Mind Munch

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

World's Religions Paper - TSL 540

World Religions

by: Stephen Birk

There are many vastly different religious and cultural worldviews on our big planet. Religion is very unique to the individual and the masses alike. Each religion differs in various ethnic patterns and commonalities but each religion also shares some very similar features. Of the five major world religions examined, (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism) we know that each religion speculates on the meaning of life and what it should bring about and how one should live daily. Each of these religions also owns scared scriptures detailing old wisdom that should be passed down through scared rituals and virtuous ethics. Feeling safe in expression and having a safe haven is also a commonalty between these five major religions. A religion flourishes inside the self when it is able to breathe wisdom and hope into a person of belief.

Three major world religions we see are monotheistic, meaning they believe in only one god. These religions are Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Having one god is not alone in the similarities between these three great religions. Each of these religions portray a deep spiritual connection with their god. Being a Christian means you believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God. Jesus’s words touched and healed people and Christians really look to God for explanation and guidance. Belonging to Judaism means that you believe at the core that there is a covenant between God and his people (the Jews). This means that Judaism has taught its people to be more tolerant of oppression and persecution and keep moving forward because of its past toils with hardship. In Islam, being submissive to Allah is how one acts their entire life. Muslisms believe that time and events are predestined by the almighty Allah. This is shown in their saying, “in sha’a allah,” meaning “if God wills it.” This example really sticks out to me because of recent encounters with this saying. At the Columbus Literacy Council I have a student who is from Somalia and Ghana. The student from Ghana always calls the student from Somalia to make sure he is coming to class today and every time the student from Somalia will reply with a, “in sha’a allah.” This student uses this phrase quite often; it is intertwined with his lifestyle because he is a Muslim. We need to recognize and accept that each student will be living and experiencing the world differently based on their religion and lifestyle choices.

Death is known by all species of this earth. It is not uncommon and is thought of differently throughout each religion. Let’s start with Christianity and Islam. Each of these religions thinks of death as the final phase of life and believes there will be a final judgment day for each person. Both of these religions believe in conforming to their God’s holy doctrine. If they do the job well enough, their judgment will send them to Heaven or Paradise, but if they did wrong and forged a bad path, then their judgment will send them to Hell. Judaism believes in one God just like Christianity and Islam, but there is little to be said about death. Judaism has much speculation on death and there is no general consensus on what the afterlife brings. In Buddhism and Hinduism death is unavoidable and should be treated as so. These religions believe that the soul is immortal and there will be a type of reincarnation after death. Depending on how much karma or how virtuous you have been through your life will determine your next rebirth status. There is a wide variance of speculation on death and the afterlife, we must understand that everyone views death differently and respect them for their differences.

Ancient wisdom is passed down through writings, scriptures, and narratives. Each major religion holds a book or set of books sacred. Whether it be the Bible for Christians, the Torah for Jews, the Koran for Muslisms, the Four Nobles Truths/the Noble Eightfold Path for Buddhists, or the Vedas/Upanishads for Hindus, each book is guiding and enlightening for the follower. Depending on which book you decide to follow, if any, you may look at the same things in the world as someone else but have a totally different spin on the way you look at those same things. For example the Koran and the Vedas are taken to be ingrained into your everyday life. They are insights about how to live and how to function as religious people. Islamic people learn to submit to god from a very early age and believe in fatalism, or a predestined life. Hindus are trying to live a virtuous life to advance to the next spiritual form, hoping to eventually achieve Brahman. Christians follow the commandments of the Bible and believe in the present and future bearing the fruits of their labor. The Buddhist Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path seek to teach the soul to get rid of suffering and how to understand how we create such suffering. For a Buddhist, nirvana is the ultimate state where one is enlightened and free from want and suffering. These scriptures from each religion bring different twists to life that everyone may not experience but should at least be aware of.

