<<December 16, 2000>>
Archived distributions can be retrieved
by clicking on the top lines of our home page at <http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/>.
David Levy <AXEL@conted.lan.mcgill.ca>
Ms Joan Belfon <vtdi@yahoo.com>
Paul KAWACHI <paul@paulkawachi.com>
Steve McCarty <steve@kagawa-jc.ac.jp>
Steven Donahue <sdonah01@bellsouth.net>
Roger Lee Boston <rboston@tenet.edu>
Greg Cummings <greg@dianfossey.org>
Mathy Vanbuel <mathy.vanbuel@atit.be>
Dear Ms Belfon:
===============
(1) Many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT I) in response to
my listserve
distribution of "English for Japan in the 21st Century -
November 20,
2000" which can now be retrieved at: http://www.friends-partners.org/~utsumi/gu-l/mid-2000/11-20-b.html
(2) You may look to the reference section of Paul Kawachi's
two papers
mentioned in this distribution which compiled many valuable materials.
You may get the papers from Paul.
You may also be interested in reading David Levy's paper in ATTACHMENT III.
Dear David:
===========
(3) Many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT II) and also for your
faxing me a
very interesting paper which I took the liberty to OCR (optical
character
recognition) in ATTACHMENT III.
(4) I am very happy to hear of your strong interest in organizing
a global
distance education English language program.
(5) English is now recognized as a "lingua franca"
and our Global University
System is to provide learners with collaboration in global scale
for
their study and learning.
Therefore, I think that English as Second Language program
should be the
first e-learning course for the GUS to offer.
(6) Delivery system:
Since language acquisition strongly depends on the learner's
motivation,
it is highly desirable if any learning materials can be available
to
him/her at anytime and anywhere. This will then provide the learner
with the so-called immersed environment with the language and
the
language's culture.
In order to create such an environment for the learner, I would
propose
the use of wireless laptop (or better yet, SONY's Picturebook
at 2.2
pounds with a built-in camera) and a mobile phone which can access
Internet at 128 Kbps.
Pls retrieve my listserve distribution of "Inquiring about
Rockwell funding for our Manaus project - December 15, 2000"
at
http://www.friends-partners.org/~utsumi/gu-l/mid-2000/12-15-b.html
This described such a use by a young Japanese fellow in a bullet
train in Japan, and such a wireless Internet access to be
available even in the US next year.
(7) Web learning platforms:
The Web learning platform which the learner accesses via wireless
Internet at 128 Kbps should have the capabilities of:
(a) whiteboard,
(b) PowerPoint,
(c) chat,
(d) computer conferencing,
(e) synchronous audio conferencing, etc.
The following may be examined for our use:
WebCT, Forum, CU-SeeMe Web, Symposium, Outreach, Atrium, NiceNet,
Blackboard, Serf, eCollege, PowerPoint, MOOs, WebBoard, Web Crossing,
etc.
At 128 Kbps, we can be sure to have clear audio and video --
this
will also encourage learners to use Internet telephony at a fraction
of usual costs.
(8) Initial target:
My aforementioned listserve distribution of November 20th mentioned
the
keen interest of NISSAN and NEC to make English as their official
language within their companies.
Consequently, our initial target can be Japanese corporations
which want
to have business English -- but emphasizing speaking English.
Since Steven Donahue claims in his E-Testimony for the US Web-based
Education Commission that pronunciation can be taught better through
Web rather than face-to-face, we may rely on him.
(9) Course schedules:
At the beginning of every semester, there should have a get-together
face-to-face gathering, say, for one or two weeks. This gathering
should
have enough entertainment and recreational activities so that
the
learners can built comradeship among them. This will then encourage
their frequent interaction with instructors and among the learners
even
after they are dispersed to their home bases.
Locations of the gatherings may be at your McGill University,
or Montana
State University with nearby Yellowstone Park and fishing spots
in
summer time, or Maui Island in Hawaii with nearby beaches in winter
time.
(10) Possible funding sources:
(a) For course development:
1. Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT),
This is the second largest telecom company and its
subsidiary DoCoMo provides wireless 128 Kbps Internet in Japan.
2. AT&T Foundation,
As mentioned in my listserve distribution of December 15,
AT&T has affiliated with DoCoMo and will provide the
wireless Internet from next year.
3. SONY Foundation, etc.
(b) For course conduct:
Tuition from participating Japanese companies.
(11) Possible instructors:
Dear Steve McCarty, Paul Kawachi, Steve Donahue and Roger Boston:
=================================================================
Would you like to join in this project with David Levy?
(12) Once this program will be successfully conducted, the
delivery system
with laptop and wireless Internet phone can be applied to other
e-learning courses -- eventually in many developing countries.
