Found on Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi, this quote could as easily be applied to therapy, language learning, or many other subjects: There are Zen students who are in chains when they go to a teacher, and the teacher adds another chain. The students are delighted, unable to discern one thing from another. The risk as an ESL teacher of adding another chain to a student is perhaps not as pronounced one might think, just as one’s effect on a student may well be less pronounced than we imagine. However, the damage from such a mistake is minimal, and limited …
Month: February 2005
Language Cross Training?
Here’s an interesting idea from The Linguist: on the idea of cross-training in the area of language study: In sports it has been found that to improve in sport A it is often a good idea to practice sport B. Tennis or ping pong or gymnastics may improve strength or quickness or balance needed for ice hockey, for example. I think the same works in language learning. If a person speaks only one language and starts to learn a second language, I believe there are many advantages to starting to learn a third language as well. First of all I …
A Letter From Sri Lanka
Wired recently published a Letter from Sri Lanka penned by none other than Arthur C. Clarke, who discusses SF, science, and the aversion of disasters. While I think there are many pressing disasters-on-the-doorstep, not just the one he addressed in his letter, he’s absolutely right that we need to “also look beyond the current disaster and ponder what other tricks Nature might have up her sleeve.” It was simple prevention that could have saved many lives in the last big natural disaster, and simple prevention in a number of fronts likely could do the same again. via Lotus in the …
Global Warming Deniers Are Failing To Convince Me
No, global warming isn’t a problem. Not at all. It might be too controversial to say that those who deny Global Warming are like Holocaust Deniers—say, they are denying a coming Holocaust—because of the moral weight of the first Holocaust on the public mind. But I think if you consider the number of deaths, the amount of destruction, the kind of instability that people in power are bringing on by denying that Global Warming is a dangerous thing and that our role in it is probably less than negligible, the term Ecocaust Deniers might be fitting. It’s even worse because, …
Written Sex
Again, something interesting via Chad Orzel, who comments on a matter that at one point was the subject of a long discussion over at Making Light. Written sex scenes are very hard to do well, and in many books I cringe at how badly they’re handled. If one skips writing the scene too squeamishly, one gets the sense that the author is somehow invading the narrative, censoring the actions of the characters. The zealous avoider takes something from the narrative. And yet, the all-too-common reaction among younger writers, including those who infest Creative Writing Departments, is to err too far …