Diverse ethics and having a safe haven for worship is also a shared trait between these major religions. Most religions share a common rule; treat others how you wish to be treated. This overarching human law seems to be the basis of civility. Many civilizations are founded and based on religion and function in so many different ways. Each civilization brings up people with different ethical patterns and standards for living, but each civilization has a sacred place of prayer and worship. Whether it be a Temple, a Synagogue, a Church, a Mosk, or simply facing a specific direction, a peaceful environment to worship and commit to your God is a staple of religion. A sense of community is also built when a religion has a social way to expose its members to the ways of its religion. This sense of belonging also helps shape a religion and spread its followers. I believe Buddhism and Hinduism function more on an individual spiritual level compared to having more congregational patterns. Hinduism and Buddhism are a discovery of the self. They teach their followers to awaken themselves and see past the physical world that plagues are limited vision. When teaching different students you must think of what they believe in to see better into their frame of reference. Getting to know how someone commonly acts when following a certain religion will better shape your understanding of their diverse ways. There will be vastly different people inside the same religion but it is good to understand the basics of how people think they should go about living their life. This diversity in thinking helps build closer connections to students and ultimately helps students achieve and want to achieve more than they may have expected because of the engagement attuned to their culture, religion, and personal lifestyle.

Personal Reflection: Just starting out my ESL journey (2013)

Personal Reflection

by: Stephen Birk

Challenges come in all shapes and forms. My life challenge is to teach and understand people from different cultures and backgrounds. I have recently been teaching English to foreign immigrants the past couple of months at the Columbus Literacy Council. This experience has challenged me to think in new perspectives and really branch out of the way I usually do things or would expect things to be done.

When I first started at the Columbus Literacy Council, I did not really know what to expect. I was thinking that I might teach a few people from Africa and a few people from Asia. I was sorted into teaching the grouping of students in level 2 with another volunteer. There are 5 different levels of students being taught at St. Matthias Church, where we all gather to meet. The five levels are; basic, level 1, level 2, level 3, and level 4. After a student passes level 4, they are deemed as competent as an 8^th grader would be in English. Level 2 was basically around 4^th-5^th grade English by our American educational standards. This in itself was a little bit daunting at first but as I eased into the class it became less intimidating. The people I got to work with were very friendly but sometimes hard to understand. I had to get used to hearing words pronounced sometimes very differently. Their pronunciations were getting in the way of their understandability. As the class kept advancing it was easier to pick up on their accents and easier to deduce what they were saying. Another difficulty I encountered was when I tried to explain a concept or idea that may have been higher than the student’s English competency. This was frustrating at first, but I realized that higher level concepts were probably not of the most importance to some of the students and I decided to deal with just Basic English unless otherwise asked for a deeper explanation of things. These challenges have helped me be more aware that everyone learns at a different speed and may not understand everything you tell them a first time. Every culture and mother language has different linguistic variants that you need to realize and adjust to. This volunteering/teaching experience has given me some insight on how to more efficiently communicate cross culturally.

There are many differences in American culture and the culture of the immigrants at the Columbus Literacy Council. I have worked with and taught people from Ghana, Togo, Somalia, Myanmar, and China. These students have all been very unique and culturally different. The African cultures seem to have the most relation to each other. I was talking with Douglas, from Ghana, and Ahmed, from Somalia, and they were both talking about whenever they would eat food in Africa it would always be fresh. If they slaughtered a cow, they would take the entire cow and pass it out to everyone in their village, family, or grouping. They would never save any for the next day, the food would all be eaten that night or be thrown away by morning. This was the same for fruit, if they picked any fruit in the morning, they would share it and not even save any til the afternoon. This concept kind of shook my thinking for a second because I was so used to going to the grocery store and coming back and putting lots of things in the refrigerator to store for weeks at a time. This culturally different idea let me see into the African culture briefly and it was a truly amazing experience. There are vastly different experiences in Africa though. The married couple from Togo had a different experience to share. They lived in a nice home with most amenities that we have in America. They had a computer with internet and even a phone. I hadn’t realized that African countries were becoming more globalized and starting to use the advanced technology that we have in more 1^st world countries. I have also learned that tribes mostly rule the lands in Africa. Africa’s centralized government isn’t that strong yet and is sometimes corrupt. As explained to me by the married couple from Togo, there are all sorts of religious affiliations in Africa, which I had not really even thought about. These cultural differences helped me understand a bit more about my students and what their backgrounds were like.

