here is LEND. In Afrikaans, for example, there is only one word, leen, but in English:
- the one who GIVES the book is the LENDER, and s/he LENDS the book to
- the one who RECEIVES or TAKES the book (to return it!!!) BORROWS it and is the BORROWER.
Likewise, banks LEND you money (well, mostly they don't) and you BORROW money from banks.
In all cases, the ACTIVE, GIVING participant LENDS and the one on the RECEIVING end BORROWS.
Thursday 10 January 2013
A special set of flashcards!
When we started to work with African language practitioners, our suspicion that there was a dearth of materials to encourage South African parents to have their children educated in their home language was confirmed. We are committed to change this, probably slowly at first! and our first materials design project has been this set of alphabet/flash cards.
It was quite a challenge coming up with cards that work for the purpose of teaching letters and words, because of the structure of Xhosa and the fact that words, as kids would encounter them while reading, do not actually start with the first letter of the stem, but with the subject or class marker. The interim solution is to present the word with its case marker, and to print the first letter in bold. That way eyes will hopefully be led from the letter and its upper case at the top to its position in the word.
The set of cards, which can be ordered in electronic or printed versions, contains notes with suggestions on how to use them. This could range from simply getting a very young child to recognise the picture and to say the word that corresponds with it, to recognising letters, to discussing the significance of the particular object in his/her own culture and the wider South African context. They are therefore hopefully useful for a years and in their present laminated form should last for those years.
The Zulu version is almost finished and can also be ordered. Please let us know if you have any suggestions or would like to contribute to the development of similar cards in other South African languages.
It was quite a challenge coming up with cards that work for the purpose of teaching letters and words, because of the structure of Xhosa and the fact that words, as kids would encounter them while reading, do not actually start with the first letter of the stem, but with the subject or class marker. The interim solution is to present the word with its case marker, and to print the first letter in bold. That way eyes will hopefully be led from the letter and its upper case at the top to its position in the word.
The set of cards, which can be ordered in electronic or printed versions, contains notes with suggestions on how to use them. This could range from simply getting a very young child to recognise the picture and to say the word that corresponds with it, to recognising letters, to discussing the significance of the particular object in his/her own culture and the wider South African context. They are therefore hopefully useful for a years and in their present laminated form should last for those years.
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