Language Learning

_{Students in IEL writing were asked to write about what is important in their communities. IEL student Marta Gabrel shares her story about why music is life in her community.}

Every community have a specific kind of identity or culture. I’m from a small town Suchowola in north-eastern Poland. We’re a small community who loves music. It all begins at the age of 10 at school, when we pick up an instrument. After couple weeks of practice only the most talented can join orchestra. Music is life in my community.

         In my opinion, music is a big part of my community because everybody can play on the instrument. Also, every year during the summer, usually in June we celebrate the whole weekend music festival. We invite brass orchestras from other countries like Germany, Holland, Russia etc. On the first day, every single orchestra is located in a different locations of our town and they walk on the streets playing. The next day orchestras have their own show, they bring even dancers to show their unique style. At the very last day all of the whole festival, they all play together.  This festival has been an annual thing for long time and I’m really proud of my community.

_{Written by Mio Taguchi, a Japanese Moraine Valley International student who has a thirst for knowledge in a variety of subjects. Mio says he wrote this essay through the lens of cultural anthropology in search of better understanding.}

When people try to acquire a new language at the beginning, most of them tend to think and translate it to their native language. I had always wondered that when I thought about the word, “responsibility.” Translating from English into Japanese did not make sense. Responsibility is called sekinin in Japanese. I asked my American host mother to give me some examples of how the word responsibility is used.

She said, “It is your responsibility to brush your teeth as an adult.” This sentence becomes a strange meaning when translating to Japanese with sekinin. Japanese do not use sekinin in that case. They would say it is usual or common sense to brush your teeth as an adult. I asked her for another example. For instance, I ask you where the library is, but you tell me the wrong direction, and I could not find the library. In the Japanese case, we can say it is your (the person who told me the way’s) responsibility, (sekinin) although it depends on our relationship because strict hierarchy exists in Japanese society. However, the host mother said, “No, it is your responsibility. Because you were going there, you had to search by yourself.” Of course, if when I made a mistake in my job, I can say it is my responsibility in American culture and sekinin in Japanese culture also. The two words have totally the same nuance in that case such as work places. However, when Japanese use sekinin, we always include or assume others. Put another way, there are always more than two people or one community, and if you do not carry out your responsibility, this will influence them badly. That is indicated by the example of the library when you consider it in Japanese culture. On the other hand, when Americans use responsibility, often, they do not include others, and that is proved by another example-brushing your teeth which includes only one person.

I call American responsibility “not included-responsibility” and call Japanese responsibility (sekinin) “included-responsibility”. These two different things appear in our national character. Americans’ opinions and ways of expression are stronger than Japanese. In short, they tend to cherish themselves. Differently, Japanese are taught from birth how to behave, be polite and kind to others, and implicitly doing self-sacrifice. Moreover, most Japanese feel that paying attention to others’ eyes is very stiff and painful although these behaviors are often praised by foreign people. Japanese people will feel that they are ashamed or be excluded from a community if they do not consider whether their behaviors influence others before they do anything. Americans live their lives, based on individualism (not included-responsibility). Unlike Americans, Japanese live their lives, based on groupism (included-responsibility).

These examples are from small perspectives, but I can state the same thing from big perspectives: country or state level. Often, Japan and American are contrasted as a big government and a small government. Japan is called a welfare state also. In Japan, anyone can receive high-quality medical care with a cheap cost or without any cost. Differently, in the U.S, the cost that they actually pay for medical care is the most expensive in developed countries (OECD Health Date 2016). Moreover, in the U.S, there is a big gap between the people who have a lot of money and the people who do not. Also, sometimes, the people who are adept can obtain more benefits. For instance, the students in the U.S. who have high GPA scores can obtain some scholarships that they do not have to pay back. Regarding the differences between the Japanese government and the American one, I could state the former is “the implicit democracy country”, and I could state the latter is merit-based or “As you sow, so you reap”.

When I consider from micro and macro perspectives like the second to the fourth paragraph, I can recognize a kind of consistency in both perspectives, and these attributes appear in only one word, responsibility and sekinin. In other words, this shows the strong and profound relationship between a culture and a language. Nowadays, we can take advantage of developed technology for translating, and some people say that we do not have to acquire a new language because we can search and translate words that we do not know free with some machines. However, if we hope to communicate and interact with foreign people, not only literally, but also deeply and profoundly, learning a new language has wonderful significance. More importantly, we never appreciate one culture and one foreign person without its language.

Finally Thank you very much for reading this until the end. I appreciate how important learning a language is through this writing. I would like you to share consider about: what are words or expression which represent American personality or English speaker’s’ personality. Secondly, like the title, Why We Cannot Understand Each Other, this is also my question. Do you think having a common language is an important or crucial factor for humans to empathize with each other and unite? and why or why not ?

Written by Nesreen George, student of Mr. Dustin French in IEL Writing

Culture is very important to everyone. There are many different cultures around the world.  Culture diversity means the existence of different cultures in the world and human societies. These culture diversity is important in our life because it facilitates cooperation between people as it helps to understand the different viewpoints within the world in which we live and  builds confidence, respect and understanding with others, but it is more important when it happens in education.

Cultural diversity in education helps to support learning, confidence, prepare for the future, so you can build a strong personality. Student can acquire more understanding about people from all over the world. When we meet other people and we get to learn about them and their culture, it helps building our minds and thoughts which can create the diversity of thought and opinions. The more we learn about other, the more that make learning more interesting. When we meet others, we let them feel accepted and that make them more confident and helps built their personality ant ours too.

            Cultural diversity is very important in colleges and universities. Students who don’t know anything about other culture, can learn about it from meeting others. For example, Thanksgiving Day, it’s an American Holiday. Most of the people are celebrating to thank God for everything they have.  Also, most of the stores are closed in this day. The students who didn’t know about Thanksgiving before, they will know it. That’s why it’s very important to have cultural diversity on campus.

Many people from different countries live in America with their culture.  Also, they speak different languages.  When we meet them, we can learn different language skills. Knowing people from different culture helps the students to learn different languages that helps them in the future to communicate well with other students or people around.

 Also, having cultural diversity on campus allows us to learn about other people backgrounds. It also helps us to correct what we think of people from other cultures because it might not be true. Meeting other people, give us the chance to be open minded and teach us acceptance.  Sometimes, we will be surprised that there are a lot of resemblances between cultures.

Having culture diversity on campus helps us become better prepared for the real world after college by meeting new people, learn about them and new languages and accept others. Cultural diversity builds confidence, respect and understanding with others.