Many of my ideas and “truths” get challenged every day. This volunteering experience has taught me that whatever I think is true one day, may not be true the next. Everyone has a different story and experiences things differently so there is no universal “truths” in my eyes, unless you count math. Also I didn’t realize there was so much cultural diversity spread throughout what I thought to be the same kind of culture, such as the African culture. I believed that almost every in Africa lived fairly similar to each other but this was certainly not the case. My world views have also been expanded with all the stories I hear from my student’s home countries or their homelands. This cultural assortment of people has really challenged my ideas of how people normally live. Some of these students walk a fair distance to get to class or some of them have 15 brothers and 6 sisters. Their lives are all but “normal” and I love learning about each and every one of them, they have taught me to never assume something just by your looks.

Overall the beginning of my experience was a little intimidating but I got to grow and learn with my students. Volunteering at the Columbus Literacy Council is a great experience and anyone getting into ESL should definitely consider starting there if they want to get their feet wet. I can’t wait to learn more things from this Master’s program and be able to delve deeper into instructing these students. Life is a bunch of experiences combined and this experience has really brought to life another way of viewing the world and has opened myself up to want to experience more new things and ways of living. The diversity of this earth will never cease to amaze me and will always be in the spotlight of my curiosity.

Material Review: Downtown 3, English for Work and Life

Review of Downtown 3, English for Work and Life

Stephen M. Birk

Ohio Dominican University

Review of Downtown 3, English for Work and Life

Mcbride, Edward J., Kisslinger, Ellen. (2006). Downtown 3 English for Work and Life. Boston, MA: Thomson Heinle.

Downtown 3 is an ESL textbook for adult learners. This textbook contains written, reading, listening, oral, pair, teamwork, and reflection activities throughout each unit. A CD for listening, reading, and pronunciation activities is included with the book and is intended to be used simultaneously with teaching. Downtown 3 balances a healthy variety of skills in each lesson mainly focusing on writing, listening, reading comprehension, and speaking. This textbook is intended for adult English speakers with an intermediate-high level English skill.

Downtown 3 right from the beginning has so much potential designed into this textbook. Using the teacher’s edition gives you access to side notes with helpful activities that fit into the lesson or suggestions to make for expansion of activities. In the table of contents section there is a detailed list of different modules for each chapter on; lessons, competences, grammar, SCANS, EFF, CASAS, LAUSD Intermediate Low, Florida LCP-C, and Texas LCP-C. This particular textbook suggests you use The Heinle Picture Dictionary for additional vocabulary, practice, and reference in general.

This textbook is made up into 10 chapters. One introduction section followed by 3 lesson sections and a review section is expected in every chapter. Each introduction mainly consists of visual depictions alongside reading, listening and critical thinking activities. The chapters are then broken down into three different lessons. These lessons have a variety of reading, writing, listening, speaking, interactive, and grammatical activities. Sprinkled throughout each of these 3 lessons are cultural tips and sometimes games. Grammatical charts are worked frequently into the lessons that precede relevant grammatical written activities. Trailing each lesson are homework assignments that can be directly correlated into everyone’s own life. In the review section of each chapter there contains; listening, reading, writing, best answer, critical thinking, and pronunciation activities. There is also a self-reflection assessment where one rates how well they know the material covered in the chapter. Finally there are always two news articles at the end of each chapter that require deeper thinking skills for the students to reflect and sometimes act upon.

