Summary of TedTalk Video : Linguistic of Genius Babies by Patricia Kuhl

Patricia Kuhl and her colleagues have exposed babies to different sounds and „rewarded“ them (they are allowed to watch a cute teddy bear drumming on a plastic drum), if they have recognised and turned their head to a new sound. At the age of about 6-8 months, the babies could recognise all the sounds of all languages perfectly. Already at the age of 10-12 months they had “zeroed in” on their own language and were only able to distinguish the sounds of that language, but no more those of other languages.

For example, when Japanese babies were examined in comparison to American babies, they were on the same level with how well they could distinguish the English sounds r and l at the age of 6-8 months. After 10-12 months, the American babies had zeroed in on the r and l sounds and could distinguish them better than before. However, the Japanese babies had zeroed in on Japanese, in which language these sounds do not occur in the same form, and were significantly worse at distinguishing the r and l sounds.

As a subsequent attempt, Kuhl and her colleagues placed American babies, in the critical period between six and ten months, in the laboratory with a Mandarin native speaker who spoke and read to them for 12 sessions. Afterwards these babies were just as good at distinguishing two Mandarin sounds as Taiwanese babies that had been exposed to the language for 10 months.

Kuhl describes the babies as little statisticians who „zero in” on sounds that are often presented to them. If they are exposed to Mandarin sounds they learn to distinguish them just as well. Fascinatingly, the sounds have to be presented to the babies by people. When the babies only heard the sounds on the television or over the radio for 12 sessions, there was no improvement of the recognition of Mandarin sounds at all.

Summary of TedTalk Video (How to learn from mistake by Diana Laufenberg)

Diana Laufenberg is a teacher who shares a few things she’s learned about how most school’s teach and how most children learn. In the 1930’s, when Diana’s grandmother was in gradeschool, the purpose of going to class was to get information.  Students got all of their information from teachers and stored it all in their brains. When Diana was in school, information became more readily accessible in the form of encyclopedia’s and textbooks.

At the same time the internet became popular, she started teaching in Kansas. After the first year of teaching, she decided she needed to change her approach to teaching. Instead of she posed a challenge to her students: put on an election for your own community. They took ownership of the challenge, exceeded all expectations, and were able to learn while they created something useful and impactful.

 As her career progressed she was also witness to how meaningful and authentic students were when they were given a chance to speak freely. The final point she makes is about the culture of failure that exists in school. Students are taught that there is one right answer, a way of thinking abetted by the multiple choice tests at the front of academic assessment. Diana says it doesn’t make sense to tell kids to never be wrong when so much can be learned from failure. Kids need to be allowed to fail, process, and learn from their experiences in school.

Summary of TedTalk Video : Don't insist of English by Patricia Ryan

Patricia Ryan talked about languages lost and languages’ globalization, especially English. She has been an English teacher for 30 years, so she has seen lots of changes nowadays. One of the shocking result is there are 6000 languages in the world, but there are 600 languages in 90 years. In fact, a language dies in every 14 days. Thus, she explains what the reason of losing languages is. Parents always focus on English since they want their children have the best chance in their life. For instance, she gives an example from her daughter who studies in England has the best grade in Science and Mathematics class.

 She believes that when students come to learn English from the world, they didn’t give enough credits for what they know because these students know their own languages. Finally, she says that people not only focus on English tests, but also “Mind your languages” and use it to spread ideas in future.

The Linguists in Classical Period

1. Aristotle

Aristotle (384-322 BC) [Classical Antiquity] The youngest of the three Greek giants of philosophy. Aristotle — as opposed to Socrates and Plato — had wide scientific interests, but he did not share the political concerns of the last mentioned to the same degree. He was born in Macedonia and moved as a young man to Athens, later to Assos in Asia Minor, back to Macedonia again (where he tutored Alexander the Great). When the latter became king in 335 Aristotle moved back to Athens and founded his own school there, the Lyceum, which was also known as the peripatetic, or walking, school from the custom of its students of strolling about the grounds. After the death of Alexander he retired to Euboea. Aristotle was an adherent of the conventionalist view of language which is seen in his De interpretatione where he stresses that language does not arise naturally but is set by convention.

2. Panini

Panini (fl. c.400 BC) [Classical Antiquity] An Indian grammarian, Panini is famous for the grammar of Sanskrit, known as the Astadhyayi 'Eight Books' which is a concise and aphoristic summary of the rules of phonology and morphology for Sanskrit and which was intended to serve as a guide to the classical language which then no longer corresponded to spoken forms. His work became known to western scholars through the report by the British judge and amateur linguist Sir William Jones in 1786. Panini is, together with the First Grammarian, regarded as one of the few descriptive linguists before the advent of the discipline of linguistics in the late 18th century.

