Hi Everyone,
My name is Scott, and I am currently enrolled in my 6th and 7th course (ETEC 532 is the other) of the MET program. I am a secondary English teacher living in Surrey and working in Delta, B.C. I would like to add many more exciting details of my life, but with a full English load, my courses, and two young sons, my life is pretty busy and straightforward. Someday I hope to regale you with stories of the adventures I will be having once I have more free time 😉
The screen capture I chose as my image is a pretty good reflection of text and technology in my life. My first dates with my wife were funny, awkward encounters where we spent more time staring into the screens of our electronic dictionaries than we did staring into each others eyes. Since those days, technology has been indispensable in nurturing my relationship with my wife and sons, as well as helping me to negotiate the text of my second language. Maybe because of this, my Japanese hasn’t developed as well as I would like it to; I have always used technology to help me use Japanese, rather than learn it, and I often wonder if my students are at a disadvantage if they pass through my courses without learning the basics of text construction that seem to be taken for granted. I would love to explore how technology can help my students value the process of negotiating and creating meaning in the text they use, rather than simply expecting technology to provide a product.
Anonymous
May 27, 2018 — 11:40 am
Scott, I think the screenshot image you chose to post is hilarious, yet the story behind it is so meaningful as you reflect on those times. I’m Japanese but did not grow up speaking, reading or writing Japanese. I tried to learn it when I was at SFU but it quickly disappeared after completing the courses. My husband and I went to Japan for our honeymoon and it was so challenging for me to go back in time and try to scrounge up whatever vocabulary I had and attempt to string together questions and answers. We have funny memories of trying to read menus and ordering the wrong items. At the time, I did not have a smartphone with me to look anything up or use a translating dictionary which really would have come in handy! As I read about the categories of writing systems and especially the logographic systems, I am motivated to get back into learning Japanese again.