Ukraine and Russia - Some statements for discussion in one of our communication groups
1. All people are bad in general including Russians. So examples of bad Russians prove nothing. But others in general are worse than Russians (it is rather about states Europe, USA, Ukraine, ISIS than people of those states).
2. So called sexism can explain what happens in Ukraine. Ukraine behaves towards Russia like feminist women behave towards men. They give men nothing but hatred and believe that men have to support them for that. Ukrainians believe that they are innocent, saint victims of Russians (like women are victims of men according to feminism) and Russians must compensate Ukrainians their suffering.
3. Hatred is the only way Ukrainians wants to sell. Russians will pay Ukrainians in hope that the hatred will be mitigated (but it will get only worse). And they want to sell to the West the opportunity to have NATO military bases in Ukraine.
4. They wanted to turn Russian language into second rate language in Ukraine (into third rate language, in fact, because it had already been a second rate one) even though it is the most popular language there; and that would prevents Russians from getting high education and would turn them into servants working for Ukrainians.
5. They overthrew democratically elected government even though there was agreement that the election had been assigned to the nearest future. And they began to put their bandits into governing positions and send them also to the east parts of Ukraine where people didn’t want them.
6. They regularly shell Donetsk and say that it is Donetsk who regularly shells itself.
7. They call people like Bandera and Shuhevich (one of Hitler’s servants) their heroes. They issued a special law calling them national heroes.
8. They have anti-Russian slogans and rituals and they are very popular in Ukraine.
9. Poroshenko power still exists only because “Putin” supports it. There were too many acts of open support of it. BTW that is why Putin is bad. He has always been pretty much anti-Russian.
There are 5 basic skills you have to develop if you want to become a master in one of foreign languages.
They are: Speaking, Listening, Writing, Reading and Thinking.
There are 5 additional skills.
They are: Conversation, Monologue, Translating, Teaching, Passing exams.
Will anybody deny that you have to learn the Art of Conversation? Should it not be one of the most important topics for seminars? Don’t you have to practice it regularly? What kind of teacher are you if you avoid real conversations and prefer to talk only by turns and only by answering already prepared questions?
You have to be anti-teacher if you try to avoid free discussions.
It is usually said that there are two important things about the speech. They are fluency and accuracy. And it is not easy to be both fluent and accurate at the same time. But in fact we have to distinguish between some more things. How can we improve them?
1) Correctness. It means that you do not make mistakes.
2) Accuracy. It means that your speech is your best. It means that you don’t make slips. Slips – are errors you make not because the lack of your knowledge, but because you don’t have much time to think.
3) Fluency. It is about being able to speak without stuttering, breaks, long pauses many failed attempt to build correct sentences.
4) Speed. It is about how fast you speak. Actually you can be fluent but slow or fast but not fluent.
5) Clearness. It means you don’t overuse things like “hm, hm, eh, hm” etc… and you don’t excessively use words like “you know”, “well”, “so to speak” and others of that kind.
6) Richness of the speech. It is about both, rich vocabulary and rich grammar.
Pay attention, sometimes a teacher is just a partner.
Ask yourself what you can do without a teacher equally effectively or even better. How can you do it?
At what aspects are you good as a teacher?
1. Teacher is an instant dictionary, interpreter, and grammar reference book. What can we do if we don’t have a teacher for those?
2. Teacher can correct you. Do you need to be corrected?
3. He can make you work by getting angry with you if you don’t work properly (mentor). Do you need to be forced to work this way?
4. He can motivate you; with him studying is not that boring as without him.
5. He can show you right movements, explain phonemes, explain fingering and so on (methodologist).
6. He can provide you with best set of exercises and explain how to do them most effectively. He can be your coach. Do you need a coach (methodologist)?
7. He can be your orientation pilot. Some things are better seen from outside. Do you see a difference between a coach and an orientation pilot?
8. He can be your personal psychologist. If you have some brakes and barriers he will help you to overcome them.
9. He can be your communication partner.
10. He can be a leader. There is some difference between a leader and a communication partner. Do you need a leader and rapport with him?
11. He can be an example of the perfect speech and writing.
12. He can provide you with best materials; he can help you not to fallow bad books and strategies (methodologist and supply manager).
About English lessons and all kinds of lessons in general
1. Image of perfect language – rapport with inner Master
2. Rapport with a student
3. Motivation and understanding of what you have to do and how (mental maps)
4. Right movements
5. Training
6. Life itself
1. Do you remember what skills you have to work on? (reading, writing, speaking, listening, thinking, plus translating, communicating, teaching, passing exams)
2. Three whales of any language (grammar, vocabulary, phonetics)
3. Levels of language (sentences, words, letters)
4. Levels of understanding how to study (discipline, knowledge, training, love, yoga, war)
5. To teach how to become a leader
6. Why do people not want to become masters?
1. Text-Words-Rules-Exercises used to be the most popular method of teaching and studying foreign languages. Can something be better than that? What about communicative approach?