In a
sense, this is the way of the future to realize "Education
for All"
(UNESCO's motto) at anytime and anywhere.
Incidentally, such an Internet access has already been made
even
from the middle of the jungle in Africa to send beautiful photos
of
gorilla habitat to the US which appeared in National Geographic
Magazine -- see ATTACHMENT IV -- albeit still slow speed at 9.6
Kbps.
Dear Greg:
==========
Many, many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT IV). I am awfully
sorry to reply belatedly to your valuable msg. We are following
your
approach in e-learning and telehealth fields -- pls click "Current
Reference Websites" at the top of the home page of our web
site
which is listed in my electronic signature to find subsequent
web
sites of our various projects.
Should you ever need higher Internet speed, pls feel free to
contact Mathy Vanbuel -- see ATTACHMENT V and VI.
Dear David Levy:
================
(13) I look forward to receiving your response so that we can
start to
configuring our grant applications to the funding sources mentioned
above.
Best, Tak
****************************************
ATTACHMENT I
Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 13:48:41 -0800 (PST)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?VTDI=20National?= <vtdi@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: English as the Japanese language of the 21st century
To: utsumi@friends-partners.org
Hello Tak Utsumi,
I have only just returned from Trinidad and was
pleased to find that you had included me in the
'friends-partners' group with interests in distance education.
It is interesting to note the title of the above
message as this is currently a burning issue for us in
the region. Though we are considered
'English-speaking', there are enough varieties of the
language to create severe problems for education.
As a strategy, we are teaching English as a
'second'language here at the Vocational Training
Development Institute; we do feel it is important for
societies to maintain their native language as
language is more than just a tool for speech- it is a
symbol of identification, a storehouse of history
among other things.
I will like to follow this issue and want to access
more information. Where can I find such?
Please keep me up to date and thanks again.
Joan Belfon
****************************************
ATTACHMENT II
From: "David Levy" <axel@conted.lan.mcgill.ca>
To: utsumi@columbia.edu
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 10:51:14 -0500
Subject: english in japan...
CC: paul@paulkawachi.com, steve@kagawa-jc.ac.jp
tak - re your 22/11-2000 e-mail...i'm not sure i agree with
what i take
to be the conclusions...the short answer to the question i put
to steve
mccarty & others about whether the japanese can learn english
was:
yes, but not in japan...this is not a matter of logocentrism or
the
phonetic system of japanese or the seeking after social
harmony...in our english program here at mcgill we have since
c.1986 had over 1,000 students from japan... our instructors have
not found any particular difficulties that could be identified
with the
japanese english language learner...i recently put the question
to
james crawford, an american authority on bilingualism... he tended
to agree...which is to say that there is no persuasive empirical
evidence to back the claim that native speakers of japanese have
some special difficulty learning english...
i will fax you a copy of the paper on my distance education english
language project in china...you may distribute it to whoever you
think may find it of interest... i like the idea of working on
a global
distance education english language program...how might this be
financed?...david
****************************************
ATTACHMENT III
MELTA Malaysian English Language Teaching Association
Wisma F.A.M., Jalan SS 5A/9 47301 Kelana Jaya Selangor
Darul Ehsan Malaysia
1992 All rights reserved. No part of this book
may be reproduced.
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by
any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission in writing of the Authors.
Design and layout by Huruf Sedia Sdn. Bhd.
Printed by Cetaktama Sdn. Bhd. Kuala Lumpur
Everyday English
A Method for Teaching English
by Radio in the People's Republic of China
David Levy
McGill University
Montreal, Canada
Everyday English is a radio series I created to teach English
in the People's
Republic of China (PRC). With production by Radio Canada International
(RCI),
the series went on the air in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou
in the fall of
1988, and in Xi'an in May (1). It has been heard in a number of
other regions,
including Jiangsu Province on the east coast.
The lessons were supplied on cassette for broadcast over domestic
radio
frequencies, thus assuring superior reception to the signals of
Voice of
America (VOA), the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC),
the BBC and
other English language broadcasts that may reach China via shortwave
(2).
There are 40 units in the series each consisting of three 30-minute
lessons; the agreement between RCI and Chinese officials called
for a new unit
to be broadcast each week. In addition to the recorded lessons,
a coursebook,
created to accompany the series was, where possible, distributed
in the areas
where the broadcasts were received.
