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JimDunlop2
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Posts: 2286
Location: Japan
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 Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 9:03 am Post subject: |
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Martin, I'm seriously beginning to question whether or not you even HAVE a PhD of ANY kind, much less from a good school like McGill. Either that, or they really must lowered their standards and let just about anyone in these days.
I know very well what "allegorical" means, thank you very much. It's you who doesn't seem to understand the concept here. Let me say it again using EASIER English, as neither speaking it nor teaching it seem to be your forte:
Where did you ever indicate that your excerpt was allegorical until AFTER the fact and AFTER you had made others believe that what you posted was your own work?
Incidentally, where DID you get that quote from? |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 9:04 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Do you realize that a TESOL certificate can be obtained after only six hours of teaching practice, the rest being class time in which the teacher lectures you about how to teach? |
Not sure what this is meant to imply. Your colleagues have master's DEGREES in TESOL or related work, not CERTIFICATES. |
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PAULH
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 4672
Location: Western Japan
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| Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 9:15 am Post subject: |
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| Maybe we should mail this link to the people from the website links and see what they have to say about their esteemed colleagues assessment of their qualifications. Sounds like educational snobbery if you ask me. |
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Sherri
Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Posts: 749
Location: The Big Island, Hawaii
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| Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 9:39 am Post subject: |
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| Thank you for answering my question. You have no formal TEFL/TESL qualifications. |
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PAULH
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 4672
Location: Western Japan
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| Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 11:10 am Post subject: |
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Mike have you actually studied anything at all, during your undergraduate or Masters degree, on how to conduct research, how to write surveys, how to do pilot studies, how to reference your work and do citations? Did they teach you about plagiarism at McGill?. What was your dissertation on and is it possible to see an abstract somewhere?
Is there anything you have actually published as an academic work, an article, or is this your first attempt at publishing an article? A book is a pretty major undertaking for someone with no background in TESOL, trying to write a comparative study about education in different countries. After all, I dont try to write books about Physics or Chemistry. |
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PAULH
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 4672
Location: Western Japan
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| Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm Post subject: |
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| martinphipps wrote: |
I do have formal teacher's training from McGill University although it wasn't specifically for teaching EFL. Do you realize that a TESOL certificate can be obtained after only six hours of teaching practice, the rest being class time in which the teacher lectures you about how to teach?
Martin |
Six of your colleagues have a minimum of a Masters degrees in TESOL which if they are like mine, took 2- 3 years to complete part time or full time, required a lengthy dissertation (depending on the university). My Temple degree required 360 hours of actual classroom instruction, not including homework and reading assignments. A Masters degree in TESOL is a post graduate degree, not a dinky TESL certificate you can do in 6 hours on one weekend. |
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buffy
Joined: 12 Feb 2003
Posts: 57
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| Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:07 pm Post subject: |
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| PAULH wrote: |
| Is there anything you have actually published as an academic work, an article, or is this your first attempt at publishing an article? |
do imdb movie reviews count? |
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Gordon
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 5309
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:31 pm Post subject: |
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| I question how much research he has even done. He didn't even know what the ERIC database was? I learned that in my second year of undergraduate studies in 1990. |
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Eleckid
Joined: 03 Jun 2004
Posts: 102
Location: Aichi, Japan
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| Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 1:31 pm Post subject: |
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Hey I can read Chinese~ (cuz I AM Chinese  )
hm...it seems like there was no "assistant professor" written anywhere. At the top it says foreign language instructor, which is the same rank as the majority of ppl here. Sorry I'm not trying to belittle you, I'm just telling the truth about that rank thing from the site.
Good luck on your research & your book~ but I suggest that it's not a good idea to write about teaching in Japan based on only books & other ppl's experiences, cuz you've never actually taught here before. It's like I shouldn't talk about how it's like to live & work in HK if I've never lived & worked there. Instead of getting frustrated with the posters here, why don't you try to come here & work for a few terms? Anyway, good luck!  |
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bearcat
Joined: 08 May 2004
Posts: 367
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| Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 1:46 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for posting contact information for the place you work for there Martin.
I didn't know you had shot your mouth off on another thread as you had and that's pretty sad. But I wonder how your school( who you represent when you come on here and are doing research etc for a publication they wanted) will consider your acting as unprofessionally as you have.
