Understanding Wider Perspective of Teaching

In the article “Shifting Perspectives about Grammar: Changing What and How We Teach” by Deborah Dean, the author talks about different perspective to grammar. She starts with the change in her own approach: in first, she was teaching grammar conventional way – tests and sentences that were not written by the students [A complex-compound sentence with two independent clauses and a relative (dependent) clause at the end. A colon and a dash used instead of conjunctions to connect a clause and to draw attention to the statement]. Then the curriculum changed, and this brought a new approach to teaching into the classroom. But this particular method was not ideal: students were not ready to experiment with more complex concepts. This gave the author an idea about approach to teaching sentence structures depending on the rhetorical situation: different types of audiences require different wording and phrasing, when the same approach wouldn’t be entirely effective under different circumstances. [A complex-compound sentence with two independent clauses in the beginning, connected by the colon, and dependent clause at the end connected by the subordinating conjunction]. Dean started to use models of genre to allow students construct their own sentences using same style. The downside of this approach was that the students started to identify certain patterns only with the genre, and it needed to be changed. There still were students that wanted to know “the” right answer. Others were thinking that there were no right answers at all. These two points of view represent the edges of the same spectrum and approach to teaching grammar – both needed adjustment. Further exposure students to the authentic text also helped to widen their horizon, because now they were able to see patterns used by more experienced writers. Also Dean mentions that the ability to appropriately use language represents ethos – a credibility of the writer, a power to be heard and valued.  

The approach of the author of the article to teaching grammar changed over the period of 25 years. What is written on six short pages represents a lifetime in search of the right path of teaching. The philosophy of teaching grammar in this case shows care for the students: they were not able to learn dry grammar on the abstract examples, and teaching them grammar didn’t improve their writing skills. The last statement is surprising, but when I looked at it more closely, I realized that it is true. Just teaching rules never benefits the student. Recently, one of my friends told me that she struggled with math in school. Even though she always learned the rules, it was difficult for her to solve actual problems because she didn’t have clear understanding of how to use them. Disconnected teaching, disregarded the interests of students and negligence towards their learning process can spoil any subject: math, chemistry, or physics. I always found myself struggling with the subjects that the teachers or professors didn’t quite understand themselves or didn’t care to pour the knowledge into us – receivers of that knowledge. My philosophy for teaching is going to be based on a personal approach: how do my students benefit from this pile of knowledge, while they are trying to understand new or even foreign concepts? [A complex-compound sentence in form of a question with two independent clauses connected with colon, and with subordinate clause at the end, connected with subordinating conjunction]. We teach, and we tell students that they need to care, but our task is to make them understand by showing the structure of the subject. [A complex-compound sentence with short independent clause ended with nontransitive verb, second independent clause connected to the first with a coordinating conjunction, followed by the relative clause with nontransitive verb, and with a third independent clause at the end, connected to the rest of the sentence with coordinative conjunction]. It is our clear understanding and our knowledge that shines through them. My philosophy and my approach is that students shouldn’t be scared by the complexity of the subject, because my knowledge and clear understanding will guide them through the distances, which each of them needs to cover. Some might have a better understanding, but the others might have a steep learning curve to get to the same level – my task is not to discourage them, but to show how they can arrive into the understanding of the subject. It is like a single lit candle in the dark room full of never lit candles – it needs to spread its flame to the other candles and lit up the whole room.

Ukrainian roots of Kuban and Great Famine of 1932-1933.

Here I posted first draft of the Language resistance project. Still be a lot to work on, but here it comes:

           The language of power is an interesting topic. The power represents success. Success in society. It is true that history is written by the winners. Domination over other cultures usually leaves no room for a suppressed culture or ideology to coexist. There are no equality, and this misbalance starts to show in every aspect of the social life. In case of the Kuban Region in Russia, the history tells a tragic story: once conquered by the Ukrainian Cossacks region became not only their home, but also changed their identity forever. Their free spirit was the only thing that kept them from being assimilated for the decades of the Soviet state, despite targeted genocide among with the population of Ukraine.