In Beijing, Everyday English was heard seven days each week for
a weekly
total of 19 1/2 hours. To facilitate audience reception the series
was
broadcast on Beijing's main radio channel twice a day, six days
each week. In
Shanghai, where the broadcasts began on December 5, 1988, the
series was on
the air 10 1/2 hours weekly. In Guangzhou, the series began on
November 28,
and was heard 14 hours each week. In May 1989 Radio Shaanxi, based
in Xi'an,
put the series on the air for nine hours each week. Their signal
reaches parts
of 18 other provinces as well as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and
Indonesia.
The Problem
Millions of Chinese citizens are today actively engaged in
English language
study; estimates range from 50 to 500 million. Instruction in
English begins
in elementary school and is one of three required middle (high)
school
subjects (3). The strong educational priority currently assigned
to the
teaching of English in that country is closely linked to the drive
to realize
the Four Modernizations - science, agriculture, industry and defence
(4).
It is common, though, for students arriving in Canada from the
PRC to
possess a solid background in English grammar but have problems
with
"everyday" North American speech, and occasionally severe
pronunciation
difficulties. This deficiency has been attributed to the emphasis
in the
Chinese educational system on grammar-based intensive reading
courses; other
shortcomings of that system include untrained instructors, overcrowded
classrooms and obsolete materials (5). There is, too, a real scarcity
of
aural-oral models of North American "everyday" English
speech.
The latter, in particular, appeared to be the sort of problem
a radio
series could help solve.
English by Radio
The popularity and success of the BBC's Follow Me TV series
has tended to
obscure the importance of radio lessons for China's English language
teachers.
When I first visited the PRC in 1986, virtually all the people
I met who
possessed an effective command of the language told me that they
had acquired
it, at least in part, from radio lessons. Obviously, radio access
was more
widespread. In 1982, there were two million TV sets in China but
118 million
radio receivers, with annual production running at roughly 20
million sets. By
1987. a year before Everyday English went on the air, the Chinese
were tuning
in to some 250 million radios, roughly one for every four people.
Moreover, a
recent study found that while international shortwave radio broadcasts
tend to
attract relatively small audiences, the number of listeners in
China for BBC
and VOA programs that offer instruction in English is unusually
high (6). In
1986, Radio Guangdong, based in Guangzhou, had ten different weekly
series on
the air. Most of the shows were directed at a special audience
of 3000
middle-school English teachers and included a series on language
teaching methods.
I was told, but I have so far been unable to confirm, that teaching
English by radio in China began in the early 1960's. China's national
radio
network, the Central People's Broadcasting Station (CPBS), with
an audience
estimated at 650 million, first put English lessons on the air
in 1980. This
more recent trend originated in the months following the state
visit to China
by former American president Richard A Nixon in 1972. English
instruction had
been sharply reduced during the Cultural Revolution, dating from
1966. For
some officials, however, the Nixon visit signalled a shift in
the political
breeze. In the absence of any government edict or directive to
either guide or
sanction their actions local radio stations, first in Shanghai,
then in
Beijing and Guangzhou, began regular broadcasts of English lessons
(7).
From our perspective, the preconditions for a radio series were
thus all
in place: a strong tradition of adult, so-called "sparetime"
study tied to the
broader goals of modernization; the established practice of radio
use as a
means of acquiring foreign language skills, English in particular,
and,
perhaps most important. a sufficient number of radio receivers
in the hands of
masses of dedicated students (8).
Series Content
What Chinese English language learners needed was a series
pitched at adult,
intermediate-level learners well-trained in grammar but basically
unfamiliar
with the sounds of contemporary English, materials, in other words,
that (i)
contained a rich variety of speech samples and (ii) provided pronunciation
practice along with aural comprehension work. Language content
was selected to
manage set situations; we wanted to avoid the standard textbook
ploy of
developing situations whose main purpose was to offer instruction
in grammar
patterns. An important consideration as well was that most members
of the
audience were not beginners; they simply had not received adequate
English
language training prior to entering the work force.
But how to proceed? Who was the audience? How were the lessons
to be packaged?
Chinese colleagues suggested that we ought to aim for dime kinds
of
listener, (i) service industry employees: young people working
in hotels,
restaurants, shops, bars and driving taxis: (ii) professionals
slated for
study abroad; and (iii) teachers and other professionals who dealt
with
visiting English-speaking specialists.
Discussion produced two secondary goals: (i) to provide instruction
in
certain common North American cultural practices: seeing a dentist,
buying a
train ticket, going on a technical tour, booking into a hotel,
etc.; and (ii)
to offer some general information about Canada, its traditions,
geography and people.
In the main, though, the series was to have a narrow, limited
purpose:
to improve comprehension and pronunciation skills by exposure
to "everyday"
English conversations and mini-lectures on scientific, cultural
and related topics.