You're sure playing with fire by giving all of us a means to send a direct complaint of your actions to them.
Trolling on here will get you no where... in more ways than one. |
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Smooth Operator
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Posts: 140
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 3:01 pm Post subject: |
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| It seems little more than insecurity and petty jealously that this bloke writes a meaningless post to belittle people on this board. After all, aren't the salaries better in Taiwanese conversation schools than in the universities, or did I misread that over on the Taiwan board? That isn't the case in Japan... |
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martinphipps
Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 55
Location: Taiwan
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| Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 1:32 am Post subject: Another exerpt? |
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| PAULH wrote: |
Martin
Im not working on a Masters, I graduated from my university program (Temple University) in 1994. I didnt actually write a thesis for my Masters but am writing one for my current degree.
I have worked full time in Japan as a university teacher for the last 5 years and 10 years part time before that. I now teach 12 university classes a week, and as such am a regular classroom teacher, not just 'handing in a thesis' or have my nose stuck in a book. I also find the time to write publications as well.
Taikibansei has a phD lived ten years in Japan and in that time taught full time at 2 or 3 universities, including a national university in Fukui prefecture. We are all full time teachers here, and find time to actually learn about teaching and publishing research as well.
Gordon is working full time at a university in Shikoku and is working on his Masters degree by distanced in Australia. Glenski is a full time teacher at a high school in Hokkaido, and has a masters degree in Biology. 7 years teaching experience in Japan. |
That's all very well and good but professionals should behave in a professional manner. I'm not saying you haven't. Indeed, you have and I appreciate that. I also apologize if you thought I was being snarky when I said "it helps if you can read Chinese". I only meant that, for some reason, my credentials were written mostly in Chinese so you couldn't confirm that I had a Ph.D. The fact is though that people on this group have behaved in an unprofessional manner from the very beginning. Let's see if I have time to do a quick summary.
| Glenski wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Do you work with a local teacher? Is she in the classroom with you or does she teach the same class at a different time? Is he or she considered your boss or your equal or does this depend on how much experience you have? |
There is more than one kind of teaching of English. Conversation school, elementary school, international school, JHS, HS, university, business English, JET Programme ALT, etc. You will have to pin down which type in order to answer your questions.
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There is no way "Do you work with a local teacher?" can be interpretted to mean "Do people in Japan work with local teachers?" Note the use of the article "a". I was specifically asking about people's own experiences. I wanted a sense of what it was like to teach in Japan so that I would know how similar it is to (or different from) teaching in Korea or Taiwan. I find this response to be nothing but a put down and not a genuine effort to answer my questions. Most of Glenski's responses in his first post were "What/Which type of students...?", "What type of school...?" or "Define the situation." and were clearly not intended to be a genuine effort to respond but rather an unfounded attempt to criticize a new poster.
| Glenski wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Do most people work in private cram schools or in government sponsored public schools? |
You need to get your terminology straight. Cram schools here are called jukus. |
The statement "you need to get your terminology straight" was uncalled for. In addition, it is misleading. When I asked people on this group how to translate "juku" into English they said it meant "cram school". No other translation was provided.
| Glenski wrote: |
| Quote: |
| How does the local language affect the way they speak English? |
Well, just try learning a foreign language in your home country. . |
Here he is making assumptions about me that aren't true. I have studied French, Chinese and Japanese in my home country. Yes, it does help, even though somebody later denied that it did.
| JimDunlop2 wrote: |
Book a flight and trip to Japan. Arrange to meet with various teachers of English in different venues. Interview them and ask them the questions you've asked here. |
This sounds like good advice but I am already here in Asia. I will be giving out surveys, interviewing teachers, observing classes and testing students here. Jim Dunlop couldn't possibly have been serious about me going to Japan on a weekend and doing one shot interviews with people in Japan! Even if this were a good idea, I still have to teach classes here. In addition, we are still working on a grant proposal to submit to the government of Taiwan and airfare to Japan is not going to be part of the budget. Is Jim Dunlap seriously suggesting that I can learn about teaching Taiwan by interviewing teachers in Japan? Again, I just wanted to know how different Japan was from Korea or Japan. This should have been clear from my first statement in my first post:
| Quote: |
| I am writing a book about teaching English in Asia, but my experience only relates to Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines. Tell me about teaching English in Japan. |
Interestingly enough, people have criticized me about not knowing about teaching in Japan when I admitted from the beginning that "my experience only relates to Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines"!
