| Colloquialisms and culture: Heritage Learners claim a special ...
Tufts' language requirement is one of its most demanding foundation requirements, requiring a full six credits of language or culture classes for graduation. While some fortunate Jumbos are fluent enough in a given language to place out entirely, others need to slog through the necessary credits.
There are other students, however, who don't fit neatly into either of those categories. These Jumbos are known as "heritage learners," and they occupy a unique place in language programs at Tufts.
Heritage learners are students with some background in a language, but little formal training. They often begin to learn a language because it is spoken in their home community, but fall out of practice or never become completely fluent.
In an e-mail, Senior Lecturer and Language Coordinator of the Chinese Program Dr.
Kid Picks for Grapevine
Bonkers the Clown is returning to the Grapevine Public Library with a springtime magic show on Thursday, April 5, at 7:00 p.m. All ages are invited to this hilarious program all about eggs and bunnies. Photos with the Easter Bunny are occurring everyday until April 7 at Grapevine Mills. It will be located at the Easter Garden in Neighborhood 1 under the Kids N Swings Playset. The 32nd Annual Easter Egg Hunt is taking place at Grapevine High School's practice fields this Saturday, April 7, at 10:00 a.m. There will be a free hunt for each age group with a couple of eggs holding special tickets for prizes. Other acivities include face painting, popcorn and photos with the Easter Bunny (for a small fee). Proceeds will go to the H.E.R.O. scholarship fund. The Lone Star Spinners Club sounds like a pretty cool event, where kids can learn and see amazing yo-yo tricks.
The Singing Life of Birds : The Art and Science of Listening to ...
Listen to birds sing as you"ve never listened before, as the world-renowned birdsong expert Donald Kroodsma takes you on personal journeys of discovery and intrigue. Read stories of wrens and robins, thrushes and thrashers, warblers and whip-poor-wills, bluebirds and cardinals, and many more bird. Learn how each acquires its songs, how songs vary from bird to bird and place to place, how some birds' singing is especially beautiful or ceaseless or complex, how some do not sing at all, how the often quiet female has the last word, and why. Hear a baby wren and the author"s own daughter babble as each learns its local dialect. Listen to the mockingbird by night and by day and count how many different songs he can sing. Marvel at the exquisite harmony in the duet of a wood thrush as he uses his two voice boxes to accompany himself.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Millions of people with BlackBerry wireless devices in North America found themselves unable to connect to the Internet during a service interruption that began Tuesday night and extended into this morning. Research in Motion (RIM) Ltd., which is based on Waterloo, Ontario, said its BlackBerry wireless service suffered a "service interruption." Service for some users was restored earlier this morning. The company said it is investigating the cause of the problem, which affected most of the company's 8 million customers. "Once there's been a service outage of this proportion, RIM's challenge is to turn service back up to its users incrementally to allow the probably hundreds of millions of clogged emails in their servers to disperse gradually. Otherwise, they would just cause another major service outage," said Carmi Levy, senior research analyst with Info-Tech Research Group, a Canadian company.
Things to do this week and beyond
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T O D A Y
VIOLIN CONCERT Gerald Elias will give a free violin concert at 7:30 p.m. at the Midvale Performing Arts Center, 695 W. Center St. (7720 South). For information, call 801-567-7200.
"ROCKIN' INN ON ROUTE 66" AUDITIONS Midvale Copperview Theatre Arts Youth Program will conduct auditions for this late June production from 7-9 p.m.
Immigrant Parents Learn ABC's of American Education
It's that time of year when mothers and fathers engage in the semi-annual ritual of meeting face-to-face with their child's teacher. Parent-teacher conferences are a familiar routine. But for parents who don't speak English, staying on top of a child's education is anything but routine. So, as the number of immigrant families in the United States continues to grow, so does the need for a third participant at those parent-teacher conferences: the interpreter. On a recent afternoon at Whitman Elementary in Spokane, Washington, mother and teacher meet to chat in the first grade classroom. They fold themselves into kid-sized chairs. Teacher Jena Hollenbeck pulls out a progress report for German Tishchenko, 8, and tells his mother, "He is doing a good job at his work habits. In fact, he was very good at listening and following directions." While German understands his teacher, his mother, Oksana, does not, and that's why Vera Puzankova is here: to translate.
DS plays guitar
Ubisoft officially announced Jam Sessions today. It's a new DS take on the Guitar Hero phenomenon, in which players twang along to a variety of hit tunes via the touchscreen. As the press release expounds: "Players will rock out, or smoothly strum, on the lower screen of the Nintendo DS system, producing an authentic sound digitally remastered from an actual acoustic guitar. The simple interface will guide players into the various easy-to-play modes which include: Performance Mode, allowing users to sing and play along both yesterday and today's hottest artists; Free-Play Mode, where people can play anything they chose; and Tutorial Mode where novice musicians will learn to play guitar without paying for lessons." I've spoken to a few people who've played this and they assure me it's a nice, natural system, the free play mode offering a more open, creative experience than the rigidly didactic Guitar Hero.
A living canvas
Phillips opened the only tattoo shop in Mayes County approximately three months ago. Da Vinci Steel is located in Salina in the old Hill Top Cafe at the intersection of Highway 20 and 82.Phillips named the shop Da Vinci Steel because he studied about Leonardo Da Vinici in art appreciation under Ron Dryden. Phillips said Da Vinci was into drawing and studying human anatomy.Phillips took the name Da Vinci and added steel since that is what he uses to apply tattoo ink.However, Phillips joked a local waitress told him some of the older guys who come into town to drink coffee think his name is Da Vinci."They ask, 'Did you get your tattoo from Mr. Da Vinci'," he laughed.The shop has been completely cleaned up and redone, so much so that no one would ever know a restaurant was housed inside.The walls throughout the entire building are painted black, even the windows on the front.Visitors in the lobby area can watch Phillips in action through a window which overlooks the tattoo area.Phillips said being able to see an artist work is an important part of getting a tattoo.Of course, Phillips said the blinds can be drawn for someone who wants a little privacy.Pictures of his work are available in albums and thousands of samples of clipart are just a click of a mouse away.He takes whatever ideas a clients bring and works with them, sometimes suggesting slight changes to create the perfect design.Phillips began drawing at a young age, which he joked greatly attributed to his C average in school.At the age of 18, he went to Tontitown, Ark., with some friends to get his first tattoo out of a bus.He got a yin-yang, which is covered up today.This sparked his interest in doing tattoo work.Phillips began learning from a friend of the family who did underground tattoo work in Oklahoma.He watched and learned and eventually, figured he could make some money doing tattoos.Being artistic, Phillips tried different forms of art such as glass etching, airbrush and oil painting, but found his niche in tattoo work.Phillips purchased his first tattoo kit and had another tattoo artist do an outline of tribal design on him.
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