Series Format
I chose a sitcom format because it seemed that a set of stable
characters
moving through a range of situations would provide an appropriate
background
of semantic predictability against which to
foreground "'new" language content, and satisfy the
other series requirements.
The basic series concept features a group of three fictional teachers
from the PRC, Ruan Ling, a physics teacher, Li Chuan, a geography
teacher, and
Shen Fu, an English teacher. The physics teacher, a woman, is
the group
leader, the other two members of the group are men, all are in
their early
thirties. They am accompanied on their travels by guides from
the fictitious
Canada-Asia Association.
Li Chuan, the group worrier, is left-handed; he is also the tour
photographer and something of a scholar. Away from China for the
first time he
experiences homesickness but is much tougher than he appears and
matures in
the course of the tour.
Shen Fu, the group joker, the kidder, has a gentle considerate
side. On
the other hand, he has a fearfulness he conceals with his verbal
darts - he is
afraid of pain and of heights - as he does his feelings for his
colleagues.
Ruan Ling, the physics teacher, is the tour leader. An organizer
and
peacemaker, she is given to certain consuming enthusiasms, e.g.
for ballet,
for the story of Anne of Green Gables, and she feels a special
responsibility
for her tourmates that is more than a duty. Bob and David, the
tour guides,
are low-key, bland types.
The tour structure made it possible to offer a broad introduction
to
North American experience. Moreover, it was important that the
materials dealt
with certain cultural phenomena Chinese visitors might find puzzling,
such as
who enters a room first. Related topics included the keeping of
family pets,
the queuing up for service, airline luggage regulations, etc.
Method
The exercise formats are all standardized, i.e., the same sort
of things are
done in the same way, and introduced and capped with the same
music themes. A
key series innovation was the use of pre-broadcast coursebook
study to
eliminate semantic problems and get listeners to focus, during
the broadcasts,
on aural form. In the introduction to the coursebook, listeners
are given some
instruction on how to prepare for the lessons prior to the broadcasts
(9).
A double anchor system, one male, one female, was used throughout
for
program intros, new language explanations, language drill models,
etc. A basic
requirement of radio instruction is that it be absolutely clear
to the
listener, at all times, what is going on, what he/she must do,
etc.; there is
no teacher available for assistance. This is something the double
anchor
system helped achieve, in addition to bringing variety and dynamism
to the
drills and related exercises.
A key element of the series method, acquisition through repetition,
owes
something to the practice of the wushu master as described in
Mark Saltzman's
Iron and Silk:
Everything, including language, is like wushu. First you learn
the basic
moves, or words, then you string them together into routines.
(10).
In addition to extensive repetition drills there are interactional
listener
exercises, including a comprehension test" in Lesson 1, a
fill-in-the-blank
dictation exercise in Lesson 2, and a cue-response review in Lesson
3.
Following the general approach of the wushu master, Lesson 1 consists
of
demonstration - the introduction and explanation of new language
items with
some pronunciation work; Lesson 2 represents the rehearsal phase,
offering
intense practice with the new language items in dictation and
repetition
formats; Lesson 3 provides for display in the form of a review,
and concludes
with a short talk on a topic related to the theme of the unit.
I tried as much
as possible to use procedures and exercise types that would be
completely
familiar to Chinese radio English learners.
Evaluation
A preliminary survey conducted in November 1988 in Beijing
found that the
initial estimate of our target audience was not completely accurate.
Statistics showed that 71% were in the 21-40 age range, 50% male,
50% female.
The big surprise was that 53% of the audience consisted of technical
and
engineering cadres, technical supervisory people, with waiters
accounting for
12%, teachers 8%, doctors and nurses 7%, and factory workers,
accountants,
journalists and army personnel the balance (11).
Everyday English was offered in some regions as a formal radio
course
with registration, post-course testing procedures, and prizes
for students who
did well. Special coaching classes were set up by the stations
to assist
registered learners. In Shanghai there were prizes for the top
50 students and
T-shirts for the others (12).
The series was re-broadcast by popular demand in all regions (13).
I have been asked about the pedagogical effectiveness of the series.
But
it seems to me that the appeal of the material and the enormous
enthusiasm for
the series among listeners are a partial reply. Effectiveness
can, after all,
be mostly a matter of use; materials are useful to the extent
that they
genuinely engage student interest. On the other hand, one ought
not to
minimize the obvious effectiveness of the amount of basic repetition
work
built into the Everyday English method, and this at a time when
some
specialists have begun to re-consider the rewards of rote learning
for serious
ESL students (14).