| JimDunlop2 wrote: |
| The "shotgun" approach of asking a VERY general question on an Internet forum will yield questionable results at best. I apologize if I sound rude, but as an assistant professor, of all people, you should know that. |
Again, it should have been clear that I wasn't going to use my "results" here as "data". In fact, in my response to AgentMulderUK I said "I doubt if I would be quoting anyone from here". Jim Dunlop even knew he was being rude when he suggested that that was what I was doing!
My background is in the physical sciences. I am used to dealing with hard, cold facts. Even Glenski's comment about "phonics not taught here" seems to be to be, as Jim Dunlop said, "a broad sweeping stereotype". I can't use that "information", but I might be interested in a link to a study that can actually confirm this claim!
I do give credit to Jim Dunlop, however, to making more of an attempt to answer my questions. Amongst other things, he said "The fact that phonics is not taught is a complex problem." Indeed! And yet this claim implies that nobody in Japan is teaching phonics. I suspect that this claim is completely unsupportable! David Paul claims that his David English House is teaching phonics. Is he lying?
Now, round two.
| Glenski wrote: |
martinphipps,
I can see that you are really not into taking a proper poll. Your questions really don't pin people down to give you the appropriate breakdown that I have already suggested. |
Amazing! He misread my intentions and made some snarky comments but instead of apologizing, he insults me!
Yet when I ask him why he is being rude he says
| Glenski wrote: |
Martin,
Rude? Please show me where I have been rude. |
Apparently, he just doesn't know how to be polite. Similarly,
| taikibansei wrote: |
| Spot on. He's obviously done no independent research on this topic. |
This isn't true, of course. It's just that the research I had done to date concerned general teaching methods and motivation theory. I
knew that my knowledge of Japan was a weak area and that was the whole point of coming here! You can't have it both ways! You can't criticize me about not knowing about Japan and criticize me about wanting to find out more about Japan!
| AsiaTraveller wrote: |
martin,
You can't possibly do a study (comparative or otherwise) by NOT doing primary research. ... In the preface to your "book", will you state that your results about Japan and Thailand were obtained by a very dodgy poll on a public Web site whose posters were anonymous and unknown to you? Just how will you cite this "research"?
Lazy research is not research. |
Again, we have someone making assumptions. Of course I will do primary research! And I already said "I doubt if I would be quoting anyone from here". People who respond to my posts should look at what I actaully say! Lazy reading is not reading!
I find it interesting that nobody responded to the following:
| martinphipps wrote: |
I know full well that posting on a public forum is not scientific: there's the issue of self-selection for starters. But people who post on forums like this ARE more likely to be able to answer these questions than random foreigners who I might pick off the streets of Japan and forums like this are more likely to enable one to determine what is really true because people are not shy about coming out and saying if they think a poster is feeding me "*beep*". Which approach do you REALLY think is more valid?
Martin |
Actually, I see that it was bearcat who told me about the book "Preschool in Three Cultures", not you, so I apologize to bearcat for lumping him in with everybody else here. I don't think this is a problem though because I don't think he is a regular poster here. In any case, he said "I think amazon carries it" and I said "Thanks" so I don't know why people accused me of not knowing about amazon.com!
Even you were rude to me once when you said "just to make sure you follow". Do you talk like that to your students? That was the point of my "exerpt".
Then, round three.
| Glenski wrote: |
| Quote: |
| I've got a lot of work to do. |
Yes, you do. Would you mind answering the very first (and un-rude) question I asked? I think you are pretty much writing without necessary focus, and from the sounds of things, even with a year to go, you have not really compiled sound material for a serious publication. No offense; that's just the way I see it.
