¨Fall seven times, stand up eight¨

Most of us in our lives have probably seen some variation of this Japanese proverb. It reminds us to be resilient: to get going when the going gets tough. Whether we recognize it or not, our failures are often our best opportunities for growth; this is a lesson I often try to impart to my own students. This summer, I have taken the opportunity to reflect on what I learned from falling short and what I could teach my students about overcoming obstacles.

When I began my studies, I was not thinking about teaching on Long Island. In fact, I was not even thinking about teaching in the United States. I had my eyes set on a Fulbright: a government program that offers research, study, and teaching opportunities to recent graduates. I applied to South Korea because of a Korean War Veteran who inspired me to be someone who made a difference in the world. With all I had learned as a historian, I felt like this was the country that was calling my name. I received recommendations from a former fulbrighter and a Harvard graduate. I pored over my essays for countless hours, going so far as to have them looked at by a former member of Fulbright´s screening committee. With the screener´s seal of approval, all I had to do was wait.

Meanwhile, a friend of a friend contacted me about a teaching position. I thought I did not have anything to lose, so I went through the interview process, and I was granted my first teaching position. The first round of the Fulbright process was over, and I was still in the mix. I continued teaching while in the back of my head I could not stop thinking about the Fulbright. The process lasted for over a year and half, and at the end all I received was a simple email. As you might guess, I did not get the Fulbright, and to say I felt crushed does not even begin to describe how I felt.

It was hard to talk about - with individuals who wrote my recommendations, my professors, my family, and my friends. Day by day, week by week, I started feeling better and my current teaching position grew on me. I went from feeling sad about my situation, to feeling glad that every single day I had a new opportunity to make a difference in the lives of the students sitting in front of me. If all along my ultimate goal was to make a difference in the lives of others, I had it in spades.

The lesson?

Go for it, set high expectations for yourself. Look for the good in everything. Even when you can not try again, you can always dust yourself off, learn from your setbacks, and continue to grow.

Mai Pen Rai - ไม่เป็นไร

Ayutthaya

I am a language guy - you could say it is one of my shticks (aside from the fact that it is my job to be a language guy). I enjoy travel, culture, and the languages that people speak. When I go places, I like to learn some of the local language. People appreciate it when you make an attempt to speak their language, even if it is only a few words or phrases.

This summer I went to Thailand, mainly because of a great affinity that I have for Buddhism. In many ways, it fits nicely with my own philosophy as a teacher: accept everything that happens, and find a lesson in every challenge. I did my best to learn some survival phrases, and the Thai people had a good laugh as I struggled to negotiate prices for a tuk-tuk ride. My favorite phrase was ¨mai pen rai¨, which is like saying ¨it´s okay¨ or ¨don´t worry¨, but those translations do not really do it justice. Traffic? Mai pen rai. Almost run over by a motorbike? Mai pen rai. Poisonous centipede the size of my forearm lurking outside the door? Mai pen rai. It is carefree bordering on careless, but it was unbelievable to see how little the Thai stressed about daily inconveniences.

Buddha and me

Mai pen rai is exactly what I (and maybe you) need in the classroom. You don´t speak English? You are twenty and they put you in the ninth grade? You fled your country to avoid violence in search of a better life? Mai pen rai. This year in the classroom, it will be my reminder to accept every student, whatever their situation, and to not let the small things get to me. I hope to impart this lesson to my students, and I also hope to show them that they can clear any hurdle life puts in front of them.

Linguistic Studies - Don´t Get Salty Over It

Even though I am an ENL and Social Studies teacher, I foremost consider myself both a linguist and historian; perhaps it was my passion for these disciplines that inspired me to teach. I ate up all of the things I learned when I was studying to obtain my TESOL degree. With the encouragement of my professors, I continued to read and learn outside of the context of the classroom.

Dr. David Harrison

During my last year of obtaining my Master´s degree, I volunteered to help out at the annual LACUS conference, which that year was hosted by Molloy College. LACUS is the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States, and every year it brings together some of the most prominent linguists in the Western Hemisphere. The conference was inspiring, and I even had the opportunity to meet one of my favorite linguists, Dr. David Harrison.

Anyway, my linguistics and grammar professor Dr. Nenchin asked me to help out with research that she was doing for the following year´s conference. The goal of our research was to analyze gamer slang. We wanted to look at gaming slang that emerged since the advent of online gaming and determine where this language was coming from. Were words and phrases created in online communities? Or did they come from elsewhere? If these words and phrases originated outside of gaming, how did they make their way into online gaming communities? We presented our initial research at the 2016 LACUS conference in Halifax, Canada - Don´t get salty over it: Gamer slang and its usage. The feedback from other professionals was encouraging, and I knew that I wanted to continue doing research in this field of study.

Why am I in Halifax?