From the Students
I judge from the level of English of most of the letters I
received from
students that the series was pitched correctly at a post-elementary
level of
ability, at students whose English language learning needs required
something
beyond formal phrases and structure practice. The letters were
another
indicator of the relative success of the series. That the broadcasts
reached
others who required more elementary forms of practice only tells
us something
we already knew: that there were and remain substantial English
language needs
at the pre -intermediate level.
A listener in Shanghai wrote to tell me that before Everyday English,
he
knew little about Canada except it was "'large, cold and
Bethune", but that he
"learned much from the lectures and enjoyed the humor of
the dialogues." (15)
From Radio Shantou in Guangdong Province. a special economic zone,
a
professor in the Foreign Languages Dept. of Shantou University
wrote in
December 1989 to say that "the series reaches the goal of
killing two birds
with one stone: both language and Canadian culture. Before the
series English
language learners knew more about Britain and the States than
Canada... In
Shantou there were two categories of listeners: enrolled spare-time
students,
and others. For those enrolled there was a radio test after every
ten units.
Enrolled listeners paid a small fee to the station and were supplied
with
coursebooks and cassettes. Students submitted their test papers
to the station
for grading: a certificate was awarded to those who passed, who
successfully
completed all 40 units in the series and there were special prizes
for the top
students (16).
A student who attended a sparetime coaching class in Shanghai
had this to say:
"I ... passed the final exam and improved my English a
lot, both in
speaking and writing." And he went on to describe the circumstances
of that
improvement. "In a small classroom," he wrote, "gathered
many people from
different comers of Shanghai, workers, teachers, students. clerks,
etc. We
talked and exchanged ideas about language study. We all felt that
spare time
study was really very difficult. When a day's work was finished,
we were very
tired and had not one minute to rest, sometimes even no time have
supper,
because we had to be at evening school on time. We had only one
or two pieces
of bread during the break. No matter how tough it was, our interest
was great
because we did not waste that time: we used it to learn about
the outside
world and fulfill our lives.
Here I want to say something about my teacher. He is a conscientious
teacher and presented each lesson clearly, and explained the difficult
points.
Even a short time after he became a father. he stood in front
of the
blackboard and explained the key points of the lesson. Here in
this small
classroom. he said calmly, it is another world, it's the world
of speaking
English, of opening our views, it's the world of raising the trees
of
friendship." (17)
Notes
I. Radio Canada International is the international
service of the Canada
Broadcasting Corporation. Production of the Everyday English Series
was
one of several projects to emerge from the framework of an Aide-memoirs
signed by Mr. Pierre Juneau. the former CBC President, and officials
of
the Ministry of Radio and Television, The People's Republic of
China, in
April 1986.
2. The original idea was to transmit the lessons
to China by shortwave, but
when I first proposed the project to RCI in the late fall of 1984
the
service did not possess a shortwave capability to China.
3. See Wang-Kun "English and other Foreign
Language Teaching in the
People's Republic of China,"' College English, Vol. 43, No.
7 (November
1981) pp. 653-662; and Yang Su Ying. A General Survey of English
Teaching in the People's Republic of China." TESL Newsletter,
Vol. XII,
no. 4 (August 198 1). pp. 17-18.
4. We can only assume that despite recent developments
this policy remains
in effect. It is said that following the death of Mao Zedong in
1976 the
country was in a shambles. With an insight 15 years ahead of its
time,
his successors were quick to realize that modernization could
not be
achieved by strict reliance on the East bloc. The modernization
of China
and the salvation of the Party - depended on the acquisition of
Western
technological assistance, which in turn meant upgrading English
language
instruction on a nationwide basis. English is after all the language
of
electronics and the computer age, the language of international
scientific discourse. See "The New English Empire" in
The Economist,
December 20, 1986, pp. 127-13 1.
5. Yen Ren Ting. Foreign Language Teaching in
China: Problems and
Perspectives,"' in Ruth Hayhoe (ed.) Chinese Educators on
Chinese
Education, a special number of Canadian and International Education,
Vol. 16, No. 1 (1987) pp. 48-61. Also He-Ping Chen, "Teaching
English as
a Foreign Language"' in TESL Canada Journal, Vol. 5. No.
2 (March 1988)
pp. 88-93: Wang Keqiang. "Teaching English as a Foreign Language
in
China," TESL Canada Journal, Special Issue I (November 1986),
pp. 153-159.
Josiah Lau. "Peculiarities in English Usage,"
Hong Kong package
used in the PRC: also, the very thick "Dictionary of Common
Mistakes in
English,"' published in Taiwan.
6. Graham Mytton and Carl Forrester. ""Audiences
for International Radio
Broadcasts." European Journal of Communication, Vol. 3 (1988).
pp. 457-581,
also Robert McCormick. "The Central Broadcasting
and Television
University, People's Republic of China," in Grevelle Rumble
and Keith
Harry (eds) The Distance Teaching Universities, New York. St.