2. What do you think of Petrov's "Polyglot" method? You can know Petrov by the TV Culture Channel.
3. What do you think of Dragunkin?
Now some questions about Krashen's hypotheses...
5. Do you believe that comprehensible input is sufficient?
6. Do you prefer to acquire or to learn?
7. Do you monitor your speech? What is the best way to become fluent?
8. What psychological barriers hamper our learning?
9. Should we find and fallow some natural order of the acquisition? What will it look like?
Additional questions
10. How can we learn words effectively? How can we improve our vocabulary?
11. How can we learn grammar effectively?
12. Are there any people who are phonologically absolutely stupid?
The five hypotheses that Krashen proposed are as follows:
1) The input hypothesis. This states that learners progress in their knowledge of the language when they comprehend language input that is slightly more advanced than their current level. Krashen called this level of input "i+1", where "i" is the language input and "+1" is the next stage of language acquisition.
2) The acquisition–learning hypothesis claims that there is a strict separation between acquisition and learning; Krashen saw acquisition as a purely subconscious process and learning as a conscious process, and claimed that improvement in language ability was only dependent upon acquisition and never on learning.
3) The monitor hypothesis states that consciously learned language can only be used to monitor language output; it can never be the source of spontaneous speech.
4) The natural order hypothesis states that language is acquired in a particular order, and that this order does not change between learners, and is not affected by explicit instruction.
5) The affective filter hypothesis. This states that learners' ability to acquire language is constrained if they are experiencing negative emotions such as fear or embarrassment. At such times the affective filter is said to be "up".
1) About all sides (Ukrainians, Novorussians, Russians, Europeans, Americans, others):
1) What do their people want?
2) What do their rulers want?
3) What did they do?
4) What are they doing now?
5) What is their propaganda? Are they zombie?
6) Are they terrorists?
2) Are there other participants? Do Jews participate?
3) What is fascism today?
4) Can you have a fascist friend?
5) Can you influence the situation? Do you want to?
1) Can we read people’s minds? Do you believe Victoria?
2) Do you know what NLP is? If not then two next questions are about what NLP is…
3) Are our minds like computers? Can we become effective by improving our mental programs?
4) Can we become effective by imitating actions of effective people?
5) Is it possible to hypnotize every one? Can the Gypsies do it?
6) Is it fair to manipulate people? Many people like to be manipulated; why not give them what they want?
7) Would you like to be led?
8) Are there universal techniques that would allow us to manipulate everybody?
9) Can NLP be used for foreign languages acquisition?
10) Is it a good way of therapy?
11) What NLP techniques can we effectively use?
12) Is NLP natural for Russians? Why was it invented in the West?
13) What can be a Russian NLP like invention?
Cliff once said that we don’t need men and manly behavior to wage wars. Drones can do it. And women can easily be drone “pilots”. But in fact we need normal men. We need them badly. What will happen to men when women are taken to the police, when men are allowed to behave like women. Look at the bunch of those cowards and you will understand a lot. Do we need normal men yet?
WK: What's the deal with sexism, by the way? Is this a sore subject for you?
The question is ask twice. Instead of participating in the discussion WK persistently asks the same rhetorical question.
Great. This rhetorical question must work as demotivator. That kind of question is a universal demotivator. Universal – that is the word. You don’t need to think even a second to create that kind of demotivating questions.
And demotivating questions are called in Russian “Каждой Бочке Затычка” (the cork for each and every barrel). It is translated into English as “Wet Blanket”. The meaning of this idiom is the same, I think. Using wet blanket you can cork practically everything.
By the way. About women. That kind of questions is typical for women nowadays. It is opposite to what women could and should do in our life. It is life disintegration, and women could be integrators not disintegrators. Their destiny is to be not only mothers. They could be moral supporters for any men’s activity, integrators. Nowadays they don’t understand their destiny and act just the opposite (impose demotivation).
But if women begin to help men, to motivate them, to integrate men’s projects with their female clever support, they gain enormous female constructive power. You can very easily create your business today if you are a woman and you understand what I am talking about now.
There are universal wet blanket questions. And there are opposite questions that help you to understand life. It is not difficult to remember the set of constructive questions, but they really help you to deal with any kind of information.
The set of constructive universal questions is called Integral Algorithm. It helps you both to understand and remember things. It is used in speed reading, in any reading, in your life.
And about integral algorithm… It can be an interesting topic for discussion in the Languages Group.
You have to read the idiom and the explanation without mistakes. If you don’t know some word, it is OK. You ask about it and get the translation.
Your task is to try to read it without stumbling and making slips. It is not that easy as it seems to be.
