Job Discussion Forums

[sliim]

VS: You do not need to apologize to me, but thanks for your kindness.

7atetan: As far as my being a "bigot" that supports the "cesspits" of the world, you are wrong. What I do believe is that people in a given country, whatever country, should have the right to decide their national destiny without foreign intervention.

As far as the case with Iran is concerned, the situation is complicated. There are deeply religious Iranians that support their government, and there are others, also deeply religious, that despise it. There are those who are not religious at all and yet supported the revolution, at least at the time, and many of those supporters were later pushed out as the centers of power, post-revolution, centralised. And there are still others that desire a western-friendly, free market capitalist society. And so on. Me personally, I don�t feel that it is my right, as a foreigner, to impose my political will upon them. So, in short, Iran is a deeply polarized place, politically speaking, yet, in spite of my limited acquaintance with Iranians and Iran, I see them as a sophisticated, educated and cultured people that are capable of fixing their problems for themselves.

Others may view them as a �cesspit.�

If that makes me a bigot, I stand condemned.

Specifically to ESL teaching, what I do not agree with�and I mean no harm to the poster who mentioned this first�that was walkingstick, I believe�and yes walkingstick is perfectly entitled to take a different view�but I contend that that ESL teaching should not be a sort of missionary activity meant to expand the great colonial project.

I mean, ESL could be a forum for substantive intercultural dialogue through language learning, but I have found that often it ends up with me teaching hungry kids in poor countries the Headway series, with its pretty girls, shiny cars, and big juicy hamburgers.

Finally, I apologize for the tone in my earlier messages, I could have been more...measured (that's for you Johnslat).

And I also apologize if I have enflamed anyone�s attachment to their own form of pseudospeciation--religious, tribal, ethnic, or national.

Best.

[walkingstick]

Dear Sliim,
Thanks for bringing the discussion back around to teaching.

This is funny:
There is no copyright law in Iran, so they can take textbooks from the UK (for example) and after altering them, make their own copies and sell at a higher price.

So this one textbook we were using for the conversational course had a lesson on camping. There had been pictures of men, women and children camping in a large group. They changed the title to having a "Picnic" and the women (who were in shorts before) had long black Islamic clothing.

Movies there were the same way. They'd take an American movie and put subtitles with it, so when a character in the movie is drinking alcohol or talking about it, the word for 'milk' appears.

China sells "Western" products to Iran, even though the products are usually already knock-offs. Iran buys them, alters them and then sells them for a higher price to the people of Iran. The most popular products there are those that are either Italian or American.

Iranians have a fascination with all things Italian...something to do with The Godfather, which is an American movie.

Try this: Ask any Iranian what their favorite movie is. Promise they'll say The Godfather.

Well, I got us off teaching again.

Walkingstick

[veiledsentiments]

[Sheikh N Bake]

Juicy cheeseburgers and cokes for everyone!

I'd like to show them 1975 reruns of Saturday Night Live, with John Belushi as the immigrant cheeseburger cook.

Jane Curtin: "Uhm, We'll have two hamburgers, two cheeseburgers and four Cokes, please."

JB: "No Coke. Pepsi!"

Jane, slightly annoyed. "Fine, Pepsi, whatever. And two hamburgers and two cheeseburgers."

JB: "No hamboigah. Cheeseboigah."

Jane [rolls her eyes, sighs]: "Fine, four cheeseburgers and four Pepsis."

JM [to kitchen]: "CHEESEBOIGAH, CHEESEBOIGAH, CHEESEBOIGAH, CHEESEBOIGAH, PEPSI, PEPSI, PEPSI, PEPSI!"

[johnslat]

Dear Sheikm

BEBSI, Blease.

Regards,
John