Martin's
Press, 1982, pp. 54-7 1.
Although television exists to the extent of one
or two hours of
programming a day, I never saw a set outside the hotels for foreigners
nor was ever shown one in factory, commune, school, street committee,
or
other institutions, much less a home. Radios, however, are prized:
of
the eighty households in the Chao Chang neighbourhood in Loyang,
twenty-two possessed radios, and young men walk
in the parks carrying
transistors."' Barbara Tuchman, Notes from China, Collier
Books, New
York, 1972, p. 36.
7. A report on the Beijing initiative was forwarded
by station officials to
Chou En Lai, who scribbled some positive comment in a margin,
This is
good!" or words to that effect, and sent it back, indicating
government
approval, which encouraged a broadening of the trend we now find
in
place. (In conversation with a broadcasting official, PRC, late
fall
1988).
The head of the English Section at CPBS, Mr Zhang
Shipu, told me during
a visit to Montreal in May 1989, that the network's English lessons
were
attracting a larger portion of their audience from the countryside.
Radio instruction compensates for the relative paucity of books
and
audiolingual materials in remote provinces; many rural listeners
need
English to enter university. Improved job opportunity is another
study
motive; joint-venture projects and international trade organizations
offer attractive employment prospects for English speakers.
8. On the sparetime/adult education aspect of
this question, see for
example, Zhang Maorang, Lin Weihue, Sun Shilu, Fang ling (eds)
"China:
Lessons from Practice" from the series New Directions for
Continuing
Education Jossey Bowes Inc., No. 37 (Spring 1988); also Adult
Education
in Modern China" a study in progress by Julia Pan, Department
of
Education. University of Alberta.
The literature on language teaching by radio
is simply too voluminous to
cite. See for example. "'The Use of Media in English Language
Teaching."
British Councill/ETIC Publications. 1979, also The British Journal
of
Language Teaching, Vol. 18, Nos 2 and 3 (1980).
9. It was not possible, due to budget restrictions,
to distribute an
adequate supply of coursebooks: the project originally paid for
the
distribution of 200,000 copies. On the other hand, RCI has encouraged
the duplication and distribution of these coursebooks by any and
all
means available. I understand that a printing company in China
has now
undertaken the task of supplying listeners with copies. One can
only
speculate on the number of copies currently in circulation - one
or many
million? A student of the series wrote to me in February 1989
to
complain that he was obliged to purchase his copy on the black
market.
10. Mark Salzman, Iron and Silk, Random House, 1986, pp. 88.
11. Figures supplied in a letter to RCI from
Mrs. Tian Yuchua, Deputy
Director, Beijing People's Broadcasting Station. December 1988.
12. Radio station officials in each of the broadcast
regions allotted
Everyday English more broadcast time than the six hours called
for in
the original agreements.
13. An RCI report described overall listener reaction this way:
Everyday English is extremely popular, and I
don't mean just according
to the officials in charge of the radio stations. On the street
and in
the shops, in all four cities, I met young people who knew the
program,
listened to it frequently and were able to quote chunks of it
as though
it were the holy script. In Xi'an, the station had organized a
study
group of about twenty persons who worked together (in one work
unit) to
study Everyday English. I met with them and their praise of the
course
and their efforts to speak English were very touching. What seems
to set
our course apart from others that are broadcast is that it is
entertaining as well as instructive. This is new to Chinese language
learners of English who associate any learning with great effort
and an
inevitable amount of boredom.
Ted Farrant, Report on China/Japan Trip, May
14-June 3. 1989," RCI June
1989.
14. See Thomas Tinkham, "Rote Learning,
Attitudes, and Abilities," TESOL
Quarterly. Vol. 23, No. 4, December 1989, pp. 695-698.
15. Correspondence.
16. Correspondence.
17. Correspondence.
****************************************
ATTACHMENT IV
From: Gorilla650@aol.com
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 07:51:33 EDT
Subject: GSM connectivity
To: utsumi@columbia.edu
Dear Tak,
Sorry for the delay in responding but I was on holiday.
GSM does not require a satellite to work through and hence
no license to
use it. It is also considerably cheaper (about 60 cents/minute)
than
satphone connections. GSM works through relay towers that require
line of
sight to your mobile phone to connect. It is only by virtue of
the fact
that the three African nations over whose borders the mountain
gorillas
range (Rwanda, Congo and Uganda) have recently installed GSM networks
(i.e. enough towers) around the gorilla habitat that we are now
able to
connect this way. There is a ground-swell of GSM networks going
up all
over the developing world so this kind of connection should be
ubiquitous soon.