Besides we can also read parallel texts like a very simple one “New Deal Starts to Fail” (from VOA) or a more difficult one like “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (Edgar Allan Po)
1) Rank your values: success, happiness, bliss?
2) Do you distinguish between those three? Do those three usually go together and make friends?
3) Would you like to have stronger emotions? Would you like to be more sensitive?
4) Do we need too much positive emotions? Do we need to avoid negative ones?
5) What would make you happy?
6) Is it important to you to do better than your neighbors?
7) Can money make you happy?
8) Do you feel you are a rich person?
9) Can good sex make you happy?
10) What makes people successful?
11) Do elites steal success from common people?
12) Are elites evil?
13) Is it your duty to be successful?
14) Are you immortal or are you sentenced to death by the Nature itself? Does it make you happy or unhappy?
15) Is life for you a game or survival?
16) Are you free? What part of your time do you spend on thinks you really like to do?
17) What do you need to improve in your life?
18) Does your happiness depends on happiness of your country?
1) Women and men are different. Don't you agree with that?
2) Women are superior to men in some aspects. For instance, women bring children. Don't you agree with that?
3) Women can be superior to men in some other aspects. Can you name them?
4) Taking into account that women are superior to men at least in one very important aspect, there remain only two things to presume: (1) Men are superior to women in other aspects and so both genders are very important and presumably equal or (2) Men are superior to women in no aspect at all and so they are inferior creatures. Are there any other ways of thinking?
5) The only humane presumption is that both genders are very important and valuable. And so, men are better than women in some aspects as well as women are better than men in some other aspects.
6) In what areas, do you thing, men are superior to women?
7) Can a woman respect men as men if she believes that men are inferior creatures?
8) Can a woman love men if she does not respect them?
9) Can a man have self-respect as a man if he believes that there is no superiority of his sex (while females are obviously superior in some very important aspects).
10) Can a woman love a man who does not respect himself?
11) Who needs do destroy male's self-respect? Is it done nowadays? For what purpose is it done?
12) Is feminism good for women?
13) Do you really believe that feminism is all about equal rights?
14) What can we say about people who believe that feminism is about equal rights?
15) If someone group of people have more rights and less responsibilities it is obviously unfair. Isn’t it?
16) Can a society be fair if some its members have more rights and more responsibilities at the same time? ...
If you want you can prepare to the discussion. In this case read this material. You can come also without any preparation. It is also OK. Just don't be afraid of all that stuff.
1) Do you use mental maps? What do your mental maps look like?
2) Describe your language-map. Language consists of…
3) Describe the position of the language-land in your life-map? Language consists in…
4) Do you really need these complicated mental maps?
Restaurant and kitchen (interface and implementation) are two different realms, two parallel worlds of the same kingdom. Do you know what interface and implementation are?
Interface (Restaurant)
That is about four plus one basic skills: (1) speaking, (2) reading, (3) listening, (4) writing, (5) thinking. There are also four additional things: (6) making friends, (7) translating, (8) teaching, (9) passing exams.
So, we have five basic questions for the restaurant:
1) How do you practice your speaking?
2) How do you practice your listening?
3) How do you practice your reading?
4) How do you practice your writing?
5) Do you think in English?
And we have four additional questions as well:
1) How do you find friends?
2) How do you improve your translation skills?
3) Do you know how to teach English?
4) Do you know how to pass exams?
Kitchen
We have three questions for the kitchen:
1) How do you work on your grammar?
2) How do you work on your vocabulary
3) How do you work on your pronunciation?
There are also different approaches
1) What approaches can you name?
2) What is your favorite approach?
Levels of understanding
The approach you choose depends on level of understanding, what foreign languages acquisition is. The approaches are about how you invest your energy.
What is your main attitude? What is your level of understanding?
1) Language as work. To learn language you have to make yourself work. That is truth, but if it is what you are dealing with all the time, you have problems. People of this level of understanding are people of the gutter of the language-kingdom society.
2) Language as knowledge. People of this level work on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation. They don’t need to think about how to make themselves work. They already know it. And they are more effective than people of the first level. But you can know a lot of words and a lot of grammatical rules and a lot of phonetics, but not able to use your language at the same time.
3) Language as sport. Bodybuilding vs sport games. Alone vs in companies. People of every next level of understanding are stronger than people of two previous levels of understanding.
4) As sex. How do you make love with your language? How do you get (sexual) pleasure from it?
5) As yoga, self-development. Is language a way to God?
6) As game, as war. Language is your weapon. What do you fight for? What is your cause?
We have to make a foreign language our second native language. But are we really good in our native languages? How good are your basic skills? How can you improve them?
Language is psychology. How do you cope with your affective filter (your subconscious unwillingness to leave in a new language)? Language is like immigration. New language is a new country. Do you really want to immigrate into this new country?