Although I was personally unable to make it to the conference this year, Dr. Nenchin presented the research that we did this year. Our most recent work looked at the etymology of the words and phrases in our gaming slang glossary that we had initially created during the first year of research. As I reflect on my work with this project, I am excited about the opportunities that continuing to work in this field might provide me. The work has inspired me to continue learning and researching outside of the classroom. Ultimately, I hope to complete a PhD program in Linguistics. I am not sure exactly what I will want to research, but I know for sure that I want to continue growing as both a learner and educator.

The Twittersphere

This year I decided that I would take some graduate classes at Molloy while I was still working there. @dmammolito did our mandated PD this year, and I really enjoyed learning strategies that I was able to turn around and use immediately in my classroom. Because of this, I decided to take her graduate class on 21st century learning. We started class with some of the things I already knew, but in particular our discussion of Twitter led me to take a look at how I was using my professional Twitter.

The first people that I followed were some of my college professors, as well as some of the professionals in the field of history and language learning that I admired. I then began to follow authors and scientists that I admired: people such as Lama Surya Das and Neil Degrasse Tyson. As time has went on, I have followed and been followed by educators I have met at conferences, as well as educators that I have never met.

Neil Degrasse Tyson - Astrophysicist, Funny Man

My professional network is not large, but has thus far been reliable for reaching out and being available to others. Other teachers tag me in things they think would interest me, and I do the same when I find something cool - something worth sharing. By far my favorite part of Twitter has been my ability to reach out to professionals in the field. To me, these people are like rockstars, but Twitter offers a way to contact them and get feedback from them. Although I have not really used Twitter so much in my classroom, I look forward to continue using it develop my own professional learning network.

Cross Country Championship Season

        November marks the beginning of the championship racing season for high school and college Cross Country. As a student, I competed in Cross Country throughout high school and college; today, I coach the sport at the collegiate level. My men’s team raced in their conference championship this past weekend and they finished in second place in the conference. It is no surprise that Cross Country is not really on the radar in terms of sports that people enjoy watching. Admittedly, it is not the most exciting sport for people who are not directly involved in it (coaches, athletes, and parents). I happen to be extremely passionate about the sport, but I realize that I am a rare exception to the rule. To simplify for those not familiar with the sport, it goes something like this:

First - Some gawky looking athletes line up on an open field, where an old man holding a pistol tells the athletes to strip down. Fortunately, this is not as bad as it sounds: the pistol is only a starting pistol, and strip down means to take everything off but the racing uniform.

*Somewhere in this process, nervous athletes run to the bathroom an unspecified number of times.

Second – Athletes approach the line, wearing singlets and a) short shorts, or b) butthuggers/lollipops. Honestly, these are the terms that we use.

Oregon Singlet

Third – The aforementioned old man fires the pistol, and the aforementioned scantily-clad athletes make a mad dash for the woods like a stampede of buffalo.

Fourth – Athletes disappear into the woods for what can be quite an extended period of time, some coaches attempt to catch glimpses of their athletes for a few seconds. Races typically vary in distance from 2.5 miles to 6.2 miles.

Fifth – Athletes emerge from the woods, making a mad dash for the finish line: spectators yell, scream, and ring their cowbells.

Sixth – Athletes can be seen laughing, crying, and vomiting. It is not all that rare for an athlete to do all of these activities simultaneously.

You call this fun?

Yes, it really is that simple! The part that is not so simple is the Cross Country scoring system. A standard Cross Country team has seven athletes, teams can of course be bigger than this, but only seven athletes can contribute to a team’s score. Unlike most other sports, the team that wins in a Cross Country race is the team that accrues the fewest number of points. Points are assigned based on place number to the first five members of a team. For example, an athlete that comes in third place will earn three points for their team. The role of the sixth and seventh members of a team is to displace athletes from other teams. In order for this to happen, a sixth or seventh runner must beat the fifth runner or better from another team. The sixth and seventh runners will not earn any points for their team unless there is a tie, but by beating a top five athlete from another team they will push them back a place (displace), thereby adding points to an opposing team’s overall score.

The origins of the sport are interesting and can be traced back to England, two hundred years ago. The following link gives a brief history of the sport.  http://www.runnersworld.com/rt-columns/origins-cross-country

Historical Cross Country

My favorite part of Cross Country is that it is a sport almost everyone can do. Most high schools do not make cuts and those athletes cut from other sports will often join their school’s Cross Country team. It’s a team sport and teams develop incredible camaraderie, but it is also very individual because athletes strive to improve upon their own performances week after week. One day, I hope to be a high school coach that is as inspiring and influential as my own high school coach, Coach T.

Numbers – Cardinal v. Ordinal

Today’s grammar topic is ordinal and cardinal numbers, a topic which can prove difficult for beginner ESL students. Cardinal numbers are the ones that students typically learn first, they are used to describe quantity or answer the question “how many?” On the other hand, ordinal numbers are used to show position in relation to other objects. Ordinal numbers always use a suffix, these suffixes can be –nd, -rd,   -st, or –th. In addition to using ordinal numbers to show position, ordinal numbers are used in dates, take a look at this example: March 31, 2014 – This would be read as March thirty-first as opposed to March thirty-one, even though there is no –st marker on the number. An easy way to remember the difference between cardinal and ordinal numbers is to associate cardinal with the word counting and ordinal with the word ordering.