Europeans have no problems using these networks because virtually
all the
networks we use at home are GSM and, through roaming agreements
with the
African telecom companies, it is as easy as switching on the phone
the
moment you arrive. US mobile phone users need to acquire a SIM
card, with
a new number, from the local telecoms network but it really is
no big hassle.
Surprisingly, I have only been able to find one GSM modem to
work with my
Bosch WorldPhone 718 (a multi-band phone which also works in the
US),
although there are plenty of others out there for Nokias and Ericksons.
I
use both a snap-on modem and PCMCIA card from Option International
(http://www.option.com).
I get 9600 bps either through my PowerBook G3 or my
Palm IIIc and can do virtually everything on-line I can do through
a 56k
land-based modem, just more slowly. It's perfect for sending photos
of,
say, no more than 250k in size. With connection speeds of 1k/sec,
photos
take 3-4 minutes but work out cheaper (and considerably more reliable)
than using the local land-based phone networks.
Please feel free to write with any more questions.
Greg
o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o
Greg Cummings greg@dianfossey.org
Director +44 (0)777 594 4189
The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund www.dianfossey.org
o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o\o/o
Fewer than 650 mountain gorillas remain.
You can make an instant donation at http://www.dianfossey.org
****************************************
ATTACHMENT V
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 17:13:09 +0100
To: utsumi@columbia.edu
From: Mathy Vanbuel <mathy.vanbuel@atit.be>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Fund raising trip to European Commission in
Luxembourg
At 16:40 14/12/00 +0100, you wrote:
>Dear Paul:
>==========
>
>(1) Many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT I) about the Information
Day
> Conference (1/8th-9th) and mtgs with echelons of European
Commission
> for the fund raising of our Global University System (GUS)
project
> (1/10th) in Luxembourg.
>
>(2) As discussed in our previous msgs, Tapio and I will be
there from
> 1/8th to 1/10th with you. (Tapio will leave back late of
1/11th and I
> on 1/14th.)
Dear Prof Utsumi,
Many thanks for the message above.
I hope you remember us meeting you for the recording of the
IAUP video last
year in New York. Over lunch at the River cafe, we discussed our
common
interest in Telecommunications for Education. I have been following
your
email list publications over the last years with a lot of attention.
I see with pleasure that you will be attending the Information
Day
Conference in Luxemburg early next month. I would like to invite
you to
renew our contact, be it in that case with my colleague Sally
Reynolds who
also was present in New York, the last time we met. (I cannot
attend
unfortunately due to previous engagements.)
Especially because we would like to draw your attention to a European
Space
Agency funded project to deliver education to the children of
professional
travellers in Europe, which uses two way satellite Internet connections.
We
will be glad to send you an extensive report on this that may
be of
interest to you when looking into possibilities for connecting
underserved
communities and areas (the report is a 1MB PDF file, would that
be OK?).
(We have raised also some interest for this technology within
the World
Bank who is considering extending its satellite based network
with Internet
terminals). Our project (Trapeze) has also provisionally been
invited by
Michel Brochard from the European Commission to make a formal
presentation
on the 10th at the Information Day.
For some basic information about the travellers project to
start with,
please have a look at
http://telecom.estec.esa.nl/artes/artes3/fileincludes/projects/162efecot/efecot.cfm
Best regards
Mathy Vanbuel
****************************************
ATTACHMENT VI
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 16:47:55 +0100
To: utsumi@columbia.edu, Tapio Varis <tapio.varis@uta.fi>
From: Mathy Vanbuel <mathy.vanbuel@atit.be>
Subject: Re: Fwd: RE: InformationDay 10th January presentation
Cc: P.Lefrere@open.ac.uk
Dear Tak,
At 15:22 14/12/00 -0500, utsumi wrote:
>Dear Mathy:
>
>(3) Yes, I certainly recall our pleasant conversation over
the lunch --
> thank you for the lunch, too!! I later received a very cordial
thank-you
> note from the secretary of the IAUP.
I am glad you have kept a pleasant memory of our visit.
>(4) I visited your web with great interest. Are you using
Tachyon's
>satellite service?
The technology we are using for the last year is FullSat, which
in turn is
a further development of the Gilat SkyBlaster/SkySurfer. We are
now looking
into the consolidation of our service with other technology and
service
providers (such as Web-Sat). We are looking into other services
that are
providing the same possibilities in Europe as well, thanks for
pointing us
to LINCOS.
