Archive for September, 2011
Teaching English in India
India is a country of many religions and beliefs. It is one of the most majestic countries of this world. There are many languages that are spoken in this part of the world like Hindi, English, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi etc. People who have a good knowledge of English are treated with utmost respect in India. The demand for English speaking persons is increasing day by day. The demand is due to the mushroom growth of many multinational companies.
If you have a passion for teaching abroad then India is the place where you should explore the teaching opportunities. There are plenty of teaching opportunities available in India and for most of these; a TEFL certificate is a must. TESOL or TEFL Certification Course is a Three week intensive onsite initial Teacher training course. This is a widely popular course which would equip you with all the necessary education to handle the responsibilities of a teaching job abroad. If you love teaching, love to mix with people of different religions then India is the place for you.
English teachers are in great demand in India and people treat the teachers with a lot of respect. Besides getting a job in the government sector, qualified EFL teachers can get a job with the help of various voluntary placement agencies. To get a good job, one must have a degree in the field of education or a good deal of teaching experience, as well as a TEFL or similar certificate is usually necessary.
TEFL certificate holders can get a good salary depending on the kind of experience he/she possesses. Several schools offer furnished accommodation to the qualified persons. There are usually 6 working days in a week so if you planning to come to India then be prepared to teach for six days a week.
A Book Review: Active Baby, Healthy Brain
Active Baby, Healthy Brain: 135 Fun Exercises and Activities to Maximize Your Child’s Brain Development from Birth Through Age 5 1/2
Margaret Sasse
The Experiment, New York 2010
Margaret Sasse has provided parents with an invaluable manual on how to maximize your child’s brain development. She has divided the first 5 1/2 years of life into 8 stages with numerous activities for each stage. In the beginning of the book the reader finds two pages of defined terms. Parents learn in the preface to choose activities to develop a wide range of skills.
Also, three important words are introduced: intensity, frequency and duration, reminding the parents that no activity should last more than two minutes and should be done slowly. With short, frequent activities both parent and child can put their full effort (intensity) into it for maximum benefit. This concept applies to all ages, though as one matures the “short” activities increase in length.
Most of the book describes and illustrates all of the activities. Here are sample activities for each stage:
Stage A – birth to six months: massage and gentle roll overs
Stage B – six to twelve months: creeping, cruising, walking
Stage C – walking to eighteen months: vision and balance
Stage D – eighteen to twenty-four months: dance, beanbags and balloons
Stage E- 2-2 1/2 years: music, rhythm, nursery rhymes, and songs
Stage F: 2 1/2-3 1/2 years: Massage in crocodile position
Stage G: 3 1/2-4 1/2 years: Rhythm sticks, ropes and cords
Stage H: 4 1/2- 51/2 years: mini-trampoline, tumbling, rocking, swinging
Further, she discusses the foundational subject of nutrition. While Sasse uses only one page to discuss nutrition, she hits the important aspects that can have a major impact on learning: “artificial colorings, additives and excessive sugar.” Food sensitivities including wheat and dairy must be explored as well.
How I Came To Be The Creative Director Behind Our Product
I should start my life story by saying that becoming Creative Director seems to me at first the most beautiful dream I could ever hope to achieve concerning my professional life. I must say it is very hard to keep up with so much responsibility, as you constantly need to insure that your work perfectly reflects the client ‘s views, but I love my work and no matter the difficulties I have to face. I would never change it with anything in this world.
To begin with, I have to confess that when I first started working in the advertising area things seemed quite easy to me, but when I was faced for the first time with a real client and a real order, suddenly I understood that my first impression was quite wrong and hasty. It is wonderful that I get the chance to work with a lot of people but, it can also be extremely tiring sometimes. You must always stay focused on your marketing aim, which is to help the client benefit from your work. You have to be creative and innovative but, you can never lose sight of the fact that your primary goal is promote your product and to make the customers buy it. I eventually understood all these features of a Creative Director’s job, but it is necessary to state that in the beginning everything seemed to me a lot easier than they really are.
Moreover, I should share the fact that I needed to evolve constantly and improve my advertising skills, and most of all, adapt myself to every circumstance and product I had to promote. I remember having to conceive an advertisement for power tools. I knew nothing about them since I got this order, but the client needed the advertisement for his power tools, so I did some research on the topic and soon enough I got to know every detail of a craftsman’s work. What is more, eventually we did the spot and the client was very satisfied with the work we had done for his business.
On Writing – What Is the Definition of Literature As a Genre?
In my opinion, this is one of the most difficult questions to answer with any degree of specificity.In the strangest of ways, attempting to define Literature brings to mind the judge who said he couldn’t describe pornography but knew what it was when he saw it. And I’ll state up front that I don’t have a concrete answer for what constitutes literature. But I have some ideas.
Defining Literature Is a Personal Matter
Literature seems quite often to be in the eye of the beholder. For light reading, I happen to enjoy Nelson DeMille, yet I teach UP COUNTRY as literature, since I think the work has exceptional dimension. Cormac McCarthy’s NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is a flat-out thriller, yet who refers to it as that, or to him as a thriller writer, since he is considered a major artist in the craft of literature? I think Jody Picoult has written literature, since I’ve found some of her material just as profound as work by Barbara Kingsolver or Jane Smiley or Colleen McCullough. But I don’t even remotely believe that all or even many of her novels fall into the category of Literature.
Literature, as I see it, is defined by the substance written in a story’s fabric that makes the reader think rather than just read. Of course, people can say that romance novels make them think, just as well as science fiction or any other genre for that matter. But Literature has that special quality of making the readers dig deeper into their thought processes, and this in my view is what separates it from commercial fiction.
Literature Is More Plot-Driven Than Character Driven?
Education is Perfect in Itself
To a huge side of the population, education may mean “nothing at all”, but to a petty portion of people, education may mean “everything.” Referring back to its founding father, the two goals of education are: The good for the entire society and the world, and secondly the former good must be the sources of other good. Because of these two goals of education, we have reached the terms: human evolution, sustainable development, development for all, equality in all conditions, etc; these consolations, are indeed, destined to fetch in good for one society, and increasingly the whole world.
However, I have seen that education has been negatively converted into an artificial key for self-benefit; this is far away from the principal and mindset of its founding father. Law and political science are two of the fields that have been negatively derailed from their founding fathers.
“The good for the mass” is the goal of political science and law, and this goal is ubiquitously informed to all students of political science and law. However, their education gained while they were in school was made imperfect, as soon as they become the enforcers of this educational goal in the society. So what are the reasons behind this evil?
Self-benefit is the ultimate, the first and foremost reason that turns education imperfect. Students of political science and law were never taught to be corrupt while they were in school; however, as they become the implementer of the education in the society, the educational goal was upside-down from “the good for the mass” to “the good for me first, for my family second, and for the mass at last.”