            Both areas, Ukraine and Kuban, were called the “twin targets.” In the article “Complicating the National Interpretation of the Famine: Reexamining the Case of Kuban” Brian J. Boeck mentions that according to the governmental decrees from 1932 and 1933 these regions singled out due to “their Ukrainian character” (33). The article “Dehumanization: The Change in the moral and ethical Consciousness of Soviet Citizens as a Result of Collectivization and Famine” by Sergey Maksudov mentioned that both Kuban and Ukraine opposed new order of things (131). The population of both had special cast of warriors, noble rebels, in their midst. According to Ja-Jeong Koo in his article “From the Estate to a Cossack Nation: Kuban’ Samostiinost’, 1917”, same as a cast of Cossacks in Ukraine itself, warriors in Kuban region were descendants of the Cossacks of Zaporozh’e Sech, and they were ethnic Ukrainians (1650).  In this matter Ukraine was always removed for its independent spirit and tendency to have things done their way.

            As a part of the Ukrainian or close to Ukrainian identity, the language is also targeted in Kuban region. In the beginning of 1930s the authorities identified resistance to the Communist’s policies in the region with the language of the people (Boeck 33). Since the Cossacks were not really a literate segment of the population, they didn’t pay much attention to the scholarly aspects of the language (Boeck 34). This cast always were warriors, terror of their enemies, renowned for the strict discipline and unquestionable loyalty (Toje 1059). The language rights were not part of their focus. Besides, there existed other circumstances.

            Even before the Socialistic Revolution in the 1917, Russian language was always a language of power and success. An advancement in a career even in the period of the Tsarist Russia was not possible without mastering Russian Language (Boeck 34). This fact explains a neglect of the Cossacks towards the grammar of their mother tongue: they enjoyed speaking it in their settlements, with their families, but the more crucial part of preserving and advancing the language was not important.

            However, a number of Ukrainian schools existed in the Kuban region. There were teachers in those schools who were working towards preserving the legacy of their ascendants (Boeck 41). Literacy and self-awareness became an obvious problem to the authorities: the Kuban region was not ready to completely accept Soviet power. The armed resistance of the Cossacks, free spirited people, lasted here and in Ukraine the longest. Few facts from historic documents point towards dissatisfaction of the authorities with Kuban region.

The authorities found a direct connection between the continuous resistance and Ukrainian identity of Kuban people. One of the assigned governors of the region pointed out to the fact that a lot of population, who were involved in the Civil War of the 1917-1920, fought for the White side (Boeck 38). The Whites represented old Tsarist regime, and the Soviet power was called Reds in this conflict. The whole region at that time was trying to get independent from the Soviet Russia, and/or join Ukraine as their ethnic motherland (Boeck 39). Any of these perspectives and facts were a direct defiance of the Soviet order. Thus, the authorities decided to act.

            Some chronicles mention that Ukrainian schools were specifically targeted. By 1933 approximately 1500 teachers were killed or deported from Kuban (Boeck 42). By 1934 the only language taught in the schools of the region was Russian (Kuzio 2). Ukrainian was banned from Kuban as a written language, language of the press of any open radio transmission. The official ban lasted until the fall of the USSR – end of summer in 1991 (Boeck 42). The Ukrainian language was specifically targeted to be erased from the region, but not only this was done to bring the proud Cossack cast into the submission.

            At the same time most inhuman approach was chosen to suppress any kind of the opposition in connection with the language rights – hunger. The renowned Holodomor of 1932-33 was a final stage of the collectivization – a replacement of personal and private property with the shared assets for the entire community. The Ukraine and Kuban were the areas which most vividly protested against such order of things (Maksudov 131). It is not hard to notice that Holodomor and the cease of the language rights in Kuban happened at the same time. Some historians doesn’t think that it was a mere coincidence.