The teacher’s edition of Downtown 3 is a great resource for ideas on expanding activities and class discussion. In this edition, the regular page (student version) is shrunk down to almost half the regular size per page. The outer edges of each page are filled with guides to the audio script, questions to ask students, and a basic guidance to teaching the English activity at hand. There are also teaching tips that are just generally useful in the teaching field. An audio CD comes with this book and is designed to be incorporated into teaching the material in class. This textbook also include an Index with category headings as; Academic Skills, Culture Tips, Downtown Journal, Game Time, Life Skills, and Topics. Lastly, in the back of the textbook there is a section for all of the grammar check charts with page number associations.

I believe there are many strengths to Downtown 3 as a textbook material. This textbook attunes to all of the senses necessary for proper language development. Downtown 3 includes nice images to illustrate meaning in a visual way. There are quite a few grammar checks and this is important for written skills. Frequent conversation practice is included to build confidence in oral ability. The audio part of the book allows the students to hear authentic English for comprehension practice and allows students to practice pronunciation with some audio exercises. Being relevant is important and Downtown 3 is fairly relevant to people learning English and about American culture. This material takes you into the created lives of David and Erika, who embark on daily activities one would expect to encounter in the United States. This book engages the student with prompts and homework assignments that ask about their own personal lives. This engagement could help in retaining the material better because students connect better with topics that interest them.

Something Downtown 3 doesn’t have is enough vocabulary work and review. There are virtually no vocabulary lists and no real definitions of words. I believe it is important for students to know key vocab and proper use of it. One other thing I noticed personally was that the space where the students were allotted to write was a bit too small for most people’s handwriting. My students at the Columbus Literacy Council are still learning to write properly and it is easier for them to write bigger than smaller. This textbook can sometimes be very specific in life and may not always apply to everyone’s situation so there will sometimes be a need for supplemental material to accommodate the student’s needs.

Downtown 3 would serve as a good base for ESL learners. All things considering, the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. The layout of the textbook is well organized and colorfully represented. There is frequent practice with a variety of linguistic skills that build a nice round understanding of the English language for all types of learners. Supplemental materials would be a nice association alongside Downtown 3 because there is plenty of room for expansion of the lessons given in the textbook. This textbook allows the students to monitor their progress with reflections over set goals. Striving to meet these goals should motivate the students to explore different ways to express their ideas. Downtown 3 would be a good jumping off point for any teacher teaching adult English at the intermediate-high skill level.

Reference

Mcbride, Edward J., Kisslinger, Ellen. (2006). Downtown 3 English for Work and Life. Boston, MA: Thomson Heinle.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Minecraft Realm - Stephen's World - Minecraft bank and Minecraft University (in progress)

So, as I promised, here is the realm my friends and I have started to build.

Today I am going to just feature two of my buildings that I have created. The first will be a bank that I did solely in survival mode, then the other is the university, which is still in progress, which was done in creative mode. Since I am the Admin, I sometimes like to use my powers to create nice things. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the view ;)

The outside of the Birk Bank.

Main entrance to Bank de Birk.

Employees only behind the counter.

Almost to the safety deposit box!

The safety deposit box. Ohhh look at all the shiny things :)

Main entrance for the Birk Institute.

Welcome welcome, one and all!

Birk's regular classroom

Birk's Business classroom

1st floor lecture hall

2nd floor cafe

2nd floor basketball court

The water lecture hall is to the left, and the library (currently in progress) is straight ahead.

There is much to be done in this realm and I will updating this blog with more pics from different players. If you want to feature your creations on my blog, feel free to send me your screenshots, I love looking at new buildings. So for now, keep crafting miners! und Aufwiedersehen!

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Minecraft Universe - A sample of a world

Naturally, I play minecraft and have started a game with another person through a LAN connection. We use the Sphax PureBDcraft resource pack. I will post periodically of the progress. This world may be pushed aside because I just bought a minecraft realm which will be soon feature on this blog as well.

