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JZer



Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh

PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 3:58 pm    Post subject: Continued Reply with quote

Quote:
Most German graduate programs have 12 students or less...

Wrong again.




Asiatraveller, it is amazing that someone who is a teacher and is so highly educated as yourself would state that someone is wrong without giving any information to support your claim. I guess you just tell your students that they are wrong without giving them a reason.

The point was that the University of Delaware offers about the same number of German Literature classes as other German Graduate programs such as Harvard and Penn. One reason is that in comparison to other fields there are not a lot of people doing advanced degrees in German Literature.

It seems that you were partially correct that German graduate programs have more than 12 students but even though Harvard has 21 students only about 12-15 are currently taking classes since the others have finished their course work and are working on their dissertation. Resulting in only three German graduate courses being offered. The same amount of classes that are being offered at what you call a "backwater" program.


Last edited by JZer on Sat Apr 23, 2005 4:48 pm; edited 1 time in total
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JZer



Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh

PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 4:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Asiatraveller reiterated,
Quote:
And for your information, the reputable German graduate programs are offered in Departments of German in the U.S. Yours is simply in a Department of Foreign Languages, as is common in lower-tier programs (i.e., "backwater").


...and I guess that professors with Ph.D.s from Yale and John Hopkins would choose to teach in backwater programs such as the University of Delaware.

I will reiterate that the University of Delaware might not have a German MA program that would be considered in the top 10 in the U.S. but it is absurd to call it "backwater". A program that has professors who earned Ph.D.s from schools that are in the top ten in the field cannot realistically be considered backwater. Secondly all of the professors publish regularly.

Here is a link to the only study that I know of that actually ranks German Ph.D. programs It is a little old but it is the only real data that we can go off of(The study is from the national research council):
http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc1.html
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Zero Hero



Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Posts: 944

PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 5:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Try not to be too hard on the poor 'Asia Traveller'; he is clearly delusional and may possibly be turning senile. He very recently described Hong Kong as a "backwater", too (one of his favourite terms of late), which will certainly strike anyone who has actually been here as a tad odd (to say the very least).

He is also a linguist-wannabe, and is used to being able to throw sand gleaned from a cursory reading of popular science introductions to the field into the eyes of those who are untrained in this area, as evinced by his stating Chomsky's Standard Theory was published in 1969 when in fact it is 1965, as even a green undergraduate would know. To put this into perspective for you as you may not be familiar with the material, to computational linguists such as myself trained in the Chomsky Hierarchy, Turing Machines, and Generative Grammar, this is akin to forgetting one's own birthday or name.

He is also prone to attacking posters till the thread gets locked. Indeed, it is somewhat rare to see a locked thread that doesn't have his name as the final poster, again as even a brief perusal of the various forums shows.

He also does not shy away from sheer slander (though it is possible that his juvenile mentality may not be quite able to comprehend this concept and so this may simply be immaturity). For evidence of this I simply suggest you look at the STD thread on the HK forum. According to him, one must have actually been to the North Pole to know it is cold.

All in all, quite an objectionable poster. My advice would simply be to ignore him. This is what most do.
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ls650



Joined: 10 May 2003
Posts: 3484
Location: British Columbia

PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 8:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow. Talk about needing to get the last word in. Rolling Eyes
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moonraven



Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 3094

PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 8:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's a crock, anyway.

I don't believe that JZer is studying for a MA in German.

I think he is a 15 year-old with lots of zits and no girlfriend on the horizon.
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JZer



Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh

PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 10:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Moonraven once posted:
Quote:
He also doesn't understand that if you are xenophobic, YOU can't be the foreigner. It only applies to having a negative attitude to foreigners coming to YOUR country.


Moonraven, just like I can't believe that you have a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts.

How could someone with a Ph.D. not understand that you can still be xenophobic even if you are in another country? The locals are still foreign from the prospective of a foreigner, so it is still possible to be xenophobic when a person is in another country. No part of the defintion states that it only applies to foreigners coming to your country.


Last edited by JZer on Sun Apr 24, 2005 12:52 am; edited 1 time in total
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Gordon



Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 5309
Location: Japan

PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 11:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is there a point to this thread?
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stillnosheep



Joined: 01 Mar 2004
Posts: 2068
Location: eslcafe

PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 3:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

None whatsoever Gordon; nevertheless...
JZer wrote:
Moonraven once posted:
Quote:
He also doesn't understand that if you are xenophobic, YOU can't be the foreigner. It only applies to having a negative attitude to foreigners coming to YOUR country.

How could someone with a Ph.D. not understand that you can still be xenophobic even if you are in another country? The locals are still foreign from the prospective of a foreigner, so it is still possible to be xenophobic when a person is in another country. No part of the defintion states that it only applies to foreigners coming to your country.
'fraid not JZer; if 'xeno' means outsider then xenophobia relates to fear or hatred of outsiders. The 'locals'nay still be foreign from the perspective of the (minority)outsider but only s/he can be the outsider. You seem to be confusing xenophiobia with rascism.
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JZer



Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh

PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 4:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

xeno means foreign, strange

Here is an example. John is a Canadian who is xenophobic. His company assigns him to work in Peru. When he moves to Peru he can still be xenophobic because he is affraid of what is strange or foreign. When we talk about John the Canadian that lives in Peru is xenophobic, the perspective of what is foreign is from the person or group of people that we are talking about. It does not matter whether the person or group of people that are xenophobic are the minority or majority in society since the other group of people are strange from their viewpoint of the observer.

John is xenophobic.
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JZer



Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh

PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 5:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here is the defintion of xenophobia from an etymological dictionary.

Xenophobia - "An Irrational Fear of Foreign or Strange Things." See "xen-" and "-phobia."

http://www.panikon.com/phurba/alteng/x.html
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denise



Joined: 23 Apr 2003
Posts: 3419
Location: finally home-ish

PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 10:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gordon wrote:
Is there a point to this thread?


I think ls650 got it: needing to get the last word in. Rolling Eyes

d
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JZer



Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh

PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 2:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I think ls650 got it: needing to get the last word in.

d


Was the point of your comment any different than any of the other posters?
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dyak



Joined: 25 Jun 2003
Posts: 630

PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 3:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Then clearly the last word should be, 'JZerphobia' - the very rational fear of reading sheer drivel and wasting valuable seconds of one's life.
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moonraven



Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 3094

PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 4:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I second that.

Some people--especially 15 year-olds with zits and nothing to do but play with their....computers don't understand, or don't care to understand, that this is a forum for ESL professionals.
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Zero Hero



Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Posts: 944

PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 7:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Do ESL professionals resort to describing other posters as "15 year-olds with zits" who have "nothing to do but play with their....computers"?

What are the unprofessional ones like then?

The hardest person to be honest and candid with is the one in the mirror. Isn't that right, 'Moonraver'?
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