            The collectivization had few stages: 1) since 1928 the population were no longer allowed to have their own farms; 2) since 1931 most deliberate and active members of the countryside community were pronounced the “enemies of the people” or “kulaks” because of their success; 3) at 1932 land, domestic livestock, poultry, agricultural implements and even preserves were confiscated and added to the shared farms – kolhoz (Maksudov 128-130). The harvest was “bought” by the authorities in a high quantities and fixed low price (Maksudov 127). It became virtually impossible to proposer cultivating the land. The people were left with only one choice – passive resistance. Since all of the values for success were broken by a Soviet Regime, the peasants simply refused to work hard (Maksudov 131). People were refusing to take care of the harvest and often times left it in the field (Maksudov 131). The Great Famine or Holodomor of 1932-33 became a response of the authorities to such protest.

Sources

The following are the sources that I would like to use for the Language of Power and Resistance Project:

Canagaragah, Suresh A. “The Place of World Englishes in Composition: Pluralization Continied.”

            College Composition and Communication, 57.4 (2006): 586-619. Web.20 Sep. 2016.

Boeck, Brian J. “Complicating the National Interpretation of the Famine: Reexamining the Case of

            Kuban.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies. 30.4 (2008): 31-49. Web. 14 Oct. 2016.

Toje, Hege. “Cossack Identity in the New Russia: Kuban Cossack Revival and Local Politics.”

            Europe-Asia Studies. 58.7 (2006): 1057-1077. Web. 10 Oct. 2016.

Maksudov, Sergey. “Dehunamization: The Change in the Moral and Ethical Consciousness of Soviet

            Citizens as a Result of Collectivization and Famine.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies. 30.4 
             (2008): 123-149. Web. 10 Oct. 2016.

          

“Code switching” vs “Code meshing.”

It may seem like an easy fix, but I decided to stay with the “The Place of the World Englishes in Composition: Pluralization Continued” as one of the articles for the research project. Previously, some of the concepts from this article were discussed in our blogs. I found out, while reading the article further, that there is much more to what is already mentioned. The article discusses approach which allows students use their vernacular English in their texts: while some researchers allow students to compose original papers in their home or native language with working their way to the Standard English in the final draft, Canagarajah proposes to allow not only the “code switching” but the “code meshing” in the same paper. (Canagarajah 598).  [The first sentence contains general info, and the second sentence provides more details on the topic]. As we learned, "code switching" allows use of different varieties in different settings, but the "code meshing" uses the vernacular and the Standard English in the same capacity. According to Canagarajah, this approach will reduce the clash between these two different codes. The clash itself represents the resistance between the two codes. Some people argue that it is important to use only the vernacular English, and make it as important as the Standard variety, when the others insist on the use of the only Standard English for the academic and official use. Both of such approaches are the opposite sides of the same problem, and they might result in a conflict. But Canagarajah explains that the “code meshing” is called to smooth out such differences. The “code meshing” will allow students to use their vernacular without editing it and in the same piece of writing with the Standard English. Thus, such approach will not only allows the diversity into the classroom, but also will teach students that both of the varieties are equally important.

As for the use of this approach, I already have seen it in some of the blogs. I need to agree that “code meshing” seems to work better than the “code switching” in this particular matter. In my opinion, it allows to show the rhetoric significance of the vernacular English without reducing its status to the insufficiency or the utterly wrong approach to the language as a whole. I can relate to such way of integrating. Or, more accurately, to the lack of such integration and respect for the other language or its kind.