>If so, you may be interested LINCOS project -- see
>
> (a)
>
>http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/Manaus%20Workshop/HTML%20Presentation%20folder/index.htm
>
> and
>
> (b) http://www.lincos.net/
>
>Our approach is more with fixed broadband wireless Internet
and 3rd
>generation mobile phone at 128 Kbps (later much higher) --
see
>http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/Tampere_Conference/Global_Broadband_Internet/Global_Broadband_Diagram.html
So are we indeed but in the meantime we are trying to offer
services that
are available right now (keeping an eye on what emerging technologies
will
offer of course).
>(5) Anyway, I would be very delighted to meet with Sally
on 1/10th -- I
> vividly recall her.
I am waiting for news from NCTE in Ireland about my trip there
on the 8
till 10th of January. There is still a possibility to come to
Luxemburg, so
I hope to be able to meet you there again.
Best regards
mathy
****************************************
List of Distribution
David Levy
Centre for Continuing Education (CCE)
McGill University
680 Sherbrooke Street West, Suite 1184
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
H3A 3R1
514-398-7374
Fax: 514-398-2650
AXEL@conted.lan.mcgill.ca
Ms Joan Belfon
Vocational Technical Development Institute
Gordon Town Road
Kingston 6
JAMAICA
Tel No. +876 977 1700 5
Fax No. +000876 977 4303
E-Mail: vtdi@yahoo.com
Paul KAWACHI
80-4 Minou Yamamoto Machi
Kurume City, Fukuoka
Japan 839-0826
Tel: (81) 924 44 9727
Tel: (81) 904 999 7820
Fax: (81) 942 44 9727
paul@paulkawachi.com
http://www.paulkawachi.com
Steve McCarty
Professor, Kagawa Junior College
President, World Association for Online Education (WAOE)
3717-33 Nii, Kokubunji, Kagawa 769-0101, JAPAN
+81-877-49-8041 (office, direct line), Fax: +81-877-49-5252
steve@kagawa-jc.ac.jp, steve_mc@kagawa-jc.ac.jp
mccarty@mail.goo.ne.jp -- web mail
WAOE: http://www.waoe.org
Website Map: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve/
Japanese home page: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/
English home page: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/presence.html
Online publications (an Asian Studies WWW Virtual Library 4-star
site):
In Japanese: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/jpublist.html
In English: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/epublist.html
http://www.asiasource.org/experts/ax_mp_03.cfm?expertid=1944
Fundamental Projects of Dr. Takeshi Utsumi [Japanese-English]:
http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/asia-pacific/projects-ej.html
http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/asia-pacific/projects-j.html
(Japanese)
Global University System Asia-Pacific Framework:
http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/asia-pacific/index.html
Global University System Mid-2000 Correspondence:
http://www.friends-partners.org/~utsumi/gu-l/mid-2000/index.html
Steven Donahue
Broward Community College
Florida
sdonah01@bellsouth.net
sdonahue@broward.cc.fl.us
http://fs.broward.cc.fl.us/~sdonahue
Sister Cities: http://www.10tongues.com
http://www.erepublic.com/publications/gt/2000/sept/departments/eCommerceSLF.shtm
Roger Lee Boston
Rockwell Chair/Instructor
Distance Education/Technology Center
Houston Community College System
4310 Dunlavy Street
P.O.Box 7849
Houston, Texas 77006
USA
Tel: +1-713-718 5224
Cell: +1-713-822-7476
Fax: +1-713-718 5301
rboston@tenet.edu
boston_r@hccs.cc.tx.us (secondary)
http://www.rboston.com
http://www.teched.org/
http://www.hccs.cc.tx.us
http://www.teched.org/hist/iia.htm
Greg Cummings
Director
The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund
+44 (0)777 594 4189
greg@dianfossey.org
http://www.dianfossey.org
Mathy Vanbuel
@iT Audiovisual Technologies, Informatics and Telecommunications
E. Lintsstraat 202
B-3000 Leuven
Belgium
+32-(0)-16-223-273
Fax: +32-(0)-16-223-743
Mobil: +32-(0)-75-449-064
mathy.vanbuel@atit.be
mathy_vanbuel@pophost.eunet.be
**********************************************************************
* Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E., Chairman, GLOSAS/USA *
* (GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.)
*
* Laureate of Lord Perry Award for Excellence in Distance Education
*
* Founder of CAADE *
* (Consortium for Affordable and Accessible Distance Education)
*
* President Emeritus and V.P. for Technology and Coordination
of *
* Global University System (GUS) *
* 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-3998, U.S.A. *
* Tel: 718-939-0928; Fax: 718-939-0656 (day time only--prefer
email) *
* Email: utsumi@columbia.edu; Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676 *
* http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/
*
**********************************************************************