Two Carne Asadas

This is what my lucky students experienced on the first day of class:



A tasty food run for lunch! After the first hour of teaching on a warm and sunny day, my supervisor was getting hungry. He was very hungry, and asked if we can all go to the local Costco just down the street to get lunch. I expected to walk, but we drove instead, all together, anticipating a great meal. But there was a catch: I was to show the students how to order the food, and the students would order what they want to eat. Seems simple enough, right? Well, the reality of it all is that ordering food is downright scary for some people. Especially without knowing how to pronounce what you want to eat! My Asian students likely skips Mexican food for Chinese cuisine during a regular day. Today, however, they leaped out of the comfort zone to order something new. As my students and I neared the cashier to take our order, my previously calm students, quietly rehearsing their order with each other, suddenly vented an urgent sense of panic. One person to go to satisfy our hunger.

"Excuse me! What do I say again?" Of all the food items, they choose to try a Mexican specialty with a hard-to-pronounce name. Good practice, I think to myself, but maybe we need more time to get it right. Carne Asada. Car-nay A-sa-da. Two carne asadas. They're not finding this easy. I have doubts whether I am pronouncing them correctly myself.

I try my best to ease my student who will make the order. "You can say: Can I have two carne asadas? They'll understand, you'll do just fine." I imagine the worst that can happen is to put up two fingers and point to the picture to express a non-verbal order.

"Next please." The cashier call us up to the counter, and in the moment to shine with all that we rehearsed, my student collects his thoughts, puts up two shaky fingers and says clearly: "Two car-nay a-sa-das." He looks over at me with a sigh of relief as the cashier repeats his order correctly. I smile at him to congratulate him on the accomplishment and improvisation. Next time, it is someone else's turn.

Mission: Ordering food for the first time in the U.S. Result: Success and a satisfied appetite!

Dreaming in Cursive: The Art of Curls and Loops

If you reflect on the many years spent in grade school and beyond, you have probably come across a few close encounters of the illegible kind... that is, at least one situation where you unwillingly held a piece of paper literally millimeters from your nose, with furrowed eyebrows, trying to decipher a particular word from the mass of pen ink flowing across the paper. With the upswing of using technology as a means to communicate with dear ones across the globe (via typing on the keyboard and voice/video chats on Skype), the almost seemingly obsolete form of writing letters to penpals – the kind where you might buy some fancy stationary paper, use glittery ink, and mail the letter first-class – is quickly becoming a form of lost art.

Maybe all those years of having to rewrite words one by one due to unreadable penmanship, repeating sentence after sentence with a hand cramp until the lines eventually float into your most fantastic dreams, really was a lost cause. Do we need to worry so much about how legible our writing is, or that of the children in grade school? As usual, the debate pendulum swings to both sides. In recent news, it was suggested that cursive writing will soon be removed from some states' educational curriculum. While some may argue that written legibility is not as important as content, there are two main reasons why penmanship lessons should stick around:

Improve critical thinking. When you physically pick up a pen or pencil and write your thoughts on paper, you are training your mind and body to formulate ideas in a logical sequence when you are writing. This is often termed freewriting or brainstorming, to get past the common phenomenon of writer's block. If you focus and concentrate on writing words down slowly and neatly, it is more likely you will remember what you write. Conversely, you can type your thoughts a mile a minute, but your mind is more likely focused on correct spelling rather than the written content.

Essential Art Form. What is in an autograph? Hollywood is a prime example of artistic writing. Everyone has a different way of symbolizing their name when asked to sign a document, check, or in the case of celebrities, anything tangible offered by the fans. A signature is unique and extremely important to represent personal identity. Cursive is the basis not only for signatures, but also for creative writing that is often observed on greeting cards.

You can call writing with a pen and paper old-school, but it brings back memories of the simple times in life. As busy professionals and students in the digital age, we are often bombarded with emails and other tasks requiring a quick typed-up response. Training the fingers to type out logical thoughts is one thing, training the mind to effectively understand and remember is another. Following the dotted lines for both regular print and cursive not only fosters appreciation for different writing styles, but sets a strong foundation for developing essential critical reading, thinking, and writing skills to accomplish our daily tasks.

To Be or Not Too Bee: The Distinctions of Ten English Homophones... because Meaning Matters!

English spelling is quite frankly a nightmare for many people. Just a point of curiosity: I am not aware of any other culture where spelling bee competitions are held among the younger generation, which goes to show how random English words can be. If spelling were easier, such competitions would surely be less entertaining. The truth is that becoming a good speller takes time and certainly patience! The obscurity of English spelling is most likely attributed to the fact that the English language is a “melting pot” of many different languages combined, constructed largely from the influences of Romance languages with Anglo-Saxon roots including French, Italian, Spanish, and German. This has undoubtedly resulted in the plethora of English spelling rules that can be tough to remember. You know, those rules that have been drilled into us in grade school, like: “You put the ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’” – such as in the words receive and deceive.

Even more compelling is the existence of words that sound the same when spoken aloud but are spelled differently depending on context to express different meanings – these words are known as homophones. The following five spelling distinctions can be useful to keep in mind to avoid using the unintended words when writing something important, or just to write grammatically as much as possible! It should be noted that there are many other homophones in English, but these are just ten to start with.

1. Their, There, They’re

Their = Possessive pronoun; refers to a third party (e.g. them).
I went to their house in the evening.

There = Noun; a location.
My friend wanted to go to New York, but he could not travel there because of the snow storm.

They’re = Contraction of they + are.
They’re going to purchase a house in Hawaii next month.


2. Too, To

Too = Adverb; in addition; also.
I am interested in singing, too!

To = Preposition; to express a direction or destination.
They wanted to go to the movies after dinner.


3. Affect, Effect

Affect = Verb; to produce a change in something else.
The rain affected the size of the crops.

Effect = Noun; something that is produced by a cause.
The criticism of his musical performance had a devastating effect on his confidence.


4. Passed, Past

Passed = Adjective; to successfully pass something.
My friend passed the test with flying colors.

Past = Adjective; something that existed before the present time.
I have experienced many great memories in the past.


5. Capital, Capitol

Capital = Noun; refers to the city/town representing the head of a state; money or property.
The capital of California is Sacramento.

Capitol = Noun; a building.
I visited the state capitol in Washington D.C. during the summer.


Definitions refereced by: Dictionary.com