In my own family the older generation always spoke in Ukrainian. As I grew up speaking Russian, it was difficult for me to understand some of the words and phrases that my grandparents used. I remember a funny example of my confusion: my grandfather told me to find a hammer. [More details provided in the sentence after the colon].After I asked where it might be, he used a phrase in Ukrainian that meant that he had very little idea himself. Well, they had a house with a half of the acre field and garden around it. I don’t mention different sheds and storages… But I didn’t know the meaning of what was said at the time, and I honestly went on my search, thinking of a particular destination. After about one hour of my absence, my grandfather came looking for me, and he asked what I am doing. I told him that I am trying to find his hammer. He laughed, and he said that the phrase which he used meant that he didn’t know himself. After this I became more curious about the language that he and my grandmother spoke. I have learned it. At least the spoken part of it. But Ukrainian was always looked down at as an inferior language. I remember when my mom described her first trip to Ukraine: she said that it sounded and felt like a big village. [The information after the colon unpacks the info in the prior statement]. Language of the poorly educated villagers – that is how Ukrainian is treated in my native region. I also remember how my youngest brother said that he was laughed at in school while in the first grade because he thought that the Ukrainian word for the watermelon was a proper one to use there. Well, it didn’t last long: he was bigger, taller and almost one full year older than any of his peers. [Beginning of the sentence with the rhetorical phrase, use of the colon – the information provides more insight into the situation]. But still – he was embarrassed. When I started my professional career as a quality control supervisor, I remember when one of my colleagues approached me and asked to speak to one of those people who come for work from the other side of the mountain range. Well, the place where he came from was less than thirty miles away… When I came to speak with him, I realized that he speaks pure Eastern Ukrainian. My colleague simply didn’t understand him. The man was already pretty frustrated with the fact that no one gets what he is saying, and honestly happy when I started to speak to him in his mother tongue.

The intolerance to the other language in the region was showing everywhere: at home, with the family and at work. [The information after the colon contains a list]. The whole conflict with the Ukraine actually started based on the intolerance of Russians towards Ukrainian language and of Ukrainian intolerance towards Russian language – but this is absolutely different story. The long story is short – if the not totally opposite points of view, it would be much less conflicts in the world. I think with a compromise between the two languages – Russian and Ukrainian – no war would have happened. The whole conflict started with the problem of the language rights. Lack of a good compromise and rigid points of view never end up good. I agree with Canaragajah that his “code meshing” is far better approach to change the English gradually. The “code meshing” treats all the varieties of language that are used in the same text as equal ones. 

History always going to repeat itself…

The article by A. Suresh Canagarajah talks about changes in the English Language or, more appropriately, languages. As it is described, there more than just Australian, American, British and Canadian Englishes in the world. All world varieties, although they all started with the British English, have their own properties. These properties evolved as a result of the ways how local communities resisted colonization and changed the original language according to their own social practices (Caragarajah 588). Caragarajah also calls it the “nativization” of English (588). A historic tendency, which is described in the article, has its own direction, and it is always favors the language varieties that are not a main stream at the moment. The article supports this point by providing a prognosis about future population of the world that is going to use English as a second spoken language. The data shows that by 2050 there are going to be 30 million people more to use English as a second language and to speak some kind of the non-standard variety. Although classrooms doesn’t allow any kinds of the varieties of English into the composition at this time, the voices of World Englishes gain more power and confidence. Since the majority of the English speakers will be no longer among the sole or first language users, the rules of the language going to be influenced and changed in coming decades. Such varieties of English as Indian or Nigerian no longer going to be appropriate only for those areas and countries – they are going to be accepted and treated in the same manner as the Standard English at this time. Such limited approach to the language limits diversity and benefits from learning.

Later Caragarajah explains why “monolingual” pedagogies are not effective in the classroom. Even though they represent the language of power at this time, such pedagogies lack vitality of the living varieties (Caragarajah 591). A real life examples of the students with different backgrounds confirm that effectiveness of the narrowed and skewed approach to learning English is least effective in comparison to leaning while interacting with different language varieties (Caragarajah 591). The main idea behind these findings – to teach students how to “shuttle” between language varieties, and use them in appropriate to the social situation manner (Caragarajah 593). This approach allows to give the students an appreciation for the natural diversity together with a better awareness of the social concepts.