My question was:
What exactly is the difference between your book and the many others out there that tell the same thing? |
Amazing! Did Glenski somehow miss when I said
| martinphipps wrote: |
Yes, I know about David Paul's book _Teaching English to Children in Asia_ but I don't agree with the idea that Child-Centered methodology is necessarily the way to go in Asia because for most Asian countries the level of English is very low and they need to spend more time on basics like the alphabet and phonics before they can be expected to learn on their own. Besides, David Paul's book doesn't deal with specific issues relating to Asian counties: nor does he discuss Asian countries separately and ask if the same methods can be used throughout the region. In other words, he really doesn't even address in his book any of the questions I asked about in my post.
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or the real exerpt I gave? It's true I wasn't aware about all the books he listed about teaching in Japan but those books don't seem to be available here in Taiwan. Is he seriously suggesting I blow my entire budget ordering books through amazon.com when he can't recommend any of the books on his list? Indeed, he said
| Glenski wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Glenski is not specifically recommending this--or any--of the books on his list. |
That's right. I have read one of those Wharton books and feel the same way.
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so he was not being helpful, just being cynical. Thanks a lot, Mr. Glenski!
| AsiaTraveller wrote: |
| martinphipps wrote: |
| Look, the fact is the school wants me to publish something to raise the prestige of the school and the department and I want to publish something mainly out my own interest in the subject (intrinsic motivation) and the fact that it might mean more money and more pretige for me doesn't hurt either. Everybody wins. |
Glenski, he's only writing this pseudo-tome because his department asked him to -- for nonacademic reasons, no less. He doesn't know how to go about it, but he wants to keep his superiors happy. Give him enough info and links, and he'll leave us alone. Then surely "everybody wins"!!! And he and his department will have their prestige. |
Okay, I corrected the spelling mistake. (Prestiege rhymes with siege.) But I also said "I want to publish something mainly for my own interest in the subject." AsiaTreavellor wrote "he's only writing this pseudo-tome because his department asked him to". Where did that come from? Again, I have to wonder about the reading comprehension skills of people on this forum!
| Gordon wrote: |
And the authors may have even stepped foot in the country they are talking about. Isn't that a novel concept.  |
Again, assumptions. I have been to Japan several times. I just ahve never taught there. Nor am I writing a book specifically about Japan.
| Glenski wrote: |
martin,
Are you a native English speaker? How hard it is to understand this comment? |
This is after Glenski displayed no reading comprehension whatsoever in replying to my first post. I had had enough and so I said
| martinphipps wrote: |
Actually, I'm starting to think that you people were right all along: there IS no point talking to people here. With the exception of PAULH who obviously knows what he is talking about, I probably know more about teaching English in Asia than all of you people on this board put together and THAT is what qualifies me to write this book, that plus the fact that we ARE going to do interviews with teachers here in Taichung, give out surveys and, as planned, go on to do a study of how their different teaching methods affect the performance of their students.
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and
| martinphipps wrote: |
Glenski, I have a specific question for just you: why are you on this board? Are you really here to help answer people's ligitamate questions about teaching in Japan or are you merely here for self-agrandizing and trying to make out that you are smarter than everybody else? The big fish in the small pond, so to speak. It seems to me that you are so devoted to putting people down as the only means to raise your own own self-esteem that you've actually forgotten how to be polite to anyone. I find this to be truly sad.
As for why I think my book would be worth reading, go check my second post in this thread or the exerpt I kindly provided. I really don't want to have to repeat myself for a supposed native speaker of English who is obviously so lacking in any degree of reading comprehension whatsoever.
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I still stand behind these statements. I feel that, as a result of coming to this forum, that an MA in TESOL/linguistics isn't worth the paper it is printed on, for if the people on this forum had truly been professionals then they would have acted like professionals.
I didn't bother reading any of Glenski's comments after this point. I figured there was nothing to gain by doing so.
Martin |
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martinphipps
Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 55
Location: Taiwan
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| Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 1:38 am Post subject: |
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| JimDunlop2 wrote: |
Martin, I'm seriously beginning to question whether or not you even HAVE a PhD of ANY kind, much less from a good school like McGill. Either that, or they really must lowered their standards and let just about anyone in these days.
I know very well what "allegorical" means, thank you very much. It's you who doesn't seem to understand the concept here. Let me say it again using EASIER English, as neither speaking it nor teaching it seem to be your forte:
Where did you ever indicate that your excerpt was allegorical until AFTER the fact and AFTER you had made others believe that what you posted was your own work?
