Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Brazil or Brasil? and other topics

Tyrone,

In reference to Brazil or Brasil, I guess I do that because it is one of my older son’s pet peeves. His languages are English (of course), German, and French. When he spent time in Europe, people told him how arrogant they think Americans are because they change the spellings and pronunciations of names – that proper names should be spelled and spoken as they are in the country they come from. So I’ve learned to spell Hanover, Germany with two n’s – Hannover and to pronounce words like Qatar as “cutter” and Kosovo as Kahsuhvo. I think you would like Brad – he is 28 and very smart.


Language Arts teacher actually is English teacher. Everywhere else that I have been they have called it just plain old English. But they consider it an art to be able to speak well in public (as for drama), to write poetry and other selections; literature is considered an art, and it includes film (movies) as a form of literature; and in some schools students can take a course of Film as Literature. So it encompasses a wide variety of use of the language. Some schools have many classes because they are so big, and students can choose between these different genres, but we are too small to have that many courses, so we touch on all areas each year. (Now I just made that up – sounds pretty good though, doesn’t it?) You do make me think, but I believe I am correct.


Good luck with your interview today. ---Cathy


June 09, 2009 8:41 PM
Subject: poems, Tapped in activity and a curiosity

Cathy, in Tapped in article you wrote Brasil and Brasilian. You did so because of our written “Portuguese” influence. In fact, Brasil in English is Brazil with Z and the correct form for Brasilian is Brazilian with Z in English.

By the way, thank you again for your corrections! I think you and I are like two siblings: we protect one another!!! Just kidding!!

Cathy, I loved your ideas about new TappedIn questions! Please upload your questions there so that I can work with my students with them next week. By the way, I received a TappedIn e-mail telling us to use it as soon as possible otherwise we are going to have the account archived. Of course, we won’t let this happen!!

I have this question for TappedIn:

Do you know anyone whose life is or was an example for you? If so, Who is/was this person? What have you learned from him/her?

Cathy, I think that by making them this question they’ll have the chance to think about people that are important to them, such as: parents, friends, idols, etc, and share their thoughts with their colleagues.

One more thing, I have been very curious to know about being a Language Arts teacher. Are you a teacher of Arts, an English teacher? Or do you teach how to deal with a variety of art languages? Could you please explain me that? ---Tyrone

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