From this section of the article I have learned that there is a far stronger than I expected tendency to change current English by legitimization of the international or world varieties of the language. It reminded me of the historical changes inside every cultural and language community. I heard ones that history always repeats itself and goes in circles or spirals for that matter. This was a way for my history teacher in school to keep our attention and explain why we need to learn about something that is long gone. In her explanation, only history helps to avoid similar mistakes in the future. As I mentioned it in the class, what is happening with English (or any other language for that sake) is already happened to a number of the languages that we call “dead” at this time. For example, Latin language became a platform to English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Romanian languages. I am pretty sure that those languages sounded like an uneducated garble and a pile of errors in the use of the Latin to the well brought Romans when those conquered tribes changed the original language according to their local social practices. This is exactly what Caragarajah describes in the article. Because of all the spirals in the history, we, as a living generation, shouldn’t oppose and oppress these social tendencies – it is only natural for such change to occur. This change happens all over the world. In the Russian language I encountered a lot of words that originally came from a much older Turkic language. These words, to my surprise, are the same in the Iranian language – Farsi. While digging more on this topic, I discovered that such languages as Armenian, Indian and many Slavic languages all came form that same original language platform. In the future other languages that only form or emerge at the moment are going to be changed in the same manner.

Talking about future, I recalled a movie, based on H.G. Well’s novel, which tells about a time traveler, who accidently went in his machine by many million years into the future, and he found our world recovered after a collision between the Earth and the Moon. The civilization was primitive, and the protagonist struggled to understand local population. It turned out, the language that he spoke they called a “stone language”, and their present language was some evolved form of English. Well, the movie didn’t get very high IMDb score. Only 5.9, but as all Wells’ novels it is shockingly graphic in its idea of the humanity separated by the evolution into the prey and predator types. However, the idea of the dead language was pictured even there.

All together – lessons of history and fantasies about future – the tendencies point towards change in the language, and we only need to accept it as a natural order of things.

Learning   right: Avoiding perfect structure of chaos.

In her article Darren Crovitz offers interesting approach to the error analysis. Her method allows errors into the classroom, and it offers thorough explanations to each and every one of them based on the logical deduction. Stiff rules of grammar don’t provide students with enough understanding of the language, and they take their confidence away. The most important task for any teacher is to make students to understand why this rule of spelling or punctuation works one way or another. Without proper understanding all efforts to teach or learn grammar are in vain. Students need to care for the grammar rules, and this is not coming from a dry grammar drill. Their participation is the key to learning. As it is mentioned by Crovitz, the students might struggle through every day’s DOL, and still make mistakes during the tests. The turning point in this situation is to remove chaos of perfectly structured grammar, mess it up a bit, and make it more approachable for the student.

It doesn’t take much to create chaos. Speaking scientism, this is the nature of our Universe. Second law of thermodynamics states that chaos always increases over time. Of course, there is a theory of the multiple Universes, where our laws of physics simply don’t apply. Well, we didn’t get there yet. In our Universe chaos and confusion always find their way in. This stuff is so cool that now scientists can tell if life on this or that distant planet may or may not exist simply by measuring…the level of chaos in its atmosphere. Back to the topic now. The rules without proper interpretation will be just rules. Perfect chaos has impeccable, predictable, and expected structure. Same with the grammar rules – it is not possible to learn them sufficiently without proper knowledge and understanding. Stiff rules, dry formulas and fear of a bad grade can easily create chaos in student’s understanding of the language. It is like trying to find life on Mars: all components are there, but it just doesn’t seem to work.  One genius in 1960s already proved that there is no life on the Red Planet, because its atmosphere is too organized, too structured, and perfectly dead. Nothing like Earth. Yet, they keep spending billions of dollars on this. An unending attempt to prove him wrong ever since. In the same way teachers provide students with the dead grammar and wonder why they seem to struggle to make it work.