Any other minecrafters out there? Hollah at me! :)

Friday, March 14, 2014

ESL Activity - Speaking Exercise - Witness to a crime

Hello there educators! Welcome back to the ole blogski. I hope everyone is doing well!

Today I will be posting about an activity that worked pretty well in my ESL class.

Name of the Acivity: Witness to a crime
Student Level: Intermediate-Advanced
# of students: 6-14

Teacher's Part:

Explain to the students that they have witnessed a crime.
Tell them to read the roles that you give them carefully. Have them memorize their role.
Give each student a role.
Allow them time to read their roles.
Next, tell the students they need to mingle with the other people at a party later that night.
As they mingle they should explain their roles to one another. (What they witnessed)
Provide a witness information sheet to accompany their questioning.
Follow up the activity with a report of what happened during the crime. I usually have them write a paragraph or two describing what they saw

Student's part:

1. Each student will randomly pick a role and memorize this role.
2. The students will mingle together and try to figure out exactly what happened during the crime.
3. At the end the student will compile their information based on what each witness said.
4. They need to play the role of a detective at the end. They should try to piece all of the information together.

Copy this into a word document then print and cut out:

You were standing near the drug store; you were talking to a friend who had just come back from vacation. You were listening to her tell you all about her time in Mexico. Suddenly, you noticed three people running from the store.

You were talking to a friend about your vacation outside the drug store, suddenly, your friend shouted, "Look!" You noticed three people running from the store; one was carrying a large bag.

You were waiting in the drug store for a prescription, you were angry because you had been waiting for a very long time. Suddenly, a man pushed in front of you and started shouting. It was 3.30pm; you knew because you had been waiting for your prescription since 3pm!

You were behind the counter in the drug store - serving customers. You were hungry and angry because the customers were being so impatient and you had missed lunch. Suddenly, a man ran up to the counter and told you to handover the money.

You were helping your friend behind the counter in the drug store, you actually work in the bakery next door but it was your break and so you decided to visit your friend – now you wish that you hadn't! Suddenly, a man shouted, "Give me the money!" You tried to hide but he saw you! He had blue eyes and was wearing a green shirt and a black sweater with a hat. Your friend gave him $2,000.

You heard a man shouting in the drug store; you were looking for headache tablets. Suddenly, you heard a man shout, "Give me the money!" It was 3.30pm; you were going home to watch Oprah Winfrey, she was doing a special program on violent children.

You were standing near the counter in the drug store, you saw a man wearing a casual pair of black pants and a sloppy sweater. You were surprised because it was the middle of the summer. Suddenly, he shouted, "Give me the money!"

You were holding the door of the drug store open for a woman with a baby. She had a lot of things to carry and so you tried to help her when suddenly two men pushed you; you almost fell! As they ran away, you saw that they were wearing black sweaters.

You were walking into the drug store with your baby. You wanted to buy some diapers. You noticed a man open the door for you, but as you walked through the door two men came out and pushed you out of the way.

You were standing by the mailbox near the drug store trying to mail some letters, when you saw three men running from the store. One had a bag and two were wearing black sweaters, the last man was following them, he was wearing a red shirt.

You were working at the front of the drug store putting cans on the shelves. You were wearing a red shirt and a black pair of pants. Suddenly, you saw two men running from the store with a bag. You ran after them to try to stop them.

You are a police officer. You were standing on the street corner. You suddenly saw three men running toward you; you knew that they were in trouble. You chased them but you only managed to catch the one wearing a red shirt and black pants. When you told him to stop he resisted.

You were watching TV at home; Oprah Winfrey was on - your favorite. It was about 4.15pm when the phone rang, it was the police, they said that John had been arrested for stealing money from the drug store. You couldn't believe it- not your son and not when your favorite program was on!

You own the drug store. The police called you at 5pm to say that they had arrested John. You have no idea what happened but you always thought that he was a problem.

The Witness Information Sheet can be copied from here:

Witness Information Sheet