3. Plato

Plato (c.428-c.347 BC) is a Greek philosopher and one of the most influential thinkers in Western philosophy. He was born in Athens of a noble family. He became a disciple of Socrates and came to share his style of attaining truth by questioning all accepted beliefs. In 387 Plato founded the Academy in Athens an institution which resembled a university and where various branches of science from astronomy to philosophy were taught. After Socrates death at the hands of the Athenian authorities in 399 he left and travelled in the eastern Mediterranean. He returned to Athens, however, and but for a few breaks remained there for the remainder of his life. Plato is very versatile in his writings and his significance for linguistics lies in his philosophy of idealism and in his view that the spoken word is superior to the written word.

4. Socrates

Socrates (470-399 BC) is a Greek philosopher, born near Athens as the son of a sculptor and a midwife. He twice held public office although he was not interested in gaining position. Accused of introducing new deities and corrupting youth he was to be put to death but pre-empted this by taking hemlock. Socrates' great influence on Western thought is through Plato whose teacher he was. Socrates himself wrote nothing and all that is known about him comes from the dialogues of Plato and the treatises of Xenophon in which he figures prominently. His teachings seem to have been moral in the widest sense with the view that science is most useful when it contributes to a knowledge of virtue. Socrates is known as the permanent doubter deriving from his practice of questioning all beliefs and assumptions.

5.Varro, Marcus Terentius (116-27 BC) [Classical Antiquity] Roman scholar born of a noble family in Sabine territory who served with Pompey in Spain (76 BC) and was later reconciled with Caesar. Varro was a very prolific writer. His works amount to more than 600 volumes and include some on philosophy, education, law, geography apart from grammar. Little has survived, however; of his mammoth De lingua latina, which originally comprised 25 volumes, 6 are extant (Books V-X). This work is a systematic treatise on Latin grammar and deals with etymology, morphology and syntax.

Source : https://books.google.co.id/books?id=iKgf32qOkkwC&pg=PA255&lpg=PA255&dq=the+linguists+in+the+classical+period&source=bl&ots=DQWOcQ_ysM&sig=rJZU4gAeIHXz7g6U5Z_fkHdxTyU&hl=id&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjW1-bIn-PUAhXJrI8KHYXHBDgQ6AEIOTAC

MY FIRST UNFORGETABLE MOTORCLYCLE CRASH ACCIDENT part II

Five minutes later, we arrived at the Ar-Raniry University clinic, the security helped us to go to UGD room. I was started crying while the nurses cleaned my injury. I cried not because of the accident, but I have a midterm  class in the after noon where the lecturer of that class habitually did not held the midterm repeatedly. Thank God, I have calm female doctor who comforted me when she checked my blood tension. I got four injuries on my face which two of them was very deep  and another two injuries was not really serious but still need much attention because it was wide. Then, two injuries also showed up on both of my knees.

 After the doctor checked my blood tension which the result was normal and ask me wether I was dizzy or not and my answer was nope, she observed my injuries. She mention that two injuries on my face need to sew in medical way. Unfortunately, this clinic did not have the thread for injury. The doctor suggested me to come to the Prince Nayef hospital in Unsyiah University to sew my injuries. Then, she gave the prescription to the rider who sat close to the door to take my medicine. Luckily I did not have to pay for my medicine because I am a student in that Islamic state university of Ar-Raniry.

The rider and I came to Prince nayef hospital to take a medical sew for my two injuries. The doctor and nurses welcomed us friendly. I explain to them the reason why I came here. Soon, a nurse ask me to lie down to hospital bed and the doctor came out to checked my injuries. Then, she asked the nurse to bring all medical sewing stuff. I am as the young lady who never came to UGD because I never get serious injury before, positively afraid of that needles for anestasy injection , kinda scisors, and the most scared stuff  was the thread for sew my injuries, that was look like  big fishhook. I asked to doctor wether during the process of sewing was poignant or not. The doctor calmly answer ' that was not hurt at all, just like bite by ant'. I contiued many other questions about my injuries and also aswered by doctor patiently. Then, I stopped did that when I felt an anesthic needle came in to my injury exactly in my eye brow.

It take more than 1 hour for doctor sew my injuries. At the end, I have two sewed injuries that has bandaged, one of them was four times sewed on my eyebrow and another was on my cheek. Then, I went to administration to pay the treatment caused of I am not an Unsyiah University student. Shockly, I have to spend more than five hundred thousand rupiahs for the treatment of medical sewed to  both injuries on my face.

In the middle day, I returned home dropped by the rider. At home, my aunt and grandma was shock of my condition. Instead of bought her food, I brought my terrible  injuries. However, I don't regret of the accident. I only take the positive thing that by  this accident, I know the procedur on hospital, enrich my knowledge of many scar ointment and remember me to ride motorcycle carefully.