In the classroom it is clear that just stuffing student’s heads with perfectly organized rules doesn’t really work. It brings chaos to the knowledge and understanding that they had before. Some of them are going to be supported only by a thought that this horror of grammar will be over. Sooner or later. Grammar must be alive, if the students in a classroom are going to make sense out of it. According to Crovitz, errors have their own living structure, and this structure needs to be analyzed and connected with grammar. The sentences in Daily Oral Lessons in the average school doesn’t come from student’s writing. Those sentences are lifeless in their eyes. The life comes into grammar together with the involvement of the students. And it doesn’t really matter what language you speak – dry grammar rules are horror in any culture. I was lucky enough to “get” Russian and become a straight “A” student, but the rest of my family never had anything higher than “B” or even “C”. Russian is a truly difficult language. Especially written Russian. Even for the native speakers. I remember my mom saying that she always knew the rules, but never could pass a test or a dictation without significant amount of errors. Perfect chaos of grammatical structures in her mind never came to life. And she still does same errors until this day. Looking back, I realize that I turned out definitely because I was lucky to have a teacher, who explained not just perfect structure of grammar rules, but the reasons behind them. After that grammar drills stopped being an inevitable torture, and they started to make sense. Over time, they actually became a refuge. What happened in my life is that the teacher removed the pressure, created the environment for discussing errors in the classroom, and showed how to make sense first out of my own omissions. After this the grammar came to life, and it started to be a support. This is what Crovitz discusses in her article – students will learn only by making and by understanding their own mistakes.

During the activity for our group in class, we are going to offer four different concepts for everyone in a class to construct sentences, appropriate for the different occasions. In this mini lesson we would like to show how same concept can sound different, and it may carry different emotions. An offered concept in the article - You're fired - has different emotions in every sentence of the example: 
1. We regret to inform you that your professional services are no longer required.
2. Sorry, Bob, but with the poor economy we have to let you go.
3. Get out now and don't come back!
4. I'm breaking up with you.

All four sentences carry pretty much same core information, but the first one is official and informal. It doesn't contain any emotion. The second sentence carries regret and care. Third one carries anger. But the forth sentence carries personal decision to end things. All four are appropriate for their own situation. 

P.S.: Patterns of the week are highlighted in bold inside of the post.

Learning with humiliation.

As I have read both texts, I have realized that they talk about same topic, but in a little bit different manner. When Grammar Alive! – as it might be expected of the text book of any sort – talks about all goals of teaching grammar in equal capacity, the Christensen’s article advocates more for the Goal C. As any convincing paper, the article uses combination of the three modes of persuasion: ethos, pathos and logos. For those that are not familiar with the Aristotle’s appeals, ethos stands for credibility and authority, pathos stands for emotional appeal, and logos stands for the facts provided in the writing to support the point or claim.  The Grammar Alive! also uses all three appeals. The leading appeal in the text book is logos; leading appeal in the Christensen’s article is pathos. The difference between the two texts is in a different appeal.

It is clear that both of the texts aimed towards same audience – group of academic peers and teachers of grammar. But they address different aspects of the grammar teaching: when Grammar Alive! in the well-paced and balanced language advocates for the equality of each approach to teaching English grammar (Haussamen 3), Christensen’s article spices up the text by the personal examples of how prevalence only of the Goal A in the teaching had negative impact on the lives of the author and other students (Christensen 101). In my opinion, both of the approaches are equally important. When such topic is approached, all types of opinions must be voiced. This allows reader to form their own opinion on the subjects, and to decide which opinion is more close to their own situation, background and experience.