One difficult example we will look at is in the sentence “Points are assigned based on place number to the first five members of a team.” In this example, a cardinal and ordinal number are used together. When this occurs, the cardinal number is being treated as a group and the ordinal number is describing where this group is in relation to other groups (as opposed to the second group of five).

Try to take all the numbers that are italicized, and categorize them based on whether they are cardinal or ordinal numbers.

 Cardinal                                        Ordinal

Vocabulary

Admittedly – Word used to introduce something that is true

Gawky – Nervous and awkward

Unspecified – Not a specific amount

Singlets – Typically singlets are one piece uniforms that are worn by wrestlers, but in the running community the term singlet refers to the racing jersey, which is only a shirt

Butthuggers/Lollipops – These terms refer to the racing shorts that are sometimes worn by female athletes. As one might imagine, these are tight shorts that are not unlike swimwear or underwear.

Scantily-Clad – Not wearing a lot of clothes

Simultaneously – Happening at the same time

Vocabulary Activity – Fill in the blanks with the defined vocabulary words

1. He moved out of the country and will be gone for an ____________ number of years.

2. No one expected Tim would make it through the basketball tryouts, he had always been a _________ teenager.

3. During the summer, it’s very likely that you will see many ____________ people on the beach.

4. Almost all Cross Country athletes wear __________, whereas only female athletes will wear _____________.

5. It was __________ frightening and annoying.

6. _________, it is very expensive but you don’t need to buy it that often.

NY Giants Football

This year I had the experience of watching the World Cup across the pond in a European

country. I have always been a soccer fan, but the passion of European soccer fans is truly

something incredible to behold. The fans were passionate, boisterous, and they were not

afraid to let you know where their allegiances lie. Although this passion can come off as

strange to Americans, it is not really that different from our own national obsession with

American Football. I fall into the category of avid football fan, although I do not like fantasy

football, and you will rarely find me yelling at the television during a game or at a fan of an

opposing football team.

More specifically, I am a NY Giants fan, just like my dad. We were able to get four tickets

this past week to go to a Monday night game. Both my sister and mother also came with us to

the game. The Giants were playing the Indianapolis Colts, and because of the way the Giants

have been playing we did not expect them to win. We arrived right at the start of the game

and our seats were phenomenal. We were seated right near the field in the second row up,

right in the middle of the field. It did not take long for the Colts to open up a huge lead on the

giants, but we were still having a great time. Being able to watch a game live is so much

different than sitting back and watching a game on TV. Around the end of the 3rd quarter, we

decided to leave in order to beat the traffic out of the stadium. Usually we would stay for the

whole game, but because it was Monday and the Giants were playing poorly it was no longer

worth staying. I probably will not going to another game this season, but I will have my fingers

crossed in hopes that the Giants can make the playoffs!

Vocabulary

Across the pond – This is an idiomatic phrase which means “across the Atlantic Ocean”

Behold – To see or observe

Boisterous – Noisy, energetic

Avid – Having a strong interest

Phenomenal – Incredible

Beat the Traffic – This is an irregular/idiomatic use of the verb beat; in this case, beat means to avoid.

Vocabulary Activity – Try replacing the blank spaces using the defined vocabulary words

1. He is an _______ reader; usually, he reads at least one book every weekend.

2. We had a __________ time at the show last night.

3. The group left early in order to try to _________________.

4. I try to go ______________ at least once a year for a vacation.

5. The actress was a beauty to _________.

6. Hockey fans tend to be on the _____________ side.

Prepositions

Today’s discussion topic is prepositions. Prepositions are words or phrases that provide information about direction, location, or time. Prepositions are fairly easy to use for native speakers, but they are very difficult to understand and especially hard to teach. On a more personal note, my second language is Italian and natives tell me that my most noticeable difficulty in writing is with prepositions. It seemed like there were no hard-and-fast rules for prepositions, which is exactly how prepositions can feel in English. Within my blog entry today, all of the prepositions are italicized. Let’s look at a few examples.

We were seated right near the field in the second row up, right in the middle of the field.

In this example, the prepositions near and in the middle of both give information about direction and location. The preposition near gives provides information about where we were in relation to the field and in the middle of takes this one step by further by stating which part of the field we were near.

Around the end of the 3rd quarter, we decided to leave…

Here we can see an example of a preposition that gives information about time. If I had just said “we decided to leave” it would beg the question “when?” The preposition around would help to answer the question, implying that we did not leave right at the end of the third quarter, but around this time.

The following link contains a large list of English pronouns. Try to construct 5 sentences using 5 different pronouns from this list.  https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/prepositions-list.htm

For any foreigners which may come across this blog, the following link explains the basics of American Football. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/american_football/3192002.stm