Incidentally, where DID you get that quote from? |
From http://www.webster.com
Main Entry: al�le�gor�i�cal
Pronunciation: "a-l&-'gor-i-k&l, -'g�r-
Function: adjective
1 : of, relating to, or having the characteristics of allegory
2 : having hidden spiritual meaning that transcends the literal sense of a sacred text
- al�le�gor�i�cal�ly /-k(&-)lE/ adverb
- al�le�gor�i�cal�ness /-k&l-n&s/ noun
I wrote the "exerpt". The "student" represents me. Read it again with comprehension.
Martin |
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martinphipps
Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 55
Location: Taiwan
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| Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 1:41 am Post subject: |
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| Sherri wrote: |
| Thank you for answering my question. You have no formal TEFL/TESL qualifications. |
Thank you for establishing that you are a complete and utter moron.
Martin |
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martinphipps
Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 55
Location: Taiwan
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| Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 1:55 am Post subject: |
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| PAULH wrote: |
Mike have you actually studied anything at all, during your undergraduate or Masters degree, on how to conduct research, how to write surveys, how to do pilot studies, how to reference your work and do citations? Did they teach you about plagiarism at McGill?. What was your dissertation on and is it possible to see an abstract somewhere?
Is there anything you have actually published as an academic work, an article, or is this your first attempt at publishing an article? A book is a pretty major undertaking for someone with no background in TESOL, trying to write a comparative study about education in different countries. After all, I dont try to write books about Physics or Chemistry. |
It's "Martin"
My Master's dissertation was on selileptonic weak decay of mesons whereas my Ph.D. dissertaion was on strong decays of heavy mesons.
Academic snobbery? I admit it. In physics, we deal with hard facts. Newton didn't write in Principia that apples fall from trees so gravity must exist, even though that is what a lot of children are told he said! He made careful calculations to plot the course of the moon's orbit. In the humanities, there is a tendency to quote opinions from respected authors, as if the opinions themselves constitute evidence. I know. I have been reading a lot of education papers lately and a lot of people quote opinions without detailing the specific studies that led to these opinions. The humanities simply aren't as rigorous as the physical sciences. Anyone who says that my Ph.D. in physics "isn't good enough" has neglected this very fact.
Here is an actual exerpt from my resume
Publications
�Inclusive and Exclusive Decays of Heavy Mesons�, Philippine National Physics Congress Extended Abstracts, October 27th-29th, 1998
�Why Should We Care About Particle Physics?�, Philippine Physics Journal, Volume 20, pages 1-4, 1998
A Partonic Treatment of the Inclusive and Exclusive Semileptonic Decays of Heavy Mesons, Ph. D. thesis, McGill University, June, 1996
�Inclusive and Exclusive Semileptonic Decays of B Mesons�, M. Phipps, Proceedings of the MRST Conference, University of Rochester, May 8th-9th, 1995
�Quark Model Calculation of eta->l+l- to all orders in the bound state relative momentum�, B. Margolis, J. Ng, M. Phipps and H. D. Trottier, Physical Review D47, pages 1942-1950, 1993
Applications of Perturbative QCD and QED Using Fully Relativistic Wave Functions, M.Sc. thesis, McGill University, July, 1992
�The Effect of Substrate Bias on the Growth of PbTe Films Deposited onto BaF2 by R.F. Magnetron Sputtering�, S. R. Das, T. G. Cook, M. Phipps and W. E. Boland, Thin Solid Films, 181,pages 227-233, 1989
Talks
�Inclusive and Exclusive Decays of Heavy Mesons�, talk given by M. Phipps for the Samahang Pisika Ng Pilipinas National Physics Congress at the University de Ateneo, Quezon City, Philippines on October 27th, 1998
�How General Relativity Might Imply Quantum Mechanics�, talk given by M. Phipps for the School of Science and Engineering at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco, on October 30th, 1996
�Inclusive and Exclusive Semileptonic Decays of B. Mesons�, talk given by M. Phipps for the MRST Conference at the University of Rochester, New York State, U.S.A. on May 8th, 1995
Oh, and the reason you aren't writing about physics or chemistry is that you haven't been teaching physics or chemistry for the past five and a half years.
Martin |
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