 In my own process of learning English, I happened to encounter a person, who was very strict and set in the ways of teaching Standard English. It happened in the first couple of years since my arrival in the USA. As I was set to learn English and excel in it as much as possible, this person was very criticizing about my way of writing and speaking. As it was clear afterwards, when I started to write first, I was making same six mistakes thought all of my compositions. Only while reading Grammar Alive! this semester, I realized that my own pattern at the time was fitting the definition of the language variety. Of course, I am not saying that I wrote in perfect Standard English, but I shouldn’t have been criticized about my mistakes as much as I have been. At that time, because of the constant negative feedback, I started to lose my confidence and faith that I can come to mastering Standard English one day. My example fits very well into the line of stories presented by Christensen – herself with teacher Mrs. Delaney, a woman with Puerto-Rican and Hawaiian background... They all felt insignificant and not important because of what they had to say was not a standard way of saying or for that matter writing things. (Christensen 102). I can relate to this feeling.

The phrase in Christensen’s article – “Learning the “Standard” without humiliation” (Christensen 103) – grabbed my attention. This is what I am still interested in – improving my skills and extending my knowledge without someone constantly trying to show me my lower status due to the fact that English is not my first language. “It took me years to undo what Mrs. Delaney did to me. Years to discover that what I said was more important than how I said it.” (Christensen 104). In my life the negative influence was not as long, and it started to wear off as soon as I was brave enough to take first English class at WSU. But still, it took me about one more year to regain my confidence, even though the instructor in a very first course that I took at the University was impressed with skills. All Goals presented in Grammar Alive! are equally important, but none of them should dominate over the other. Only balanced approach and goodhearted encouragement can breathe life into otherwise disconnected rules of grammar.

My journey in between...

During  the time in this class I have a few things that I am interested in understanding and learning. I am not really familiar with the use of the most of the English punctuation marks besides comma and period. Such things as dashes, colons and semicolons are not really something that I use in my writing. At least not since I am in the States. My native language is Russian. As I mentioned it to everyone, who asked me about the difference between these two languages, Russian is a language of emotion. It uses all these punctuation marks in the sentences to stress or add some emotional tone to the phrases. For example, the use of the colon always means that the first part of the sentence a statement of a fact, and the part after the colon always explains or adds details about the first part. The dash always meant “as this mean”, and is added only in the sentences, where the dash can be substituted for this phrase. My goal in this class is to understand the differences in use of all this things between Russian and English.

As might be seen from the earlier paragraph, I used to apply a lot of my Russian grammar in construction of the sentences in English. This previous sentence almost entirely submits to the grammar rules of Russian. At the same time, when I simply translate something from Russian into English, it always sounds like a passive voice – this is the problem that was pointed to me over and over again in my past English classes by the instructors and the fellow students. Russian doesn’t have such a wide idea of the passive and active voices as English does. There are some adverb rules in application to this matter, but it is not really affects the sound of the language as it does in English. They apply more to the rules of spelling. The idea of the active and passive voice was entire foreign to me, and took me a while to grasp the concept.

Another thing that carried over from my Russian background is so called “runaway” sentences. If a reader of this blog was ever interested in any classic Russian literature, such as novels of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov and others,  they were might be able to notice that sometimes only one sentence in these novels or short stories can be as long as an entire paragraph itself, and the paragraph can be a page long. But not only Russian writers are guilty of something like this: recently I have read few novels by the Turkish writer Orphan Pamuk, and his sentences have same length as of the Russian writers. By the way, I used pattern of the Russian sentence to construct previous one, and not really sure that I can get away with this. So, Russian or other languages in that part of the world obviously not sharpened towards being concise and to the point. They are aimed to convey emotions, and, as everything attached to the emotions, can’t be short. That is probably why there are at least one hour appointment, when you go see psychologist. At the same time a regular doctor can fit you into the fifteen minute window.

When I realized such global difference between Russian and English, it made me to appreciate both languages even deeper. Here in this class I would like to focus on better understanding of English, it further differences from Russian, and covering topics of syntax that will allow me to have knowledge about structures of English sentences, use them instead of falling back on my knowledge of the Russian grammar. At times I obviously lack some knowledge about English equivalent. This is a quick summary of my goals in this class.